A detailed report written by Lisa Hehenberger for Stanford Social Innovation Review analyzing what investors and policy makers who want to advance impact investing in Europe need to account for. Impact investing has taken a foothold in Europe most notably during the past decade, but some countries and regions have developed more rapidly and earlier than others despite pro-impact policies that applied to the entire continent. Britain positioned itself at the forefront of the field by establishing the Social Investment Task Force (SITF) in 2000 and following up shortly thereafter with the creation of policies, investment funds, and specialized financial tools. France joined it as a leader by creating solidarity-based funds in 2001. In 2012, Britain later advanced the field significantly with the establishment of Big Society Capital—one of the world’s first wholesale investment institutions focused on combined social and financial returns. Development in Central and Eastern Europe has been slower, with a number of nations still in their infancy in attracting and deploying capital. The variability presents a message that investors and policy makers can’t ignore: If they want to advance impact investing in European regions, they need to account for the field’s different levels of maturity in national, subnational, and municipal markets.

     1ST ANNUAL EUROPEAN IMPACT INVESTING SURVEY 2020 #EIIS2020   EBAN (The European Business Angels Network), through the EBAN Impact Investing Committee, is now inviting Investors to participate in the 1st Annual European Impact Investing Survey 2020 #EIIS2020. The report generated by this survey will provide critical insights to European impact investing activity, investment opportunities, impact investing strategies, portfolio management and remaining challenges. Are you a Business Angel, Investment Vehicle or Organization that makes Investments in Seed and Early Stage companies in Europe with the intention to generate a measurable positive impact on society and the environment alongside a financial return? Then please consider participating in this survey by the 31st of May 2020 – you will just need a few minutes to fill it out!   For more information, contact Juan Alvarez de Lara – Survey and Report Director, Co-Chairman of the EBAN Impact Investing Committee and EBAN Board Member – at jalvarezdelara@seedandclick.com. Special thanks to ESADE Business School / ESADE Entrepreneurship Institute (Spain) led by Dr. Lisa Hehenberger and Copenhagen Business School / CBS Sustainability Center for Corporate Governance (Denmark) led by Dr. Kai Hockerts for their Academic Support. Do not hesitate to share the link of the survey with those Investors who could be interested in impact investing! Keep Safe! The EBAN Impact Team #EIIS2020 #EBANImpactInvesting2020

The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) published the ninth edition of its Annual Impact Investor Survey. Comprising data and insights from 266 of the world’s leading impact investors, the report provides in-depth analysis of market activity and trends, covering topics such as: industry challenges; impact measurement and management; financial and impact performance; indicators of market growth; and capital allocations by sector, geography, and instrument. Additionally, this year’s report provides new data on key market topics, including human resources; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and the role of government and policy.   Download the Report

Danske Bank has published The State of Nordic Impact Startup a report on The Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) that are set by the United Nations and adopted by 193 nations – including the Nordic countries. The SDGs represent a wide range of market needs, from energy solutions to food production and medical services. Danske Bank has identified 647 Impact Startups from The Hub and +impact, two online community platforms. Danske Bank’s findings indicate that Impact Start-ups are following similar patterns as other start-ups. They focus on top-line growth but struggle to make a profit. Financial performance seems to improve as Impact Startups mature in age. In addition, we see that the Energy market represent 63% of the profit pool. 21% are exploring business opportunities in developing markets. In average only 14% of Nordic Impact Start-ups are led by women. 82% of Impact Start-ups seem to be aware of their impact as indicated by their use of impact statements on their website. Read on and find more details inside the report. Download the Report

Do you want to change the world? Do you want to know how to start? Nowadays, the world needs responsible leaders to solve problems that matter. It is up to us to come up with sustainable solutions to shape a better world. Become an entrepreneur and be part of the change! This six-week course will lead you through your personal impact journey where you will get a full perspective of the world of social entrepreneurship. World-renowned experts like Professor Muhammad Yunus or Alexander Osterwalder will support you by covering a wide range of topics, from business modeling and design thinking, to the big question on: How to deal with failure? After this course, you will be able to assess entrepreneurial opportunities through the perspective of both impact and business. The tools you acquire will enable you to turn these opportunities into viable social solutions, maximize impact and fulfill your entrepreneurial potential! Sign up here!

The International Council for Science has published a report that explores the nature of interlinkages between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It is based on the premise that a science-informed analysis of interactions across SDG domains can support more coherent and effective decision-making, and better facilitate follow-up and monitoring of progress. The fundamental underlying principle vertebrating the research is that all SDG interact with one another. In other words, by design they are an integrated set of global priorities and objectives that are fundamentally interdependent. Policymakers, practitioners and scientists working at the global, regional, national and local levels on implementing or supporting the implementation of the SDG are the intended audience for this report. Here you can read the SDG Guide to Interactions

The Global Impact Investment Network (GIIN) has recently published a new report, Lasting Impact: The Need for Responsible Exits, which reveals insights into how impact investors enable the organizations and projects they finance to expand and deepen their impact beyond the duration of their investment. The report describes a variety of approaches taken by investors—to select, manage, and ultimately exit their investments responsibly. This report outlines impact investors’ approaches to achieving responsible exits, drawing insights from interviews with more than 30 investors and entrepreneurs and a review of existing resources on the topic. It includes a theoretical analysis and four case studies. Investors might be interested in reading this excellent piece of research as inspiration for considering their role in creating long-term, wide-reaching, positive impact. Download the report

Building an Impact-Driven Investment Portfolio CDC Group is the UK’s Development Finance Institution (DFI) and wholly owned by the UK Government. Founded in 1948, it is the world’s oldest DFI. Its mission is to support the building of businesses throughout Africa and South Asia, to create jobs and make a lasting difference to people’s lives in some of the world’s poorest places. The Impact Accelerator (IA) was created in 2015 to develop the market for impact investing in some of the most remote and challenging business environments in the world. Here CDC draws on its experiences of investing over the last two years and make recommendations on how to build an impact-focused portfolio. CDC invest capital in highly developmental businesses that can achieve commercial sustainability in the medium term. The focus is on investments that either address underserved consumers, sectors or segments of the value chain, support scalable innovative business models, or operate in harder geographies. CDC’s mandate means they can invest in ventures with more challenging risk-return profiles than typically considered by commercial investors, while capitalising on CDC’s reputation as the oldest development finance institution and its experience and networks in Africa and South Asia. This focus will over time, and in successful cases, pave the way for commercial investors to follow once the business has scale and traction, catalysing both commercial sustainability and development impact. The IA is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by CDC Group, the UK’s development finance institution. Learn more how does the Impact Accelerator model work, read the recommendation on how to build an impact-driven investment portfolio and discover some of the best practices at the link.

