How to Make a Meaningful Impact with Your Money

For many of us, money isn’t just a means of safeguarding our future, and providing us with the trinkets and treats we desire; it’s also a means of making the world a better place.

But exactly how can you ensure that your money leaves a positive impact on the world around you? It’s often a good idea to start by looking at yourself.

Understanding Your Values and Impact Goals

What is it that you want your money to do? By examining your own life priorities, and the issues that matter to you, you can start to form an idea of what the best possible use of your money would be. You might look to help with dealing with climate change, poverty, social issues, or habitat conservation. There might be some other cause that’s close to your heart, like the upkeep of a local cathedral.

Conscious Consumerism: Spending with Purpose

Throughout life, you’ll need to spend money on everyday essentials (and non-essentials). If you’re able to identify businesses whose values resonate with your own, you can selectively favour them with your custom. Many of us already do this whenever we look for the ‘RSPCA Assured’ logo on a box of eggs. By extending this principle to all of your spending, you’ll ensure that your money goes to the places that really support your goals.

The Power of Giving: Strategic Philanthropy

If you want to do good with your money, then you’ll need to give a portion of it away. This means researching charities that seek to further the goals and priorities you’ve already outlined. It might also mean looking at which charities are truly effective. For example, if you’d like to help blind people, it’s often much more cost-effective to donate to vaccination and mosquito net programs in sub-Saharan Africa, which prevent people from going blind in the first place, than it is to train guide dogs in the UK. 

That isn’t to say that effectiveness should be your only guiding principle. After all, guide dogs will still need to be trained.

Individual charities tend to vary in their effectiveness, too – so it’s important to do your research.

Investing for a Better Future: Sustainable Investing

If you’re looking to invest and grown your wealth, then looking for environmental, social and governance factors might also be worthwhile. Companies that express these values tend not just to be more ethical and sustainable investments: they also tend to be safer ones, since these metrics tend to correlate with superior performance and better decision-making over the long term.

Using Your Voice and Influence: Advocacy and Engagement

You don’t need to spend money in order to effect change. Often, simply having your money in the right place can afford you a degree of leverage. As a key shareholder in a given business, you might lean into your investment by actively advocating on behalf of the causes that matter to you.