Masawa Minute 15
This is the Masawa Minute — some ways how you can get active with us and snippets of what we’re consuming in the areas of mental wellness, social impact, and impact investing.
Today let’s take a minute to think about the consequences. All of our actions have an array of direct and indirect effects on us, other people, and the environment we all share. Most of the time, they are tough to foresee — that’s where ethical and impact thinking frameworks come in to help us conduct our lives in the least harmful way possible. However, no framework can be ideally applicable to our ever-changing world — it’s up to us to keep reevaluating our actions and never stop trying to be better.
Get Active!
🧘 Attend
Young Leaders for Health are launching a series of webinars on COVID-19 & Mental Health. The webinars will bring your attention to the effects of COVID-19 on sustainable development, the role mental health plays in the process, the importance of healthcare access, and addressing mental health disorders.
The second and the third webinars will take place tomorrow (July 23rd) and on August 6th. Make sure you’re there to hear the experts share the lessons learned from the pandemic, and what practical, sustainable steps can be taken to lead the world towards recovery. We’ll be listening! [Thanks, Elliot!]
Personal and professional growth in times of crisis
Another discussion about dealing with the post-crisis world, but this time focused on the leaders and the specific set of challenges they are facing. Ivey Academy faculty director Martha Maznevski and senior executive coaches Sharon Duguid and Rob McNamara will discuss why those challenges are so hard-hitting and how to turn it around by using current circumstances as an opportunity for growth. Don’t miss it! [Thanks, Aesclinn!]
🎧 Listen
Meet Masawa, the Mental Wellness Impact Fund Nurturing Capital to Nurture Minds
Masawa’s Managing Partner Joshua Haynes sat down for a conversation with Grant Trahant, the founder of Causeartist, a platform covering brands, companies, and founders who see the world through the lens of social impact.
Joshua joined their “Investing in Impact” podcast to talk about his fascinating life story, unique set of experiences (ranging from a Peace Corps Volunteer to a Diplomat in the Obama Administration), and, of course, about Masawa.
If you haven’t heard it yet, what are you waiting for? Do it here.
💬 Share
Masawa still is at an early growth stage, and we work extra hard to be able to share a new exciting update with you every two weeks. If you believe in the same things as we do and dream of the world where mental wellness is accessible to everyone, tell one friend about us today.
You can do that by forwarding this newsletter, sharing our social media post, or just going “Hey! Have you heard about this mental wellness impact fund called Masawa and the important work they’re doing?”. We need our audience to grow so we can bring the mental wellness conversation to the center. So that billions live life.
Here’s what we’re reading…
🏡 Love your neighbor — but not too much!
We all can agree ethical thinking is powerful — caring about other people and being mindful about the ripple effects of your actions creates a sense of individual responsibility imperative to a well-functioning society. But can one be thinking too ethically?
It turns out, the answer is yes. When ethical thinking originates from deep-seated anxiety, it can develop into scrupulosity — a form of OCD based on moral or religious obsessions. A person suffering from this will mistake their anxiety for care about hurting others and take it entirely upon themselves to prevent it.
Is there a difference between that and genuine moral intentions? While all moral intentions may be generally driven by anxiety, it doesn’t have to become pathological. Being concerned about following the code of ethics is key to a better world, but you shouldn’t leave anxiety in charge of the guidelines.
Why won’t the sin wash away? When thinking ethically goes awry
🚩Where does the impact go when investors exit?
Planning for an exit before even investing is a reasonable step to take, but it isn’t always done responsibly. What might happen to the impact after the exit is a difficult question to consider as it can have dire consequences to the company’s operations.
Fortunately, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) discovered that investors tend to consider that and plan for the impact to last long after they’re gone. The steps include thorough due-diligence in the beginning and helping to cement the company’s mission through equipping it with positive practices that can remain in place for years to come. The exits are well-timed and the investors work on identifying potential buyers who are passionate about the company’s mission.
Being investors ourselves, we agree these are great strategies to follow — ensuring the long-term impact is the core of our vision. What about you? [Thanks, Niels]
Solving the Puzzle of Responsible Exits in Impact Investing
💡Leaving Value behind
America’s top activist investor Jeff Ubben has announced he’s leaving his $16 billion hedge fund ValueAct behind to focus on sustainability full time. He’s starting a new fund Inclusive Capital Partners that strives to embed inclusivity into capitalism through focusing on environmental and social impact investments.
“Finance is done”, Mr. Ubben told the Financial Times. According to him, impact-driven activism is the future as it can achieve higher level impact than traditional kind as there’s a need for longer-term actions than a CEO change or sale of a company. Currently he’s out looking for “courageous CEO’s and boards” that can work with the long-term vision. We share the sentiment and can’t wait to see the results!
The Activist Investor Done With Finance
⛰Don’t be a therapist, be a friend — here’s why
“Let me help you solve your problems, I’m there for you.” That’s a phrase we often say and hear, most of the time with only the best intentions. Offering yourself up to solve others’ problems, or for having a conversation or merely listening to the thoughts and troubles of people you care about can seem like a great way to show support.
But mental health professionals disagree as it obscures the ethical lines in the field. Firstly, there is an issue of competence. Much like other medical workers, therapists can provide their services only in an area that they’re highly specialized in, as determined by their education, training, and professional experience. The issues of boundaries and consent are next — therapists aren’t allowed to have personal relationships with their clients for a reason. That flips the dynamics upside-down, not to mention that a personal relationship violates the principle of confidentiality, and a friend isn’t able to provide all the facts needed to obtain informed consent.
So the next time you want to be there for someone, clearly define what that means. Then consider doing the person a favor and direct them to a professional therapist. Masawa Match happens to have an extensive compilation of mental health services that can come in handy 😊
Why Can’t Any Random Person Offer Therapy? It’s a Matter of Ethics
⚡Can investors be completely rational?
While investing appears to be a highly calculated activity, investors are human and therefore can’t be fully rational — there are biases no one succeeds to avoid. According to the research from Stanford Social Innovation Review, the ones that make impact investors trip up most are the “warm glow” of giving, thinking in frames, and categorical cognition.
Being unaware of those biases can make you miss out on impact, settle for a suboptimal portfolio, and cloud the objective judgment. Luckily, it’s possible to reduce it through calling for higher quality impact evidence reporting, making full detailed comparisons, and looking past the given labels.
It’s time to implement those measures not only on an individual but also on an industry level. Right now impact investing is more significant than ever, so it’s time to shift the systems towards what we’d like impact investment to be in the decades to come.
How to Overcome ‘Warm Glow’ and Other Barriers to Effective Impact Investment Decisions
✨ Masawa Update
We’ve been honing our thesis that capital needs to be nurtured. That by focusing on founders’ mental health, organizational resilience, and social impact maximization, alongside profitability, we help our investees obtain better-than-average financial returns and exponentially more social returns. This thesis (alongside the fact that we invest in mental wellness-related areas) has resonated strongly with other funds, investors, and founders, revealing that there is a huge world of opportunity we can help shape!
💭 In Closing
Like the Masawa Minute? Show your support by sending it to someone who also gives a damn.
Give someone a big [virtual] hug today + take care of each other! 🤗😘
Gabija works as a Marketing & Communications Coordinator at Masawa. She lets her vision of a more just, sustainable, equitable world guide Masawa’s story and inform the work towards transforming global mental wellness to make it accessible and accepted.