This article was first published at Luxemburger Wort. Photo: Luxemburger Wort Luxembourg has become a growing hub for social business and on Tuesday night at the Tramsschapp it was all about showcasing the diversity and potential of impact initiatives available in the Grand Duchy. The event was hosted by the Luxembourg Microfinance and Development Fund (LMDF) in partnership with the Ville de Luxembourg and saw 11 organisations taking the stage to pitch their stories in no more than five minutes. “We hope – by showcasing the work of these organisations – that more companies and individuals will be encouraged to develop initiatives to promote positive change, event organisers said in a press release. Addressing societal challenges in Luxembourg and beyond Moderating the pitching event,  business angel Hedda Pahlson-Moller talked about the need to celebrate Luxembourg’s impact ecosystem “to inspire more people, to create more projects and be change-makers in Luxembourg”. “Impact investing is for everybody” she said. “Every penny we spend can drive value in that direction”. As a business angel focusing on social investing, Pahlson-Moller tries to find companies that have a growth potential, but also have a social and environmental impact. “It took me 15 years to find out what is true value for me as an investor”. She also argued that “poverty and inequality can be tackled”. Vanessa Paul pitching Luxembourg’s first packaging-free organic grocery store Ouni Photo: Luxemburger Wort Ouni — Luxembourg’s first packaging-free grocery — was the first to take the stage and plea for its cause.  Co-founder Vanessa Paul advocated for people’s transition towards a more ecological life and consumption and invited everyone to act for “a better future.” During the evening, a variety of organisations pitched their projects, ranging from non-profit actors SOS Village D’Enfants Monde and Friendship – an international NGO supporting marginalised communities in Bangladesh-, consultancy services Innpact, incubator for social entrepreneurs 6zero1, the National Institute for sustainable development and corporate social development INDR, as well as the Centre for Ecological Learning Transition Minett and etika asbl. Microlux, Luxembourg’s first microfinance institution also participated in the pitching event along with 123 Go Social, a programme dedicated to early-stage entrepreneurs generating a social-environmental impact in Luxembourg. Expert panel reactions from Larissa Best, Romain Poulles and Kenneth Hay. Photo: Luxemburger Wort Once the pitching was over, the expert panel consisting of  Romain Poulles from Luxembourg’s EcoInnovation Cluster, Kenneth Hay from LMDF and Larissa Best from Equilibre shared their thoughts on Luxembourg’s catalysts for change. “The foundation is there, we now need to stimulate more business,” said Romain Poulles, while Larissa Best asked the audience about “what else can be done to bring more change”. Kenneth Hay also praised all presenters for their “amazing passion” and said that “if you can state in one sentence the problem you are trying to solve, then you will certainly find the solution.” “Money is important, think about how to generate money and then you can really make a social impact”, concluded Hay. The event on Tuesday night was born as an initiative of the Luxembourg Microfinance and Development Fund — financed to date more than 40,000 micro-entrepreneurs in 21 countries — and aimed at bringing companies together to create valuable social impact. “Innovative partnerships and diversity are at the heart of our fund. As one of the earlier players on Luxembourg’s impact scene, we now want to share our experiences with other players and learn more about other successful partnerships promoting social change,” said Kaspar Wansleben in a press release.

Cities will house 70 percent of the world’s population by 2050 and require urban infrastructure investment of at least $3.7 trillion per year. The only way to meet the challenges of soaring population growth and climate change is to build infrastructure that meets both social and environmental needs. “We must design and implement strategies that articulate the benefits of nature – economically, socially and as a critical piece of building future resilience,” argues Elizabeth Yee of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiatives. The city of El Paso, Texas, for example, is making the business case (with help from the consulting firm Earth Economics) for preserving and restoring its surrounding desert land. In Medellín, Colombia, early-warning alerts for potential natural disasters and “community risk management” can build social cohesion in crime-intense neighborhoods. In New York, Dutch engineering firm Arcadis is working with Rebuild by Design on a U-shaped flood protection zone around Manhattan that also provides parks and public spaces. Such landscapes can be more effective than traditional flood control measures. “Traditional models of conservation and regulation alone cannot catalyse the kind of systemic behavioural change that will renew our relationship with the environment,” Yee writes. “Rather than endlessly plugging proverbial holes in concrete walls, we can help nature synchronise with such economic needs.” This post originally appeared in ImpactAlpha’s daily newsletter. Get The Brief. Article published on ImpactAlpha’s website Photo credit: Rebuildbydesign.org

Beijing-based startup Alesca Life is democratizing access to fresh food by creating solutions that enable anyone anywhere to grow the safest, healthiest, and freshest produce in the most efficient way possible. Their automated indoor food production system is currently growing nutrient-dense produce using no pesticides, no soil, no sunlight, 20-25 times less water, fertilizer, and land compared to traditional farming practices. CEO Stuart Oda shares his thoughts on the necessity of evolving the modern agriculture framework to feed the globe’s ever-growing population. What experiences inspired you to start this company? I’ve traveled to over 40 countries and one of the most common challenges faced by emerging market countries was the access to highly nutritious, safe, fresh foods. The unpredictability of weather due to climate change and lack of access to critical resources and education makes food production and distribution and the stable supply of nutrition through fresh foods an enormous challenge. Also, fresh food logistics is essentially the movement of water and nutrition in a perishable, damageable form: incredibly energy intense and wasteful with both food and packaging. Many of the problems of the agricultural supply chain can be overcome by removing the key variables of present day agriculture: weather, logistics, and land.   Finally, the environmental degradation associated with agriculture is quite alarming. When I was an investment banker in Tokyo, someone I greatly respected always reused printouts until the white on the paper was almost gone. Her explanation was simple, “I don’t want my grandchildren to have to visit a museum to see what a tree looks like.” Agriculture must become a more environmentally friendly practice to ensure that future generations do not inherit a heavily polluted planet. Alesca Life was born out of the frustration of an archaic method of food production to create a more sustainable alternative to feed our current and future population. Why solve the issues you’re trying to solve? The world will face a number of significant challenges in the coming decades, including rapid population growth and urbanization, higher food distribution inequality and waste, environmental degradation, and natural resource depletion. In developing countries, there is the additional problem of poor food quality and safety. Also, as the sharing economy and automation grows, the most basic of urban infrastructure and human capital will become idle or underutilized. A solution to these challenges will be critical for global social, economic, and environmental development.   Why is your solution unique? Alesca Life designs and builds turn-key farming solutions that enable anyone in any environment to produce safe and healthy produce locally. We have several hardware form factors that enable pesticide-free food production at any scale, and we coupled it with a cloud-based operational management system that enables complete production data transparency and supply chain traceability. The agricultural industry has traditionally been additive: more chemicals, more water, more logistics, more land. Alesca Life’s philosophy is the exact opposite: food production utilizing minimal inputs on virtually no land. Also, our solution is looking to integrate an IT infrastructure that allows for supply chain transparency to end the production of “anonymous food” and by growing in a more consistent environment we want to end the concept of “ugly vegetables” which are some of the biggest contributors to poor food quality and high food waste.   What has been your company’s proudest moment been to date? For the founders, completing our hand-built shipping container farm and commencing fresh vegetable production was a moment of incredible pride. For the team, installing our first indoor food production system into Swire Hotels for the onsite production of fresh wheatgrass was one of our collective highlights. My personal proudest moment was when, following a visit to our urban container farm, a young child told us that he wanted to be an urban farmer when he grew up. What do you hope the world will look like as a result of your work? Our team hopes that the integration of food production as one of the core functions of urban environments will help to create more resilient, sustainable, and beautiful cities for urban citizens. Also, if the extension of our technology can impact food production in space (outer space), it would be an incredibly exciting future. Article originally published in Unreasonable website

