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Tim Draimin

Social Innovation Europe Initiative Launched in Brussels :: wbc-inco.net - 0 views

wbc-inco.net/...112035.html

social innovation europe innovation socialenterprise

shared by Tim Draimin on 06 May 11 - No Cached
  • On March 16 and 17, 2011, Social Innovation Europe was launched in Brussels. Funded by the European Commission, Social Innovation Europe will create a dynamic, entrepreneurial and innovative new Europe. The time has come for Europe to embrace the broad concept of innovation and set an example globally. By 2014, Social Innovation Europe will have become the meeting place - virtual and real - for social innovators, entrepreneurs, non-profit organisations, policy makers and anyone else who is inspired by social innovation in Europe. Through a series of gatherings, and a new online resource, Social Innovation Europe will: connect projects and people who can share experiences and learn from each other; develop an easily accessible resource bank - so you can find about other projects, organisations and ways of working; develop a resource bank of up to date policies at local and national levels and provide information on funding opportunities; facilitate new relationships between civil society, governments, public sector institutions and relevant private sector bodies develop concrete recommendations in financing and in upscaling/mainstreaming of social innovation in Europe Download the conference report.
  • Tim Draimin on 06 May 11
     
    Social Innovation goes mainstream in Europe as European Union launches SI Europe March 2011 conference with presentations by Geoff Mulgan, Vickie Cammack of Tyze, many others including José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission. His speech included: SPEECH/11/190 José Manuel Durão Barroso President of the European Commission Europe leading social innovation Social Innovation Europe initiative Brussels, 17 March 2011 Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure to be here and see all of you around this very important issue - how to pursue our dialogue on social innovation. I would like to thank Geoff Mulgan and Diogo Vasconcelos for their kind invitation and also to congratulate them together with Louise Pulford for having won the call to set up the pilot initiative "Social innovation Europe". I also would like to thank DG enterprise for having organised this launch event today. As you know the Commission is fully involved. Lázsló Andor was with you yesterday. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn will be with you today, so this idea of innovation is indeed a major issue for the Commission I am proud to lead. Europe has a long and strong tradition of social innovation: from the workplace to hospices, and from the cooperative movement to microfinance. We have always been a continent of creative social entrepreneurs who have designed systems to enhance education, health, social inclusion and the well-being of citizens. By nature social innovation is an ever-evolving field to keep pace with fast-changing challenges in society. But what concretely do we mean by social innovation? I think it is important to recognise that this concept is not yet fully accepted in the political debate. I think social innovation is about meeting the unmet social needs and improving social outcomes. It is about tapping into the creativity of charities, associations and social entrepreneurs to find new ways of meeting pressing social needs, which are not adequately met
Peter Deitz

Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship Blog - 0 views

skollcentre.wordpress.com

uk socap

shared by Peter Deitz on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • We’re thrilled that several of our Oxford MBA students and faculty have the opportunity to attend the event and help out our friends over at SOCAP.   They’ll be keeping us posted on all the latest and their perspectives on the gathering. If you can’t make it to Amsterdam, be sure to follow along online and keep up with all the buzz on twitter at #socapeurope (Tweets are a’flying!). You can also watch the entire event via livestream. We’re excited to see what comes out of the gathering – a few hours in, and already looks like exciting things. For one, check out the newly released Social Investment Manual by the Schwab Foundation.  Looks like a must read.
  • SOCAP, the conference at the intersection of money and meaning, came to Europe last night at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. Since I was volunteering at the conference, I was unable to witness the  keynote speech by HRH Princess Maxima, UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development.
Peter Deitz

iiSummit : 2011 Impact Investing Summit - 0 views

www.iisummit.com

impact investing chicago conference

shared by Peter Deitz on 26 May 11 - No Cached
  • 2011 Impact Investing Summit The Impact Investing Summit (iiSummit) aims to mobilize the power of private capital in the Midwest for social and financial return. Impact investing is an emerging asset class that is gaining increased recognition from institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and private foundations. In this nascent industry, there is a range of options around financial returns, type and location of investment, and potential exits. The iiSummit will bring together national experts in this field—including members and advisors to private foundations; State Department and SBA representatives; and institutional, venture capital, and individual investors—to explore impact investment options for the Midwest.
  • Invited Keynote Speakers Dave Kirkpatrick, SJF Ventures Sasha Dichter, Acumen Fund Dave Chen, Equilibrium Capital Wes Selke, Good Capital & Hub Ventures Tom Balderston, Investors' Circle & Patient Capital Collaborative Patrick Fisher, Creation Ventures Deb Quazzo, NeXtAdvisors Karen Lehman, Fresh Taste Initiative Keith Crandell, ARCH Venture Partners and Clean Energy Trust
Peter Deitz

