The Purpose of Capital

A truly unique exploration of how investors may act with deeper consideration of the meaning of money, The Purpose of Capital: Elements of Impact, Financial Flows and Natural Being, explores the historic roots of our understanding of capital, investing and wealth management, connecting how we think about finance with how we think about our lives, World and ultimate, personal purpose and impact.

Numerous books and articles tell investors how to invest better, for maximum financial returns. Other books have sought to tell investors how to invest for financial return with the generation of positive social and environmental impact. The Purpose of Capital takes the reader behind the “how” to explore the “Why” of investing.

About

The Purpose of Capital Explores How:

- Our focus on investing as finance alone has taken us down the wrong path—and how those investors seeking to “do well and do good” have fallen prey to the notion financial return is the main driver for creating impact in the world.

- By not pursuing a deeper exploration of the purpose of capital, we leave extra-financial value on the table, missing out on the opportunity to more fully integrate purpose with profit.

- By focusing primarily upon returns for investors we fall short of our potential to invest capital for the benefit of a broader set of stakeholders—including not only the environment and our communities, but our own potential to use our capital to realize greater personal development for our selves.

- The roots of our current inability to invest for total returns is an historic struggle, one that connects us with centuries of reflection by a variety of cultures and traditions—the lessons from which may benefit investors today.

- The Purpose of Capital details how the true purpose of capital is not simply to generate more capital, but rather to function as a fuel for individual freedom in the context of community and the Earth.

Having produced seven books on the “how” of social entrepreneurship and impact investing, Emerson now turns his attention to placing investing within an historic and philosophical context, grounding impact investing within a more complete consideration of why we should invest in system change which, in the end, offers the potential for also transforming ourselves as investors and individuals.

Reviews

  • “Refreshingly thoughtful and reflective, in this book Jed blends his lifelong fascination with how money can be used for good with a deep inquiry into the overall purpose of life. You’ll soon delight in the roadmap he unfurls slowly in this book - and the treasures he uncovers along the way – myth, mystery, meaning, religion, philosophy, spirituality, and ultimately, humility. You’ll want to read this not just as way to understand the core assumptions inside impact investing, but as a guidebook for a more personal exploration of how using capital for impact can ultimately shape not just the society we live in, but the meaning of your life.”

    Cathy Clark
    Faculty Director, CASE and CASE i3 Initiative Duke University

  • “In his latest and most important book, Jed Emerson helps us see how our understanding of the purpose of capital has its roots in ancient thinking and wisdom, while its future is in concepts such as Mutual Impact and Deep Economy. Challenging us to understand the shortcomings of modern financial capitalism, he helps us appreciate how changing the world must be grounded in efforts to change our selves. A truly inspiring read from an open and authentic elder of our field.”

    Suzanne DiBianca
    EVP Corporate Relations and Chief Philanthropy Officer, Salesforce

  • “Jed Emerson builds upon his groundbreaking concepts of Blended Value and Total Portfolio Management with a seminal work exploring the essential “Why?” of impact investing. A foundational resource for those of us interested in exploring the true purpose of our capital and why it is critical to thoughtfully and intentionally align our capital with our own personal mission and values.”

    Ron D. Cordes
    Co-Founder, Cordes Foundation

  • “Pulling from his own depth of experience and from wisdom traditions worldwide, this book is a true exploration and dialogue on the purpose of capital — A moment for all of us to pause, introspect, and question the very nature of capitalism and our relationship to it. Jed Emerson’s authentic, poetic, and spiritual analysis of wealth and it’s fundamental purpose is not only beautiful, it’s compelling and is a call to arms for us all to see money not as an end in and of itself, but as a tool to be leveraged for a just and equitable society. Every policy maker, every wealth holder, every entrepreneur, every investor, and truly every one of us would be doing ourselves and society at large a favor by diving into this brilliant memoir on the purpose of capital. Jed is a reverent iconoclast, a conscious capitalist, and in my humble opinion, one of the great practical philosophers of our time.”

    Daniel Epstein
    Founder/CEO, Unreasonable

  • “In this mesmerizing and passionate intellectual tour de force, Jed Emerson takes on a several thousand year journey through money and meaning. Without judgment, Jed provokes us in the impact investing and broader finance communities to think about the why, more than the how, of what we do. But in the end, by doing so, I suspect Jed has re-ignited (or he would say evolved) a much needed discussion about the how as well, by reminding us that not only is value and meaning indivisible, but that our work and our personal lives, ourselves and our communities, and people and planet are all connected, and that to achieve good outcomes from investment decisions one must take a universal unified approach, not one that separates money from meaning. Oh, and there is a lot of good practical how in it too. This approach, if truly internalized by capital markets, promises to make the world a more just and equitable place, but also make us as actors in it more fulfilled as human beings. What could be a better call to action in a book than that? It’s also vibrant, funny, challenging and deeply personal in an extremely charming way; highly recommended!”

    Jason Scott
    Founding Partner, Encourage Capital

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What If? The Music Video

 

When we first released The Purpose of Capital, Mia Haugen (my wife and journalist with deep video experience) and I thought long and hard about what kind of video we could make to compliment the ideas in the book. We shot some initial footage of me, standing on windswept Norwegian tundra, looking deep and thoughtful, which we would then use as background for my reading excerpts from the book.

The problem, of course, is that I looked ridiculous and we knew this was just not going to work!

Over Thanksgiving we visited with my brother’s family and discovered our niece, Jackie Emerson, had read and loved The Purpose of Capital. Jackie is a successful actress and musician. We realized we needed a completely different perspective on PoC—that of a 25-year old grappling with many of these same issues.

The result is Impact: The Musical!, a three minute song entitled What If? that presents the ideas and concepts explored in the book.

We believe this may be the first music video to explore the purpose of capital and are excited to share it with you!

You’ll find the Director’s cut version here (which is a more creative production of the song) and may download the Conference cut version here (which is a “cleaner” version for conferences, workshops and financial audiences).

We hope you’ll view and share these widely using #WhatIf? to tell us what YOUR vision of capital is, answering the question: What if the purpose of capital were to do more than simply make more money?

What’s YOUR #WhatIf?

 

 Posts, Presentations and Conversations

Background

Jed Emerson has been an active public speaker for many years. In addition to a variety of regional events, he has spoken at The World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland), The Skoll World Forum (Oxford, England) and The Asia Pacific Impact Investing Conference (Sydney, Australia). 

Over the last year, Emerson has given a series of talks, has written several posts and has participated in various podcasts. He has tried to move away from giving solo keynotes due to an awareness that the real answers we seek will come not from our debating each of our positions and promoting our approaches/writings, but rather from the space in between what each of us may currently believe.

With that in mind, this talk from SOCAP2017 is a good summation of some of the issues explored in the book (and is probably the first time you’ve seen someone actually cry while reflecting upon capital’s purpose!).

Emerson’s SOCAP2016 presentation laid the ground work for his work on purpose and meaning. It may also be of interest to you.

There are a large number of talks, writings and presentations Jed Emerson has made over the course of the past thirty years. While many may be found on line or on the Blended Value blog, what follows is a list of more current conversations and reflections I hope will be of interest to those exploring the purpose of capital and meaning of money.