At an academic conference last year on the history of political and social legitimacy of business, Open University Professor Janette Rutterford noted that among the investors she had been researching, “a number were making ‘philanthropic investments.’” She went on to describe a way to invest in the development of social housing—that is, to make a financial return while improving the living conditions of the working poor. It sounded like an example of impact investing, arguably a 21st-century innovation. However, she was speaking about model dwellings companies (MDCs), which arose in the UK in the latter half of the 19th century. Were MDCs an early example of impact investing? And could our examination of them inform and support the growth of this “new” investment approach? The context By the mid-19th century, the industrial revolution was booming in England. Workers were flocking to the cities, but living conditions were miserable. Overcrowding, disease, and “low morals” (according to the views of the time) were commonplace. Housing, in particular, was hard to find, poor quality, and unaffordable. Friedrich Engels had just written The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844) and, together with Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848). Their verdict: The industrial revolution’s rampant capitalism and the unfair distribution of wealth had made workers worse off. Sound familiar? “Dudley Street, Seven Dials” illustration by Gustave Doré, from London: A Pilgrimage by William Blanchard Jerrold (Grant & Co, 1872). (Image courtesy of British Museum, Creative Commons) Model dwellings companies One remarkable response to the housing problem was the creation of MDCs. The mission of these private companies was “to build sanitary working-class dwellings that could be operated at a profit, thus becoming a viable financial prospect for socially minded investors.” Starting around 1841, MDCs—including East End Dwellings Company; the Artizans’, Labourers’ and General Dwellings Company; and the Peabody Trust (founded by American banker George Peabody)—began raising capital and building vast housing developments. One MDC, The Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes, stated its purpose as, “providing the labouring man with an increase of the comforts and conveniences of life, with full return to the capitalist.” Peabody Dwellings in Commercial Street, Spitalfields, London, from Illustrated London News, volume XLIII, July 18, 1863. (Image from Wikipedia, Public Domain) The Earl of Derby, a leading member of the Conservative Party, gave a speech in support of the private nature of MDCs in Liverpool in 1871, saying, “It is vitally essential that this work we now have in hand should be done by private enterprise. Either it will pay or it will not. If it will not—but that is a hypothesis I do not accept for an instant—it is no light matter to require the local governing body of the town to provide homes for the poor at less that their cost price.” By 1875, about 40 different MDCs in London and elsewhere in the UK had generated tens of thousands of housing units. Significant social impact The social impact of MDCs was undeniable. They achieved quite astonishing scale in a relatively short time. Historians S. D. Chapman and A.S. Wohl of Vassar reported: “In certain areas of London, especially in Westminster and the East End, the model dwellings companies did have great impact, and [they] were virtually the only large-scale builders of dwellings for the working men in these areas. In East Finsbury, for example, at the turn of the century, one-fifth of the population resided in blocks erected by model dwellings companies.” Other market-based, charitable, and early public interventions had not addressed the shortage of quality, accessible housing. According to LSE scholar Susannah Morris, “[MDCs], rather than more traditional forms of charity, represented the most significant contribution to the housing field in terms of both number of organizations established and their output.” An attractive philanthropic investment: “5 percent philanthropy” MDCs achieved this scale, because they worked both as an investment and a social intervention—for a time. In terms of investment, MDCs attracted significant interest from the wealthy—and, according to Rutterford, increasingly from a broader set of investors. By the end of the 19th century, MDCs had raised more than £40 million—the equivalent of about £49 billion (or $62 billion) today. They were based on a smart business model that produced a consistent, guaranteed return backed by predictable rents and the underlying real estate assets. National Model Dwellings Company Prospectus, The Economist, March 26, 1881. (Image courtesy of Google Books) Remarkably, MDCs often produced returns that were competitive with or even exceeded similar investments. Many MDCs guaranteed a return of about 5 percent annually. This was better than most other low-risk vehicles, even the most prevalent investment of the time: UK government-issued consolidated bonds, or “consols,” yielded about 3 percent in the latter part of the 19th century. Thus MDCs began to be known as “five per cent philanthropy,” an expression that perfectly reflected their dual social and financial nature. The decline of MDCs MDCs were not universally celebrated. They increasingly came under criticism from social advocates for housing only the labour aristocracy and ignoring the needs of the extreme poor. Some critics resented them as “the embodiment of everything that is cheap and nasty.”  Engels and Marx would likely have thought of them as mechanisms for reinforcing the inequities of an already flawed system. After about 1875, the movement slowly faded. Researchers mention a number of factors; stiffening building regulations raised costs and complicated design, siting, and construction. MDCs also faced more and more competition from large-scale municipal housing, and similar projects funded partially or completely by philanthropy. All of these changes made it more difficult to keep rents accessible to the “industrious classes” and generate a strong return for investors. The scale of the problem simply outstripped the solution. MDCs continued to spring up into the early- and mid-20th century, but they tended to be smaller, and generally depended on subsidies through philanthropy or other concessionary returns. Some MDC developments still exist and offer a range of housing options at and below-market rates, notably Peabody, which owns and operates more than 29,000 properties housing 80,000 people in London. Parnell House,

Vitargent believes that every person should have the information they need to make informed decisions about the products they purchase and consume. Their technology is not only enabling more widespread access to information, but it’s also pioneering the field of safety testing technology using medaka and zebrafish embryos – making animal testing a thing of the past. Jimmy Tao, CEO of Vitargent, shares how his company is working to allow millions of people to understand what ingredients wind up in their food or cosmetic products, so they have the ability to make safer and healthier decisions. What experience inspired you to start this company? My family is super health conscious; my mum used to only buy products labeled “organic” or “natural.” However, many of those products listed interesting ingredients with long, unknown chemical names, and she wanted to know what they were. Since I’m a fairly well educated person, she thought I should know what they were, but I constantly disappointed her. So, I started to bring those products to my chemist or pharmacist friends who I believed could tell me the answers with ease. Unfortunately, they all encountered the same frustration. Then, more and more food and product recalls and scandals popped up with even more unknown chemicals being added without detection by regulatory bodies. I realized there was an urgent need for a technology or platform to empower consumers with informed purchasing decisions and to help producers make safer products.   Why does this issue matter so much to you? Food safety is a global issue. Manufacturers are finding it difficult to source real, “natural” raw materials due to pollution. Over 100,000 manmade chemicals are being used basically everywhere without any of us knowing the potential hazard to human beings. Without proper regulation, how would we know how they affect us in the short and long term? Studies in public health will only be able to review this after decades have passed; we are no more than guinea pigs, and our bodies are the biggest source of “animal” testing for most consumer products. Not to mention, ruthless businessmen are adding these illegal, harmful chemicals that can’t be detected by traditional chemical analysis without knowing what targeted chemicals to test. This should matter to everyone, and we all should ask what we can do to make a change. Why is your solution unique? Our innovation takes over 10 years to be validated and refined. We are using pharmaceutical grade biotechnologies and the best experts in the field of toxicology to provide a smart testing solution. We hired the best IP lawyers to prepare both offensive and defensive patents together with trade secrets to protect our current and future business interest. This makes us shine in many international stages as featured showcase and earns us numerous awards and recognitions globally and locally. In the past 2 years, we focused on the B2B market and we are highly recognized by our business clients especially with their R&D department through double blind trial. However, given that our testing method isn’t the “regulatory” standard that usually takes several decades to get official approval, many big corporates don’t feel the urgency to apply our technology [to uncover information about their products]. Also, they worry about opening another pandora’s box by learning something they might not want to know. Big companies aren’t well prepared for this, even though food and product safety has become such a pressing social issue. In the coming 12 months, we will put a lot of effort into public education by introducing our product grading campaign with 21 selected topics including pet food, condom lubricants, coffee, dairy products, energy drinks and more. What has been your company’s proudest moment been to date? I always believe the best is yet to come, but I feel proud and fortunate to work on Vitargent, a company that has the privilege of empowering the lives of millions of consumers each and every day to choose safer products. What a blessing to have so many eminent leaders from all over the world to support us as shareholders and business and scientific advisors – spending their money, time and reputation to grow the company. We have a dedicated team who feels a sense of satisfaction beyond financial return. All of these things keep me going the extra mile to be a better leader. What do you hope the world will look like as a result of your work? Sounds cliché, but our innovation does make the world a better place. It’s a complete loop because it helps manufacturers produce safer products, then consumers have more and safer choices from the market, and by the end, all of those products go back into the environment at the end of their product life cycle. Safer products mean causing the least damage for Mother Nature. As long as we join hands with different stakeholders along the supply chain, we can truly create an inherently safe ecosystem where all parties benefit. This is not a dream – it’s something we’re actively working towards with our technologies. Article originally published in the Unreasonable website 

Scaling up social economy enterprises in South East Europe was an inspiring two days conference organized in April by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in cooperation with the European Commission and partner countries and organizations. The aim of the conference was to build the cooperation platform for development of the social economy in the South East Europe – Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria. Experiences were exchanged between different public and private organizations active in the area of social economy in the Region with the final aim to build the regional development strategy for the next mid-term period. Main points of discussion were promotion of the European values through the partnerships in social economy, promotion of social inclusion and jobs openings for vulnerable groups and building of regional network. The ultimate goal of the conference was to increase the participation of social enterprises in the IPA in order to strengthen their capacity for the use of the European structural and investment funds as available sources of financing the development of social economy. Renata Brkić Social Impact Investment Hub Professor Balthazar WBAF Commissioner for Croatia

