As our external sounding board, Astrid Leyssens, founder and CEO of We Are Impact Collective, reflects on how she sees our strategy unfolding and what she believes is required of us in a world that no longer allows simple answers.
(1)
Executive summary IR25
(2)
Foreword
(3)
Our impact-first strategy
(4)
Organisational impact
(5)
Capital impact
(6)
Investor impact
(7)
Rethinking philanthropy
(8)
An explorer’s vision for 2026
(9)
Continuous improvements
(10)
Acknowledgements
Executive summary IR25
Our impact-first strategy
Organisational impact
Capital impact
Investor impact: how to drive change
Rethinking philanthropy
An explorer’s vision for 2026
Continuous improvements
Acknowledgements
An explorer’s vision for 2026: from systemic intent
to systemic practice
An explorer’s vision for 2026
Clarity amid instability
A world that tests our assumptions
From solutions to roles within systems
Working with uncertainty – deliberately
The role of private and family capital
From strategy to practice
Chapter select
Clarity amid instability
A world that tests our assumptions
From solutions to roles within systems
Working with uncertainty – deliberately
The role of private and family capital
From strategy to practice
The past year has not brought stability, but it has brought clarity.
From climate and politics to money and everyday life, today’s problems are no longer abstract. We experience the effects on a daily basis. What once appeared as separate crises now reveals itself as deeply interconnected. When one system falters, others follow. This growing awareness has shifted the conversation around impact investing. The question is no longer whether systems matter, but how the impact investing community can continue to act when complexity increases and simple answers are no longer sufficient.
“For many investors, this marks a transition: from reframing impact towards inhabiting it.”
- Astrid Leyssens, our sounding board on impact
A world that tests our assumptions
Capital is rapidly flowing into sectors like energy, defence, infrastructure and climate adaptation. The pace at which money is being deployed is unprecedented, reflecting the urgency and immediacy of the crises we face. At the same time, this acceleration invites an important reflection: are we directing capital in ways that genuinely strengthen the systems we depend on? Because moving quickly, even in the right direction, does not automatically translate into systemic progress. In some cases, rapid deployment risks reinforcing the very dynamics that created fragility in the first place.
The systemic investment community is now paying closer attention to how capital shapes the systems it enters. Investors, including VP Capital, start to better examine the role capital can play in stabilising, catalysing, convening or stewarding. These roles matter, especially as initiatives mature and growth increasingly requires coordination between actors, across sectors and around shared infrastructure rather than isolated expansion.
From solutions to roles within systems
Over the past year, VP Capital has also started moving beyond funding isolated solutions towards a better understanding how different actors function within a broader system. This is crucial, as impact is less shaped by individual projects and more by the relationships between them – and by the behaviours, ownership structures and incentives that surround them.
This has brought a central dilemma into sharper focus: how to support growth without fragmenting the system it depends on. Coordination, governance and timing become as important as capital itself.
It has also sharpened the attention to governance and power. Questions of ownership, participation and decision-making are no longer peripheral; they are central leverage points. Governance, in this sense, is foundational. How power is held, shared or redistributed determines whether change can endure.
Working with uncertainty – deliberately
Systemic change rarely follows a straight line or a clear plan. Outcomes emerge through feedback loops, learning and iteration. Rather than treating uncertainty as something to be minimised, it can increasingly be approached as a discipline: something to be sensed, engaged with and learned from over time.
This perspective is also reflected in investment practices at VP Capital. Through ongoing dialogue with portfolio companies – including structured engagement cycles and openness to critical feedback – the family office continues to refine its approach and strengthen collective impact. In this context, investors rely less on prediction and optimisation, and more on adaptive strategies, continuous dialogue and pattern recognition. Success is defined not only by outcomes, but also by the quality of learning and the resilience of the systems they help shape.
The role of private and family capital
As public and philanthropic budgets come under pressure, private and family capital carries a particular responsibility – not as a substitute, but as a bridge. Its unique contribution lies in freedom: the freedom to experiment, to take a long-term view, to combine different forms of capital and to stay engaged when pathways are uncertain.
More and more investors start deploying capital in multi-capital ways – financial, social, cultural and reputational – recognising that transformation rarely occurs through funding alone. Relationships, trust, knowledge and narrative all shape outcomes.
This also means staying close to home. Local communities have long been seen as implementation partners but are now re-emerging as system actors in their own right, holding contextual knowledge, legitimacy and long-term commitment.
From strategy to practice
Perhaps the most significant shift is a practical one. Systemic investing is not built through bold statements, but through everyday decisions: the questions we ask, the partners we choose, the patience we cultivate, and the standards we uphold when growth creates pressure to compromise. Consistency over perfection. Stewardship over urgency.
As we look ahead, VP Capital remains committed to learning alongside others, staying open to challenge, and holding itself accountable to the systems it is part of. Systemic change is not accelerated by haste, but by commitment, humility and sustained practice.