Coming in from the 'Dark Side' - Down to Business Blog - 0 views

www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/...Coming_in_from_the_'Dark_Side'

uk impact investing social enterprise

shared by Peter Deitz on 25 May 11 - No Cached
  • The lazy yet dominant financial market preconception of social entrepreneurs is of fluffy tree-hugging do-gooders who couldn't cut it in the 'real world'. Indeed, my peers from business school and the financial markets in the City still think I am simply going through a 'charity phase' and will eventually return to the fold. But I'm not going to. I have been lucky to come across a pioneering market place and I'm signed up for the duration. Social enterprise is about sustainability, financial viability, commercial solutions to social needs. It is not about inefficiencies of investment, or the black hole of grant donations. The guys at SOCAP in San Francisco name this space the intersection of money and meaning. What are we at UnLtd doing to help increase the awareness of this intersection? For a start we've just launched the Big Venture Challenge to accelerate the entry of business angels into the social investment market place. We are looking to find 25 of the most ambitious social entrepreneurs with scalable ventures - and then 'de-risk' any investments by providing matched funding and some high calibre support from ourselves, Accenture, Deutsche Bank, Coutts, Thomson Reuters, Hogan Lovells and others.
  • This is certainly an international phenomenon, albeit operating at different paces throughout the world, but with clear exporting/importing of talent, knowledge and experience: The UK market place has been swamped with interest in how to replicate our own work with both government-led as well as private delegations from Canada, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Japan, Australia and Continental Europe just in recent months. UnLtd ourselves now have three sister organisations, which operate different business models, but with the same vision of helping social entrepreneurs in India, Thailand and South Africa, with many more in the offing. Similarly, the UK's School for Social Entrepreneurs has expanded to Australia and has many more international partners queuing up. Volans is now operating out of London and Singapore.There is the Global Impact Investing Network and the Global Impact Investing Reporting Standards coming out of the US but with international intentions (it's in the names!)There are (formative) social stock exchanges/trading/donation platforms in the US, Singapore, Italy, Brazil, UK, South Africa, KenyaThere is a well established European Venture Philanthropy Association, with a sister organisation opening in SingaporeWe have SOCAP Europe for the first time bringing a US conference to The NetherlandsThere are also a glut of crowd-funding mechanisms evolving to avoid traditional financial machinery, harnessing the Facebook generation: Kiva, MyC4, CrowdCube, Profunders, Buzzbnk, Ethex, Markets for Good.
Tim Draimin

