Buen Vivir Fund: Participatory Impact Investing

Abstract

The Buen Vivir Fund is a participatory impact investment fund operating internationally. It was founded in 2018 by Thousand Currents, a nongovernmental organisation, following a co-design process to conceptualise the Fund, initiated in 2016. The Buen Vivir Fund started small in terms of volume of capital, having raised US$1m in loan capital for its initial investment cycle of 2018–20. This US$1m, plus US$300,000 raised in grant capital, is being deployed with the guidance of the Fund’s Members Assembly. Over the first five years, the Buen Vivir Fund is poised to expand its membership to between 30 and 50 and increase its investments to US$5m. By the end of 2018, the Buen Vivir Fund was fully operational and had completed its first round of loan disbursal, linking US$427,700 in loan capital to US$113,000 of grant capital across nine projects led by grass-roots community organisations in Latin America, North America, Southern Africa, and South Asia.