Smallholder farmers have become the most important piece of the global agricultural system. Small farmers feed close to 80 percent of the total population in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and support the livelihoods of nearly 2 billion people worldwide. This community of farmers sit at a critical nexus between survival and global opportunity. With 500 million farm holdings in the developing world, smallholder farmers typically cultivate less than two hectares (4.4 acres) of land for subsistence and earn less than $2 per day. Most smallholder farmers farm out of necessity not opportunity. These are families who have few alternatives except to grow there own food and to sell whatever excess they can. Although smallholders dominate the production of cocoa and coffee, and play a key role in tea, bananas, and sugar, particularly in Africa, few have the luxury of participating in larger supply chains for cash crops. As these farmers already have access to land, the means of production, and a keen desire for more lucrative crops, marrying their needs with the increasing demand for food could not be more opportune. Global food demand is expected to grow at an astronomical rate – 59 to 98 percent by 2050. This intersection of supply and demand has not gone missed for both multinationals and local companies alike who are increasingly looking to smallholders as a sourcing option for their supply of agricultural commodities. Larger buyers of agricultural products have recognized the opportunity smallholder farmers offer to their supply chains. Programs and operating models such as Nando’s “Peri Peri Ethical Sourcing Initiative,” the Export Trading Group, as well as Unilever’s “ Livelihoods for Smallholder Farmers,” provide evidence that it is possible to both integrate smallholder farmers on commercially competitive terms while also making a sustainable impact on rural poverty. Although integrating smallholder farmers into large supply chains is opportunistic, it comes with multiple risks. These farmers typically have lower yields than commercial farms based on limited: technical expertise, working capital to invest in fertilizers, pest and disease control, and access to irrigation infrastructure. Additionally, smallholder farmers often have limited experience with the contractual obligations of cash crops or have little trust in commercial buyers based on prior experiences. These two factors lead to “side selling” where the farmers sell crops to buyers other than those contracted, which makes supply chain management more complex. Smallholders also offer a range of benefits to larger commercial buyers. When networked effectively, production can be scaled up and down with limited additional infrastructure and other related costs. They also offer the opportunity to impact rural poverty, enhance financial inclusion, and grow consumer markets. Additionally, in labor-intensive supply chains such as horticulture and higher quality grade and niche markets for fair trade, organic, or boutique markets, smallholder farmers can compete with larger suppliers. In order for smallholder farmers, particularly in Africa, to fill the increasing demand for food delivered via large supply chains both the risks must be minimized and the benefits enhanced. First and foremost large buyers have to recognize that purchasing from small farmers is not business as usual. These commercial buyers have to figure out mechanisms to aggregate these farmers to reduce the cost of logistics. This usually means working through cooperatives or collaboratively with other structures established by the public sector and NGO community. They must consider how to provide technical support to increase yields, access to micro loans for both the seasonal inputs (fertilizer, pest and disease control) and irrigation systems, and financial transactions outside the traditional banking system. They also need to offer a fixed price prior to planting and a guaranteed off take agreement, which allows the smallholder farmers to plan and have some security of income. Farming under any circumstances is a high risk endeavor. When it is undertaken by farmers who have no resilience to shocks or chronic stress, the consequences of failure are not simply financial, but food security, healthcare, education and housing. Smallholder farmers could very well be the only answer to feeding our increasing population, but just as importantly they offer the extraordinary opportunity to build an economy, which is inclusive in nature, where growth and prosperity are not the exclusive domain of the few. Article originally published in ImpactALPHA website

From Norway to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, big oil producers are becoming big backers of renewable-energy. Now, Nigeria has signed two agreements with solar developers to guarantee the payment risks for 50-megawatt and 70-megawatt solar farms. The oil and gas sector makes up 35 percent of Nigeria’s GDP and 90 percent of its exports. But unlike the population of the other oil producers, Nigeria’s 192 million people remain energy-poor. Nearly half the country lacks access to electricity (in comparison, Saudia Arabia and the UAE have 100 percent electrification rates). Nigeria’s total installed capacity is about 13-gigawatts, but less than one-third of that is actually functional. To accelerate Nigeria’s pace of development, one study estimates that 60-gigawatts of renewable capacity is needed. Nigeria’s so-called “put-call option agreements” are designed to spur solar development in the sun-rich country by placing payment risk for new power agreements onto Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance. Such guarantees are considered the key to unlocking solar projects worldwide. Now that costs have fallen dramatically, investors are worried that counterparties, such as utilities, won’t pay. The World Bank and others are experimenting with risk-reduction mechanisms that can make solar projects institutional grade (see, “Clean Energy Revolution Trumps Climate Skepticism at Global Climate Talks”). Late last year, Michael Eckhart, Citigroup’s global head of environmental finance and sustainability, told ImpactAlpha such guarantees “would unlock the global market instantly. Even Citi could loan.” This post originally appeared in ImpactAlpha’s daily newsletter. Get The Brief.

Semtive has created the world’s most innovative wind turbine: a cost-effective, compact, and extremely quiet device called the NEMOI, which can generate power for anyone, anywhere. The NEMOI is made of aircraft-grade aluminum and is guaranteed to produce power in the slightest breeze, yet it keeps working even in hurricane speed winds. In this Fireside Chat, Semtive CEO Ignacio Juarez dives into why his company feels free to set astronomically high goals, how a lack of funds actually turned into a competitive advantage, and why entrepreneurs from Argentina always make a plan b…and c, d, e, f… Watch the video here Video originally published in Unreasonable website 

This story has been adapted from the Ecosystem Marketplace Series “Of Milk and Money” Bernard Giraud spent the late 1990s encouraging Americans to invest in French companies as regional head of an organization called the Invest in France Agency. Today he’s encouraging large corporations to invest in smallholder farms across Africa, Asia, and Latin America as head of two entities called, collectively, the Livelihoods Funds. If all goes according to plan, his investors – which include household names like Mars, Michelin, and SAP – will have funneled €160 million into activities designed to help more than 230,000 small farms in Africa, Asia, and Latin America increase their yields while planting 130 million trees and improving the lives of more than three million people. What’s more, he believes, those investors will also make a profit. “We are not a philanthropy,” he says. “We are an investment fund.” And they’re not alone. Research by the Forest Trends Supply Change initiative shows more than 100 companies are engaging with smallholder farmers to slow deforestation, while research by Ecosystem Marketplace shows that impact investors put more than $8.2 billion into conservation projects from 2004 through 2015, mostly for sustainable farming and forestry. Most of those investors are buying farms, but the Livelihoods Funds are financing NGOs that help small farmers succeed, in the hope of sharing in that success. If the effort works, everybody wins, and if it doesn’t, then the investors – and not the farmers – take the hit. INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT | IISDBernard Giraud The Genesis The Livelihoods Funds trace their genesis to 1998, when Giraud left the Invest in France Agency to become director of sustainability for Danone Group, the world’s largest yogurt maker. There, he spearheaded a partnership between the company and the United Nations Ramsar Convention on Wetlands – making Danone the first private company to formally partner with a global environmental convention. A decade later, he brought the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) into the mix and launched the Danone Fund for Nature, which aimed to offset Danone’s greenhouse-gas emissions by restoring degraded mangroves – which are wooded coastal swamps, like Florida’s Everglades, that protect shorelines, shelter young fish, and absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Around the same time, environmental NGO VI Agroforestry – which we covered in the first and second installments of this series – began experimenting with carbon finance to see if it could help small farmers across Kenya improve their yields by strategically planting trees that nourish soil by pulling nitrogen from the air and infusing it into the ground, among other things. It was only a matter of time before the two organizations crossed paths “We first had conversations with VI more than five – maybe seven – years ago,” says Giraud, who also heads the Livelihoods Venture, which is a small group that advises the fund. “I remember [VI Agroforestry] came to a Livelihoods camp in India,” he says. “We were brainstorming about these practices.” By 2011, the brainstorming had yielded tangible results in the form of the world’s largest mangrove restoration project and VI Agroforestry’s massive expansion of agroforestry in Kenya. It also yielded a growing network of NGOs with deep expertise in sustainable agriculture but little appetite for the risks inherent in carbon markets. That got Giraud to thinking. “How can we, as a company, make finance available to support this effort at large scale?” he asked. WORLD AGROFORESTRY CENTREWangu Mutua The answer, he says, was obvious: “First, we need to invest up-front, because if we don’t take any risk, there is no way that small farmers can pre-invest by themselves,” he says. “Also, we need to support practices which are accessible and affordable for farmers.” He persuaded Danone to open the Fund for Nature to other investors and finance projects beyond mangroves. He also gave it a new name: the Livelihoods Carbon Fund, and spun it off as an independent entity. The First Livelihoods Fund The Livelihoods Carbon fund is designed to generate a modest return over time while also generating benefits for the common good. “For a farmer, better management at farm level brings more water in the dry season, so: more milk [for dairy farmers]!” Giraud says. “But the impact of sustainable farming practices at the watershed level has an impact on the whole population living downstream.” The fund pooled €40 million from Danone and nine other investors and began looking for rural development programs that could generate carbon offsets – either by planting trees, switching to clean-burning cook stoves, or simply empowering farmers with more efficient practices. When it found one which delivered tangible and scalable results, it would offer to provide up-front financing in exchange for carbon credits down the road. In Guatemala, for example, it is investing €2.4 million in tree nurseries, training, and monitoring for local NGO Fundaeco to plant four million commercial trees such as citrus, coffee, and cacao, as well as mahogany and cedar for sustainable timber. The fund hopes to make its money back by generating one million carbon credits for the carbon pulled from the atmosphere – credits that investors can either use to offset their own emissions or sell for a profit. Shortly after that project launched in 2013, Wangu Mutua of VI Agroforestry invited Giraud to VI’s project in Bungoma. “I was very impressed,” Giraud says. “They were able to replicate simple things at large scale.” And, Mutua told him, they wanted to expand to 30,000 farmers across the Mount Elgon region. Was he interested in investing? Article originally posted in the Huffington Post website