Impact Capital is the New Venture Capital | Entrepreneur the Arts - 1 views

blog.entrepreneurthearts.com/...tal-is-the-new-venture-capital

social finance impact investing social enterprise

shared by Tim Draimin on 14 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Impact Capital is the New Venture Capital
  • By Sir Ronald Cohen
  • Broadly speaking, capitalism does not deal with its social consequences. Even as communities grow richer on average, so the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” increases. For example, since the mid-1970s, both the USA and UK have actually become less equal rather than more equal. In the long post-war boom many governments did make significant headway in ameliorating the consequences of social inequality. This can be seen in levels of investment in areas such as health and in critical performance measures such as life expectancy. Nevertheless, governments, despite their best efforts and even in the best of times, have not been able to resolve all social problems.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Commentators on one side of the political spectrum attribute this failure to the lack of resources available to the state and to the state’s reluctance or inability to act appropriately. Commentators on the other side attribute government’s shortcomings to the inherent inefficiency of the state itself. The truth is that the political process, which focuses on short-term gains, does not favor long-term, preventative investment of the type required to address major social problems.
  • The social sector, which is also called the voluntary, non-profit or third sector, has done its best, with the support of philanthropic donations and government, to address the social problems that fall through the gaps in government provision.
  • Some argue that the social sector’s problem is that it is significantly under-resourced. Others argue that the insufficiency of resources is in part a consequence of the sector’s reliance upon philanthropy — from foundations and from individual donors — that can be unpredictable. Both critiques may be correct: the social sector has a problem in accessing capital, often because of a lack of a reliable revenue stream, and, as a consequence, it is inefficient, especially in respect of building sustainable organizations, securing funding and utilizing assets to support large-scale activity.
  • Recent moves to make the social sector more efficient, by focusing on improvements to the management of both the donors and the recipients of grants, are an important development. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation applies rigorous criteria to the assessment of the performance of organizations in receipt of its grant funding. Michael Dell’s philanthropic work is similarly rigorous. Their goal, according to Harvard professors Robert Kaplan and Allen Grossman, is, essentially, “to find and fund the Microsofts and Dells of the non-profit sector.”
  • In fact, such moves are more necessary than ever, as deficit-ridden governments seek to pass greater responsibility onto the shoulders of the social sector. An example of this is the UK Coalition Government’s strategic objective to foster the “Big Society.” In essence, the Big Society agenda seeks to pass a significant portion of responsibility for social cohesion back to the community via the voluntary sector, and, at the same time, to confer greater legitimacy upon such community work and to provide incentives and support for it. However, the social sector as currently constituted is unlikely to be able to address the scale of the social need; or, to put it another way, to meet the scale of the social challenge.
  • This is where social entrepreneurs come in. We know that entrepreneurs create jobs and foster innovation. In that sense, they already make a substantial social contribution. But entrepreneurs have special qualities that could make a significant beneficial impact were they to be applied to social issues. The entrepreneurial mindset embraces leadership, vision, the ability to attract talented people, drive, focus, perseverance, self-confidence, optimism, competitiveness and ambition. To these one might add an appetite for taking informed risks, an unwavering focus on results, a willingness to take responsibility, a grounded sense of realism, astute judgment of opportunities and people, and a fascination with the field of enterprise in question. The engagement of entrepreneurs in the social sector, bringing in their wake high expectations of performance, accountability and innovation, could lead to significantly increased social impact.
  • Could the social sector be transformed to allow the emergence of entrepreneurs from within its own ranks and attract social entrepreneurs and capital on a large scale? The answer is yes, provided that we can create an effective system to support social entrepreneurship, by linking the social sector to the capital markets and introducing new financial instruments that enable entrepreneurs to make beneficial social impact while also making adequate financial returns for investors. Given these conditions, it is possible that social entrepreneurs and impact investors will significantly fill the gap between social need and current government and social-sector provision. Indeed, were social enterprise to achieve significant scale, it would transform the social sector and lead to a new contract between government, the capital markets and citizens.
  • In this process, charitable, institutional and private investors, attracted by the combination of social as well as financial returns, would bring into being a new asset class: impact investment. In a recent report, JP Morgan came to the conclusion that impact investments already constitute an emerging asset class: “In a world where government resources and charitable donations are insufficient to address the world’s social problems, impact investing offers a new alternative for channeling large-scale private capital for social benefit. With increasing numbers of investors rejecting the notion that they face a binary choice between investing for maximum risk-adjusted returns or donating for social purpose, the impact investment market is now at a significant turning point as it enters the mainstream… We argue that impact investments are emerging as an alternative asset class.”
  • This new asset class requires a specific set of investment and risk-management skills; it demands organizational structures to accommodate these skills; it must be serviced by industry organizations and associations; and it must encourage the development of standardized metrics, benchmarks and even ratings. As has been observed by the impact-investment firm Bridges Ventures in the UK, such an asset class should provide welcome diversification for capital markets: at times of economic stress, price-sensitive business models appropriate to lower income neighborhoods can prove more resilient and also find wider applications in the mainstream market as both margins and consumer spending power are squeezed.
  • Not surprisingly, politicians as well as academics, entrepreneurs and investors are paying increasingly close attention to these developments. In the US and in the UK, and now also in Canada and Australia, steps are being taken to provide social entrepreneurs with access to the same kinds of resources as business entrepreneurs. The USA’s Social Innovation Fund ($173 million) and the Investing in Innovation Fund ($644 million) are notable examples; as is the proposed creation of the UK’s Big Society Bank. In Canada, the Federal Government recently received the report of the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance, whose recommendations include requiring public and private foundations to devote a proportion of their funds to mission-related investments; clarifying fiduciary obligations so that pension funds and others can invest in social programs; introducing new financial instruments for social enterprise; and marshalling government support for social enterprise, directly through seed investment and business support services and indirectly through fiscal engineering.
  • How likely is it that such steps will succeed? In answering this question, we would do well to consider that the global economy faced a similar moment of challenge and opportunity in the 1970s and 1980s, when many of the most familiar names in the post-war corporate world started to decline and shed jobs, among them General Motors, American Motors, Courtaulds, ICI, Smith Corona, Olivetti, US Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Kodak and International Harvester. The question then was: what would take their place?
  • What took their place was a new wave of business enterprise helped by venture investing, mostly focused on high-tech industries. This is the wave that brought us Intel, Cisco, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Sun Microsystems and Genentech. The hi-tech wave has since swept the world, taking us into the embrace of Google, Wikipedia and Facebook and ushering in a communications and information revolution based on global access to information from multiple sources. It has thereby profoundly changed global culture.
  • Just as hi-tech business enterprise and venture capital, working in tandem, have attracted increasing numbers of talented risk-takers since the 1970s, so social enterprise and impact investment are now attracting a new generation of talented and committed innovators seeking to combine new approaches to achieving social returns. Social enterprise and impact investing, in short, look like the wave of the future.
  • About Sir Ronald Cohen Sir Ronald Cohen is chairman of Bridges Ventures and The Portland Trust. He chaired the UK’s Social Investment Task Force and the Commission on Unclaimed Assets and he is a founder-director of Social Finance. Until 2005, he was executive chairman of Apax Partners Worldwide LLP, which he co-founded in 1972.
  • Tim Draimin on 14 Jul 11
     
    Sir Ronald Cohen's overview of the emergence of the impact investing space, including references to Canada the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance.
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