The Tideline Center for Impact
The Tideline Center for Impact (TCI) is Tideline’s nonprofit platform for advancing the practice of investing with impact through public-good research, practical tools, and market-building collaboration. We use investing with impact to describe investment approaches in which positive social or environmental outcomes are intentionally pursued, strategically aligned, or intrinsically connected to investment performance or value creation. The term encompasses impact investing as a distinct, intentional practice, while also recognizing that impact may be aligned with or embedded within approaches that use different language and operate according to different market norms. Drawing on more than a decade of experience advising leading institutional investors, TCI develops actionable research, investor tools, and collaborative initiatives that help investors move from ambition to implementation. By making more of Tideline’s experience available as a public good, TCI seeks to build the knowledge, tools, and market infrastructure investors need to identify, assess, and pursue opportunities that generate positive social and environmental outcomes alongside financial value.
Advancing the infrastructure for implementation
Impact investing has matured significantly over the past decade. Investors have greater clarity than ever around strategies, asset classes, themes, and approaches. Yet many important pools of institutional and catalytic capital still face practical challenges moving from interest to implementation. Those challenges are often less conceptual than operational. Investors need clearer frameworks, practical guidance, stronger norms, and trusted tools that help translate ambition into action. The Tideline Center for Impact exists to help meet that need. Since 2014, Tideline has advised many of the world’s leading institutional investors on impact strategy and implementation. Alongside that work, we have contributed to the broader field through research, collaboration, and the development of shared market infrastructure. TCI formalizes and expands that commitment by creating public-good resources that strengthen investor practice and help the broader market mature.
What We Do
Research
Original research that helps investors understand emerging opportunities, implementation challenges, and evolving market practice.
Investor Tools
Frameworks, diagnostics, and pragmatic resources that support more rigorous and effective impact practice.
Convenings
The Compass Series and other small-format virtual and in-person discussions that bring together leading practitioners to share experience, challenge assumptions, and advance the field.
Partnerships
Collaborative initiatives with aligned organizations that combine complementary expertise to produce actionable resources for the market.
Featured Research
Impact Investing: The State of Market Institutionalization
In partnership with the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) A multi-year initiative introducing a framework for assessing the institutionalization of impact investing and tracking the market’s progress over time. Together with associated LP convenings, the initiative has engaged allocators stewarding more than $20 trillion in assets.
An Allocator Guide to Climate Solutions Investing
In partnership with Prime Coalition A practical guide designed to help institutional investors understand and evaluate climate solutions investing, with an emphasis on implementation, portfolio construction, and market opportunity.
Scaling Solutions: The Fixed Income Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight
In partnership with Builders Vision and BlueMark An examination of the role fixed income can play in scaling impact investing, highlighting both the opportunity and the practical considerations for investors seeking to expand beyond private markets.
Compass Series
Conversations shaping the future of impact investing.
The Compass Series convenes market leaders around the most important questions facing the field. Designed as topical discussions grounded in practical experience, the webinar series complements TCI’s research by creating opportunities for peer learning and thoughtful debate and has engaged an audience of over 5,000 practitioners.
Founding Supporters
The Tideline Center for Impact was established with the generous anchor support of:
Latest News
Launching the Tideline Center for Impact
Read about the vision behind TCI, our initial partnerships, and the role we hope to play in advancing the next chapter of impact investing.