A Social Innovation Forum 2017 was organized in Belgrade on the 6th April 2017 by the Smart Kolektiv, EBRD and NESst. The forum gathered different stakeholders from the Region of Western Balkans, Croatia and Slovenia with the main purpose that the results of the mapping study of social enterprise ecosystems in Croatia and Western Balkans are presented to the participants. They were later discussed in the spirited networking sessions. From November 2016 to January 2017 NESsT (an international non-profit organization which invests in enterpreneurial solutions that lift people out of poverty in emerging market countries http://www.nesst.org/) conducted in-depth research about the social enterprise ecosystems in Croatia and six countries in the Western Balkans in order to map out the legal and policy environment, current stakeholders, the financial and non-financial support needs of social enterprises and the financing and capacity building options available to them. The study is the first comprehensive research of its kind, covering seven countires in the region: Albania, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. Its ultimate purpose is to inform key stakeholders in the region on what is the best way to move forward in order to strengthen social enterprise in the region. As a member of EBAN and WBAF, Social Impact Investment Hub Professor Balthazar took part in the Forum in order to get better insight in the mapping of the social enterprises and their developent stages in the Region. These data are of crucial importance for our organization because we are in the process of setting up a Social impact venture fund for Croatia and Western Balkans this year. Renata Brkić Social Impact Investment Hub Professor Balthazar WBAF Commissioner for Croatia

A crowd waits for a Bank of Africa branch to open in Madagascar, Oct 1, 2014 (Photo by Bruce Thomson) Creative Commons license via Flickr By Sunny Lewis PARIS, France, February 21, 2017 (Maximpact.com News) – Nineteen global banks and investors, worth a total of US$6.6 trillion in assets, have agreed on a set of standards for financing sustainable development framed as the first-ever Principles for Positive Impact Finance. On the last Monday in January, the set of four unpublished Positive Impact Principles was launched to provide a global framework for financiers and investors to analyze, monitor and disclose the social, environmental and economic impacts of the financial products and services they deliver. The Principles for Positive Impact Finance are a direct response to the challenge of financing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals . Adopted by the world’s governments in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all, each of the 17 SDGs has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. The principles are intended to provide a global framework for impact financing that applies across different business lines, including retail and wholesale lending, corporate and investment lending, and asset management. Principle One: Definition This principle is simple, “It’s a good idea to make a donation.“ Eric Usher, director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP-FI) looks at what it will cost to make the SDGs a reality. “Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals – the Global Program of Action to End the Poverty, fight climate change and protect the environment – should cost between $5 and $7 billion a year by 2030,” he said. “The Principles for Positive Impact Finance will change the situation,” said Usher. “They will allow us to direct hundreds of billions of dollars managed by banks and investors towards clean low-carbon emissions, benefiting everyone.“ The scope here is broad; this first principle covers loans of all kinds – corporate, retail, municipal, sovereign, inter-bank, project-related; bonds; equity; notes and credit-linked notes. In all these cases the positive impact of the financial activity should be defined. Principle Two: Frameworks Entities, whether financial or non-financial, need adequate processes, methodologies, and tools to identify and monitor the positive impact of the activities, projects, programs, and/or entities to be financed or invested in. They should implement specific processes, criteria and methodologies to identify positive impact. The Principles do not prescribe which methodologies and key performance indicators to use to identify, analyze and verify positive impact, instead they require that there be transparency and disclosure. Principle Three: Transparency Entities, financial or non-financial providing Positive Impact Finance should provide transparency and disclosure on the activities, projects, programs, and/or entities financed. The intended use of funds released via financial instruments and their positive contribution should be clearly marked on the corresponding documentation. Methodologies, key performance indicators and achieved impacts should be identified and disclosed. Principle Four: Assessment The assessment of positive impact should be based on the actual impacts achieved, this principle states. The assessment can be internally processed, or undertaken by qualified third parties such as audit research institutes and rating agencies. The principles require a holistic appraisal of positive and negative impacts on economic development, human well-being and the environment, this is what makes them innovative. “These principles are timely from the financial sector. They demonstrate the willingness of the financial resources to go beyond current practices and contribute to more sustainable development,” affirmed the French Minister of Economy and Finance Michel Sapin. “These principles should strengthen the cooperation between public and private actors in this field.“ The principles were developed by the Positive Impact Working Group, a group of UN Environment Finance Initiative banking and investment members, as part of the implementation of the roadmap outlined in the Positive Impact Manifesto released in October 2015. The Manifesto calls for a new, impact-based financing paradigm to bridge the gap in financing for sustainable development. As of January 1, 2017, the Positive Impact initiative is made up of the following members of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative: Australian Ethical, Banco Itaú, BNP Paribas, BMCE Bank of Africa, Caisse des Dépôts Group, Desjardins Group, First Rand, Hermes Investment Management, ING, Mirova, NedBank, Pax World, Piraeus Bank, SEB, Société Générale, Standard Bank, Triodos Bank, Westpac and YES Bank. Séverin Cabannes, deputy CEO of Société Générale, a founding member of the group, says there is urgency pushing this initiative along – the urgency of confronting what’s happening to the planet. “With global challenges such as climate change, population growth and resource scarcity accelerating, there is an increased urgency for the finance sector both to adapt and to help bring about the necessary changes in our economic and business models,” said Cabannes. “The Principles for Positive Impact Finance provide an ambitious yet practical framework by which we can take the broader angle view we need to meet the deeply complex and interconnected challenges of our time,” he said. Gérard Mestrallet, chairman of Paris EUROPLACE and chairman of the Board of the French multinational electric utility company ENGIE, views the principles as another tool in his problem-solving toolbox. They are “the tool that is needed to enable the business and finance community to work and innovate together, and to address the challenge of the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” he said. “The financial sector has already moved forward in that direction,” said Mestrallet, “and we hope that the principles as well as the Paris Green and Sustainable Finance Initiative we launched last year will help marking a new stage.” The UNEP-FI is a partnership between UN Environment and the global financial sector created after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro with a mission to promote sustainable finance. Over 200 financial institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UN Environment to understand today’s environmental challenges, why they matter to finance, and how to actively participate in addressing them. “The need to align capital markets to a two degree world is urgent and necessary,” said Fiona Reynolds, managing director of the Principles for Responsible Investment. “The

