About the
Impact Evaluation Lab
We founded the Impact Evaluation Lab to help raise the bar for the rapidly growing impact investing market—by building the standards, discipline, and accountability needed to ensure every investment delivers on both its financial goals and intended impact.
Our team brings nearly 100 years of collective experience working at the intersection of of traditional finance, impact investing, and social entrepreneurship— offering a unique, holistic perspective that bridges the measurable outcomes investors demand with the mission-driven strategies shaping a more sustainable and inclusive economy. This experience grounds our commitment to raising the standard for impact accountability across the investment landscape.
What we do
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At the core of our work is the Impact Authenticity Score (IAS)—a cutting-edge, data-informed assessment system that evaluates how effectively an investment strategy delivers on both its impact intentions and financial goals. Designed for asset owners, allocators, and asset managers, IAS provides a standardized, holistic view of an investment’s performance across financial and impact dimensions—empowering more confident, accountable capital allocation.
We offer two types of fund evaluation:
Complete IAS Assessment: Designed for established impact funds that have issued investments, established IMM practices, and financial track records.
Provisional IAS Assessment: Designed for early-stage impact funds that are still raising capital and have not yet made investments.
IEL also offers verification of alignment with the Impact Principles for any fund undergoing assessment.
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The Impact Navigator is IEL’s proprietary database of impact funds, designed to bring a new level of transparency to the market.
Launching in 2025 and available by subscription, the Impact Navigator enables investors, advisors, and asset managers to discover, evaluate, and compare assessed funds through a standardized, data-rich platform.
Each IAS rated fund receives a dedicated profile that offers data-driven insights into its ability to deliver both financial performance and real-world impact—empowering more informed, confident capital allocation.
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For investors: Impact strategy, design, and implementation
Solutions for impact portfolios to help asset owners optimize performance
What we believe
We believe in capitalism.
The world’s greatest challenges can only be solved by mobilizing private capital, invested at market rate, at scale. Philanthropy, catalytic capital, and the public sector are essential – but are not sufficient. For solutions that match the magnitude of our global needs, capitalism is the most effective framework and best way forward.
We believe in acting conscientiously.
The work we do– and the investments and actions we support – must remain accountable to people, to the planet and to purpose.
We believe in good intentions, but that’s not enough.
Doing good is a worthy aim, but it cannot stand alone nor is it sufficient to justify or drive an investment forward. Impact must be authentic, measurable, and verifiable. That is what drives progress– and earns trust.
We believe in rigor.
The high standards governing financial performance must also govern impact performance. This is fundamental to IEL’s mission and the reason we built the Impact Authenticity Score and the Impact Navigator– to bring the language, discipline, and transparency of capital markets into the world of impact.
We believe in standardization of expectations.
Impact goals matter when clearly defined and consistently measured. Vague aspirations must give way to measurable outcomes. Unverified claims must become independently assessed. Clarity, accountability, and transparency should be the rule, not the exception.
We believe that trust always has been and is the future of finance.
We are at an inflection point. If impact investing is to mature and become a core part of the global capital markets, we must build systems that inspire confidence. For measurable impact and financial performance to go hand-in-hand, we need tools and standards that increase confidence and build trust, verify what’s real, challenge what’s not, and help this sector reach its full potential. This is IEL’s mission and what we endeavor to achieve.
Our Team
TERRENCE KEELEY | Chief Executive Officer
In addition to his work at IEL, Terry is the CEO of 1PointSix LLC, an advisory firm he founded to help institutional and high net worth investors optimize the amount of impact in their investment portfolios. He is the author of a new, widely acclaimed book on stakeholder capitalism and ESG investing, SUSTAINABLE: Moving Beyond ESG to Impact Investing, published by Columbia University Press. Following a 30-year career in finance at UBS and BlackRock, Terry was selected in 2021 as a Global Knowledge Broker by CIO Magazine. “He has been called upon by kings and priests during their times of trouble and walked them back to health,” CIO Magazine wrote in their award announcement. “Keeley is a devoted man with extraordinary skills, great wisdom, unique passion, and incredible breadth.”
In addition to his work at IEL, Rob is a Senior Fellow at the Sorenson Impact Institute at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, and an editor at ImpactAlpha. Previously, Rob was the Senior Partner at Atlas Impact Partners, an investment firm he founded to pursue a mandate strictly focused on high impact investments solving the world’s most challenging problems. For more than three decades, he has been an Economist, Research Director and Portfolio Manager on Wall Street. Rob was Head of Research at JUST Capital, Senior Portfolio Manager for AllianceBernstein Equity Strategies, and Managing Director and Head of Equity Research for Nomura Securities International. Earlier, he worked at Morgan Stanley in various global senior leadership roles where he was last responsible for the Global Macro Research team. Rob is a global thought leader on matters of impact measurement, metrics and data standards; lectures at Columbia University Business School and writes for Impact Alpha.
ROBERT BROWN | Chief Research Officer
A repeat founder with deep expertise in operations, strategy, finance, and organizational leadership, Maren brings a future-focused lens to building systems that work—for people, planet, and business. In addition to her work with IEL, she is the founder of Handprint.io, a values-based hiring platform that connects people to career opportunities at impact companies using the science of engagement.
Previously, Maren co-founded Conscious Company Media, where she and her team elevated stories of business as a force for good through a nationally distributed print magazine, digital media, podcasts, webinars, and events (exit in 2018). She served on the board of the American Sustainable Business Network (formerly Social Venture Circle) from 2017 to 2020, and her graduate research at B Lab US focused on certification adoption and engagement. Her work is grounded in a belief that business—and capital—can be powerful tools for reshaping systems, building wealth more equitably, and addressing the world’s most urgent challenges.
