Jed Emerson, author of The Purpose of Capital: Elements of Impact, Financial Flows, and Natural Being, has collaborated with his niece, actress Jackie Emerson, to create a music video aimed at educating younger generations on impact investing.
IMPACT: The Musical! (“What If”) opens with Jackie in a classroom full of bored students being lectured by "Mr. Richman." She raises her hand and starts singing:
“What if instead of focusing on what money buys
What if instead of buying into financial lies
What if there could be more to what our capital does
What if we started saving up for what will save us
What if we redefined what money is and can do
What if we thought of capital as energy too
What if we thought of cash in a completely new vein
What if we utilized our funds for impact not gain”
The class then becomes much more enthusiastic as she sings about the benefits of impact investing.
In this book, Emerson traces the history of religion, science, community, society and money—and their synergistic effects of creating the illusion that humans are separate from each other and from the planet on which we (and all living things) depend.
He calls on each person of every level of wealth to examine their own impact and recognize that all investing has impact—positive or negative. According to Emerson, "What we as individuals and as a community that professes to care about the purpose of capital must first do is stop and reflect upon one very basic question: How are we each called to act to remove injustice and its related barriers, to each member of our human and non-human community and ecosystems, attaining sustained freedom in our world?"
“When my wife, (video journalist) Mia Haugen and I initially thought about what kind of video we would produce to promote the ideas in the book, we had a very typical vision of me reading excerpts of the book against footage of nature, commerce and capital—but decided that was just too boring and we needed a fresh, exciting perspective,” Jed said.
“The concept for the video is Schoolhouse Rock! meets School of Rock,” said Jackie, who was in The Hunger Games. “The goal is to get people thinking about how money can truly be used as fuel for change, and to call out a culture that values capital for capital’s sake—rather than valuing capital for the sake of the good it can do.”