Today, Mexico ranks last in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for educational attainment. Recent policy improvements in the country now require mandatory full-time education for all children aged 4-15. However, Mexicans still spend the least amount of years in school relative to other OECD countries. The quality of that time is another story. According to David García Girón, co-founder and engineer of Learny Games, students in Mexico simply aren’t interested in study. “We believe that traditional methods are too archaic for the new generations,” he says. For previous generations, education centered on the concept of repetition — of doing the same thing over and over, and doing it right. “The world works very different now,” explains Garcia Girón. “But here in Mexico, education is very similar to what it was back then. Now, kids need to create connections and process information in their own ways. That’s what will help them in the future.” García Girón met Roberto Rogel when they started university. They discovered their mutual love of video games and decided to start making them together. Just before graduation, they submitted their project to a national business competition and ranked as top 10 finalists. Their prize included all of the financial and legal support needed to set up a business. But after spending time creating traditional video games, they realized they needed a change for the business to survive. Described as an “ah-ha moment,” García Girón and Rogel decided to create their first educational video aligned with the Secretariat of Public Education’s curriculum. Soon after, Learny Games took off. Through this work, García Girón and Rogel want to develop the principal tool for basic education in Mexico – and beyond – by improving education through the support of new technologies. “Passion led us down this track, where we could use to create a business and help other people,” says García Girón. “We are trying to improve education through a fun, video game-based platform.” The first iteration, called Learny Platform, covered four main subjects defined by the education secretary: basic mathematics, Spanish, geography, and history. In 2015, the team ran its first pilot project in a village in Puebla – the kind of environment where children from first to sixth grade all share the same classroom, and digital connectivity is nonexistent. With 70 students across three schools, the video games improved the students’ math scores by 30 percent. “During the pilot program, seeing the faces of the kids and how happy they were when we brought the games was a moment that confirmed we were doing the right thing,” says García Girón. After seeing and feeling that initial success, the team moved forward with developing new content by building a game specifically for people who suffer from cerebral palsy. Then, they created a game that explores the themes of art, biology of the human body, and finance – mostly for teenagers. According to García Girón, the mechanics differ depending on the game – some are simulations, some are drag and drop, and others have story elements. For example, in the finance game, users build and manage a city. They start by borrowing money from a bank to invest in new buildings. Then, at the end of the year, users have to create a financial strategy for the following year. The cool thing, says García Girón, is that users receive promo codes to redeem in real life as they progress through the game.   A snapshot of Learny’s finance game. Today, you can find and download all four games at both the Apple Store and Google Play at no cost. Learny Games’s business model focuses on securing NGOs as clients to reach exponentially more users. For example, the team secured a partnership with national organization UNETE, which specifically focuses on improving educational equity and quality in Mexico by introducing technology. Learny is installed on all of the tablets and computers they use in their programs. García Girón contends that UNETE’s network alone impacts 2.3 million primary school students in Mexico. So far, Learny believes they have reached nearly 5,000 students in over 30 schools. The team also made an agreement with World Vision to install the platform in some communities in Chiapas, growing their user base even more. “We have always imagined that these technologies will help students study on their own and not depend on teachers,” says García Girón. “Through this technology, students can motivate themselves to learn through gamification – and have fun doing it.” Article originally published here.

Social entrepreneurs using businesses to help tackle social problems are emerging across the globe but there is little data to see which countries are encouraging this growing sector. To fill this gap, the Thomson Reuters Foundation teamed up with Deutsche Bank, UnLtd and the Global Social Entrepreneurship Network to conduct the world’s first experts’ poll on the best countries for social entrepreneurs. Our findings highlight areas of strength and weakness in the world’s biggest economies, giving social entrepreneurs, policy makers and investors the research needed to further discuss, explore and pursue innovative ways of doing business for good. We also highlight the countries where women social entrepreneurs are performing best. Access the poll. Article originally published here.

Social entrepreneurs using businesses to help tackle social problems are emerging across the globe but there is little data to see which countries are encouraging this growing sector. To fill this gap, the Thomson Reuters Foundation teamed up with Deutsche Bank, UnLtd and the Global Social Entrepreneurship Network to conduct the world’s first experts’ poll on the best countries for social entrepreneurs. Our findings highlight areas of strength and weakness in the world’s biggest economies, giving social entrepreneurs, policy makers and investors the research needed to further discuss, explore and pursue innovative ways of doing business for good. We also highlight the countries where women social entrepreneurs are performing best. Access the poll. Article originally published here.

For very good reasons, more foundation leaders are taking steps to align their investments with their missions. It makes sense, especially for justice or environment funders concerned that the great majority of their institutions’ wealth is locked up and not helping, and possibly even inhibiting, their programs. After all, why would you be hyper-vigilant about where that annual 5 percent or so cut goes in the form of grants, as most funders are, and then be comparatively disengaged with investments? And yet, cracking the code of impact investing is clearly a big challenge. For starters, boards are extremely protective of their assets, for understandable reasons. Impact investing also requires certain skills or mindsets that program staff or investment teams often lack. And impact investing is still largely uncharted waters. This is evidenced by the fact that only a relatively small pool of funders and foundation assets are invested with their missions in mind. So it was exciting to see that the Surdna Foundation, a medium-sized, family-governed foundation prominent in social justice grantmaking, is not only carving out $100 million, or 10 percent, of its endowment for impact investing; it also released a report outlining how they got there. This is tough terrain, even for a pretty forward-thinking funder. In Surdna’s case, there’s a 13-person board, including eight members now representing the fourth and fifth generations of the Andrus family. I don’t know what your family is like… So it took a while to get there. The report states that they explored the idea back in the early 2000s, but didn’t find a compelling enough path. Some of that initial resistance lingered as they took another hard look in 2014. This was after they had realigned their mission back in 2008 to put a deeper focus on justice, reigniting board and staff interest in how they might put their assets to work, or at least make sure they weren’t inhibiting progress. They did a lot of expected things, like forming a working group and hiring consultants, and you can read about the entire process here. But a few things jumped out: • There was a big learning curve. “Early on, it could feel like we were lost in a field of corn. As you learn, the paths become clearer,” one working group member said. The process entailed a lot more education on basic finance than anticipated. • They started with program-related investments, or PRIs, which are closer to grants that seek a programmatic outcome, while often anticipating some kind of return as a secondary concern. This was a big step around 2013, and it happened as they were developing new grant strategies to coordinate efforts. • Rather than charging ahead for one outcome, the working group intentionally represented varying, passionate opinions on impact investing within the foundation. They made learning the first priority to “calm the waters.” Diverging opinions actually kept up momentum, and helped them gain full buy-in. • Values within the foundation diverged in ways they had not confronted before. It’s hard enough to agree on a mission and grantmaking strategy, but getting into impact investing dredged up fresh conflicts, particularly over divestment and negative screens, and investments in fossil fuels, nuclear power, fracking, guns and private prisons. Surdna is currently not one of the foundations that has committed to divesting from fossil fuel holdings. The foundation decided to table certain things like negative screens and shareholder engagement in the moment, which not everyone was happy about, but it kept things moving. • They got a lot of help. Not just from consultants, but they went to a lot of conferences and met separately with the McKnight Foundation, which had just undergone a similar process, carving out $200 million of its $2 billion endowment. So where did Surdna end up, and who’s benefitting? The $100 million will go to PRIs closely tied to grantmaking strategies, as well as mission-related investments, or MRIs, which may be more tangential, but align with the funder’s values while also delivering returns. Examples include a $5 million commitment to a venture capital fund that only invests in companies that promote social and environmental improvements, and a $700,000 loan to a community development financial institution in New York City that supports minority and women-owned contractors. Unlocking a foundation’s assets as a way to create change, frankly, sounds like a pain. But like many other institutions that go through the process, Surdna insists it was hugely valuable, and it’s just getting started. The foundation is also making grants to help expand the field itself. As one working group member put it, “Using only one of the lanes available to us is not taking full advantage of the opportunity of philanthropy.” Okay, so chalk up another step forward for impact investing in foundation land. Which funder is going to take the plunge next? Article originally published here.

