Jaime, a member of the legal team at FinDev Canada (Canada’s development finance institution), works in debt and equity investments in the private sector of emerging markets. Jaime recently used the Impact Term Sheet as part of a clinic at NYU School of Law, simulating an equity investment in a social enterprise by an impact investor. He shares some of his experiences in this guest blog post, covering how the clinic works, how the ITS was used, and why he feels it’s such an important tool within the legal investment space.

This spring LISI co-creators hosted a workshop covering investment governance structures at the GAIL (Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers) Annual Summit in London, England. Feedback was positive and we managed to spread the word about ongoing LISI projects. We also had a blast.

When multiple funders with multiple targets, and without a stake in a venture’s mission, gain control and impose “traditional” governance structures, there’s a risk that mission will become lost or diluted. Traditional governance structures were developed solely to protect financial returns. And they can mean that a venture is unable to live up to its impact potential. LISI set out to create an impact term sheet that would break through the most common roadblocks to impact, such as poor governance, opportunism on the side of a specific party, and lack of incentives tied to impact goals and more.