Jessica Droste Yagan, Chief Executive Officer of Impact Engine. Photo by Andrew Collings If you’re looking for a respite from the daily parade of rancorous headlines and doomsday predictions, might I suggest dipping a toe in the world of social impact investing. I said “yes” to an invite to Impact Engine’s annual showcase the other day, and walked away thinking that what might have been a fleeting fancy seems to be taking root. Not only do companies keep popping up with the dual aim of fixing some social ill while at the same time banking cash, but the pool of investor money willing to stake them seems to be growing. Chicago-based Impact Engine’s community showcase used to be a feel-good rollout of a handful of startup pitches. But this year the event featured as many impact venture funds as startups. “In 2012 it would have been hard to find a whole line-up of impact funds,” Impact Engine CEO Jessica Droste Yagan said as she kicked off the event. Impact Engine started in 2011, the brainchild of Open Table founder Chuck Templeton. The idea was to help entrepreneurs build companies that can make money while solving a social problem. It offered mentorship and cash, in return for a piece of each company. It has now morphed into an early seed venture fund, with more than 30 companies in its portfolio.  Yagan, addressing the standing-room-only crowd of nearly 300 in downtown Chicago, said both goals of impact investing – doing good and making money – are essential for the model to work. “We’re looking at companies that can scale tremendously based on their technology, and produce market-rate financial returns,” she said. “Today more than ever we have to use all the tools at our disposal to create the world we want our children to live in. Capitalism is one of those tools.”  Funds featured at Impact Engine’s recent showcase were Ekistic Ventures, a $15 million seed fund looking for companies tackling urban problems; the Clean Energy Trust, an accelerator focusing on clean-tech startups; SLoFIG, a network of angel investors focusing on sustainable local food; Energy Foundry, which invests venture capital into early-stage energy and clean tech startups; and Further Fund, which works in the healthcare space. Six startups also presented at the event. Kaizen Health is a logistics platform that connects healthcare and transportation, aiming to improve patient outcomes and save money by reducing missed appointments. NovoMoto is working to provide clean, renewable, sustainable electricity to underserved communities in Africa. Local Foods connects local farms and vendors to build a network that supports local food systems. Advanced Diamond Technology turns natural gas into diamond material that can be used in industrial, electronic and medical applications. Resonance Medical is a medical device software company focused on cochlear implants and other  devices. Edovo offers tablet-based educational and rehabilitative programming aimed at reducing recidivism among jail and prison inmates. Article originally published in Forbes Website.

Article by Cheryl Heller. If we learned anything from the 2016 election (and I’m not yet sure we have), it’s that every single one of us is capable of believing only the version of truth we want to hear, and tuning out the views that threaten ours. Reality is suddenly an opinion, not a fact, and the passion with which people defend their divergent versions of it has reached the boiling point. This can include blindness to ugly truths, like corruption, lies, racism or misogyny – and it can also include what I have in the past called “breathing our own exhaust”: simply sitting in our comfortable echo chambers and telling each other how fabulous we are. What seems more urgent than ever is the need to rediscover a shared truth for our country again – a common reality upon which we can mostly agree, so that we can move on, for example, to fighting over what to do about climate change instead of arguing over whether it is simply a ruse invented by China. I’ve been working on my personal contribution to a common reality long before the last election, but it now seems even more important than it did before. It grew out of a conviction that social design is the best method for solving the seemingly intractable problems we face, and that we don’t yet have a concrete or evidence-based way to prove it. What seems more urgent than ever is the need to rediscover a shared truth for our country. We Need a Way to Measure Design Right now, big money and pioneering organizations on the front lines of all the wicked issues we’re battling, from climate change to poverty to food insecurity, are also placing major bets that design is the methodology that improves outcomes. But in this new territory, how does social innovation design work, really, and how do we know? We see evidence, but no one has undertaken a comprehensive effort to set standards for measuring it, so we can adapt it more broadly and scale it. Social design is the best method for solving the seemingly intractable problems we face. On January 24th in New York City, a group of diversely extraordinary funders, practitioners, corporations, designers, entrepreneurs and government employees will gather to compare best practices in measuring social design’s impact on human health. Here, at the very first Measured Summit, we will begin to coalesce around a way to codify social design. It’s important for a number of reasons: To understand, in a way that can be communicated broadly, what it is, how it works and how to make it better. To know when it’s most useful and how to best make the case for this approach over traditional methods. To establish and communicate standards. To find more aligned ways of working to improve outcomes. To concretize and teach techniques. To engage more practitioners and attract more participants and partners. To identify skills, mindsets, and tools in order to make them widely available. Why This Matters for Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs are creators, and the essential components of the creative process are: to have a vision; take honest stock of current reality; and then use the tension between current reality and vision as a map and a source of energy to get there. If the fidelity of our picture of current reality is warped, whatever we create will be as well. You can’t get somewhere else unless you know precisely where you are. You can’t get somewhere else unless you know precisely where you are.  Article originally posted here Read more

As Davos is underway, and we gather to discuss what is meant by “Responsive and Responsible Leadership”, we reflect on what our respective organizations are doing on action-oriented solutions. The Davos platform is an opportunity to challenge each other and our own institutions on how we might be able to maximize impact for the coming year. What is inspiring about Davos is that a range of leaders from different sectors take time out to focus on our biggest challenges.  One of those is addressing economic inequality and unemployment where public and private cooperation is necessary.  Companies are deeply interested in solutions that help them to be positive actors for change in society while also realizing strategic and financial objectives. This is the common denominator that binds our two initiatives together, the Global Apprenticeship Network (GAN) and the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC) funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, which work with committed companies responding to economic inequality and unemployment. Both platforms are powerful examples of public-private cooperation that leverage business leaders to commit to inclusive employment practices and provide training opportunities to poor and vulnerable people. Contributing to meaningful employment While the GISC is about companies intentionally promoting “impact sourcing as a hiring strategy to combat youth unemployment and support inclusive economic development, providing tangible benefits to business,”[1] the GAN’s overall goal is to “encourage and link business initiatives on skills and employment opportunities for youth – notably through apprenticeships.”[2] So what exactly is impact sourcing? “Impact sourcing in an inclusive employment practice through which companies in global supply chains – like most top multinationals today – intentionally hire and provide career development opportunities to people who otherwise would have limited prospects for formal employment.” And why do GAN Members insist that apprenticeship is the key to good jobs, high incomes and a better ROI for companies?  GAN Members would simply point out that the system just works. Looking at countries where apprenticeship is diversified into many sectors and forms part of the country’s tradition, youth unemployment rates are much lower. Inclusive hiring practices and apprenticeships are two pragmatic ways that leaders can contribute to reinvigorating the systems change necessary to ensure jobs for people and skills for business. Transformational change through public-private cooperation The main message from both initiatives is that it should not be only those with a college degree who are destined for success. Talent should come from all backgrounds, regardless of socioeconomic status and wealth. Inclusive hiring practices and apprenticeships are two pragmatic ways that leaders can contribute to reinvigorating the systems change necessary to ensure jobs for people and skills for business. Platforms such as the GAN and GISC, who host some of the world’s largest multinational corporations, are goldmines of industry know-how, with expansive geographic reach. They can, therefore, yield a considerable amount of influence on hiring practices, knowledge diffusion, and provision of decent jobs and skills to the world’s most vulnerable people. Public-private partnerships have recently made headway as we are more aware of the private sector’s power in tackling social issues. As an example, “the private sector is the main driver in the fight against poverty, providing 9 in 10 jobs.” [UNIDO IFC: Jobs Study, 2013] Join our purpose! Companies who join coalitions such as the GAN and GISC realize the potential of untapped talent and are willing to train, mould, and guide a diverse array of talent. By working together and joining a coalition, whether it be the GAN or the GISC, the results can be transformational. Learn more about the GAN and the GISC. [1] https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/about-us/news-media/launch-global-impact-sourcing-coalition-tackle-youth-unemployment-build-inclusive-economies/ [2] http://www.gan-global.org/why Reposted from The Rockefeller Foundation Article originally posted here

Article by Brittany Lane. Uwe Rolli was destined to work with waste. As a child growing up in Germany, he would routinely investigate the trash his mother took out and to her dismay, he would bring it back inside to play. As early as the late 1970s, Rolli started working in recycling with the German government, cleaning up highways and parking lots. However, it wasn’t until he moved to Mexico in the early nineties that he witnessed the magnitude of the problem. As a guide for German tourists in the southern part of Mexico, Rolli would drive around various picturesque towns and beaches with waste littered along the roads and sidewalks. Mexicans produce close to 40 million tons of municipal solid waste per year, landing the country as one of the top ten generators of municipal waste globally. The recycling rate, though, falls at just 3.3 percent. “Mexicans produce close to 40 million tons of municipal solid waste per year.“  “I realized I had to be an example of how to deal with waste and hope that people would follow me,” says Rolli. He started by spending several years working on the treatment of contaminated soil, dabbling in various technologies that ultimately failed. One day, Rolli’s son came home from school to notify him about a new kid in town. His father was German, and he worked in waste management. The sons set their fathers up for a meeting. Rolli learned that his new acquaintance, Oliver Hoffman, was working on a large project with the Yucatán state government to build the first recycling plant in the local capital of Mérida. Three hours of talking later, Rolli and Hoffman started devising plans to work together. Gammakat, co-founded by Rolli and Hoffman, turns waste products into solid fuels, called refuse-derived fuel (RDF) or synthetic diesel. Through contracts with municipalities or private companies, Gammakat receives the waste and sorts out the recyclable, organic substances. They produce the fuel using a waste converter technology, and then they sell it to cement and lime plants to replace traditional hydrocarbon-based fuels. “We don’t say that we don’t produce emissions and don’t contaminate – we do,” says Rolli. “But our fuels reduce [emissions] by 75 percent compared to hydrocarbon fuels. We’re still working toward zero emissions, but we’re starting here.” According to Rolli, with this technology, they can already eliminate 96 percent of the waste they receive by converting it to RDF. This means that for every 1,000 kilos of waste Gammakat receives, only 40 kilos remain once they have taken everything that’s usable for producing biofuel. Not only is this fuel more beneficial for the environment, but according to Rolli, it also helps the cement and lime plants reduce their production costs by 60 percent when they replace coal with biofuels. To date, one of Gammakat’s plants receives on average 850 tons of household waste every day. The team also plans to experiment with turning the waste into biofuel for aircrafts. One day, the Gammakat team hopes to get the remaining four percent of waste down to zero. Hardware behind part of the waste converter technology. Photo courtesy of Uwe Rolli. Yet their biggest challenge to date hasn’t been developing this technology, but rather gaining the trust of the Mexican people and investors. Thus, the two business partners spend a lot of their time building relationships with local municipalities – like the new government of Cozumel. Even though the island only produces 200 tons of waste daily, according to Rolli, it’s still expensive for them to ship it off to landfills on the mainland. Gammakat’s solution can ease this pain point by turning this burden into an opportunity. Currently, Gammakat works in two different plants designed by Hoffman, one in Mérida and the other in Cancún, where he serves as General Manager. Both Rolli and Hoffman focus heavily on studying what’s possible to produce from waste materials, as the composition of waste changes from year to year. “Mexico is one of the top ten generators of municipal waste globally, yet the recycling rate is just 3.3 percent.“  Moving forward, in addition to building more recycling plants, Rolli envisions turning a plant into an educational showroom. With this kind of facility, Gammakat could teach other companies and university students how this technology works and all of its potential for waste management and conversion. “If you work with waste, it’s a lifetime of learning,” explains Rolli. “If you want to know about waste, you have to live with it. You have to study it, you have to smell the waste, touch it, feel it, and you have to sleep in the waste so you get a good feeling of what it means and how to work with it.” For Rolli, the education surrounding recycling is more vital than ever. “[Our generation] has the responsibility to build something that manages this kind of waste,” says Rolli. “We don’t have time to put it in the hands of future generations. We have to fix it now.” Article originally posted here

In 2014, Daniel Epstein, founder and CEO of the Unreasonable Group, sent me a message on Facebook to inform me that Zoona had been selected for the inaugural Girl Effect Accelerator. I was not familiar with the work of Unreasonable and had never heard of the Girl Effect. Zoona is a money transfer and payments startup in Zambia, so naturally the question in my mind was: What did we have to do with girls? As it turns out, a lot. I knew nearly 50 percent of our agents are young women under the age of 25, but after doing some digging, I discovered so were more than 70 percent of the tellers working for our agents. I then zoomed in on an agent named Misozi Mkandiwire, who operates in Lusaka, and found out that despite being just 23 years old, she had grown her Zoona agent business to employ 15 young girls and turn over nearly one million dollars per month within a four-year period. I was flabbergasted. I promptly responded to Daniel’s message and set up a phone call. One billion women around the world are excluded from the formal financial system. A few months later, my colleague Lelemba Phiri and I went to California for a three-week accelerator program with nine other phenomenal entrepreneurial teams. We learned all about the Girl Effect and worked with mentors — some of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest — to grow our business and increase our impact on girls. Zoona has a unique ability to empower girls and young women like Misozi and her team of tellers by helping them increase their earnings to invest in their future. Also, as a payments company, we are focused on helping close the gender gap in financial access, which today excludes one billion women in the world from the formal financial system. At the end of the Girl Effect accelerator program, I had a brand new mission for Zoona: We would dedicate our business to helping communities thrive. “One of the best ways to reach women with new earning opportunities and financial services is through other women.”  We’re doing this through focusing our support to help young emerging entrepreneurs like Misozi build profitable enterprises that create jobs for other young women. And, we found out, one of the best ways to reach women with new earning opportunities and financial services is through other women. As the recent “A Buck Short” report shows, women tend to have more horizontal social networks compared to men, who often prefer to build vertical relationships with those of higher social standing who can offer them opportunities and new job connections. Women tend to build broad social networks with their peers, which can be extremely helpful in recruiting new agents and tellers. What have we done since the Girl Effect Accelerator? First, we set out to build an ecosystem of products and services that improved the financial health and wellbeing of women. We created the Z-Labs innovation team, which was tasked with understanding the real needs of financially excluded women to help us create and actively experiment with new financial products that better serve them. Next, we changed our agent selection and training processes to focus on recruiting women. This was particularly useful when we expanded into Malawi and set up a network of 400 agents — of which 60 percent are women. We started running a Girl Effect project in Zambia, where we deliberately started recruiting high potential young women from underprivileged communities between the ages of 18 and 22 to become part of our teller pipeline. Most of them had never used a computer before, but through the project, they were provided with basic computer literacy, specific training on how to transact using the Zoona platform, and other skills needed to become a successful teller. We then match them with agents who need tellers. The idea is for Zoona agents to employ these recruits as tellers and mentor them in the business until they are ready to become entrepreneurs themselves. “We established a policy that 50 percent of our team needs to be female.”  We also launched the social media campaign “Helping Communities Thrive,” which asked people from communities we operate in to nominate young women under the age of 35 who were benefiting their communities and to vote for their favorites. The campaign reached 500,000 people and more than 10,000 people engaged with it. It received massive media coverage in Zambia, and we awarded cash prizes to three young women, which could be used toward growing their community-building initiatives. At the Zoona offices, we doubled down on being a purpose-driven entrepreneurial business that walks the walk when it comes to providing growth opportunities for women. We have changed our recruiting processes, establishing a policy that 50 percent of our team needs to be female, a goal that has been already reached across most of the business. At the executive and board level, we have cultivated a good pipeline of talented women who want to join us and are working to get to the 50–50 ratio soon. It is still early in our journey. Our ambition is to improve the financial health and well-being of one billion people and to unleash emerging entrepreneurs to create one million jobs by 2025. We have no doubt that women play a key role in achieving these goals and fulfilling our mission of helping communities thrive. This article was originally published on Omidyar Network’s Medium. 

On 10 October the European Investment Fund held the first Impact Event in Luxembourg. The EIF material presented during the event regarding fundraising and impact measurement can be downloaded here: EIF 2016 Impact Event – Requirements and SIA – Introduction to Impact Metrics Additionally, information on 3 new tools under the EFSI Social Impact window can be viewed below: Under the umbrella of the Investment Plan for Europe, the European Commission, the EIB and the EIF have pooled together resources and further aligned their objectives for the implementation of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). Under EFSI, EIF provides financing for the benefit of more vulnerable entities within the EU ecosystem, encompassing micro, small and medium enterprises, social enterprises, social sector organisations and small mid-caps, in specific EU policy areas. Read more here. The Single EU Equity Financial Instrument supports European enterprises’ growth, research and innovation (R&I) from the early stage, including seed, up to expansion and growth stage. The Single EU Equity financial instrument is financially supported by Horizon 2020  and COSME (Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). Read more here. Source: EIF

On 28 September, EBAN Board Member and Impact Committee Chair, Hedda Pahlson-Moller (pictured in the middle), together with  Cécile Sevrain, Operational Manager at EIIC spoke during Amsterdam Capital Week at the Capital Impact event. The talk and panel discussion also included Anneke Sipkens (Doen), Warner Philips (Social Impact Ventures NL), Maarten de Jong (Oneplanetcrowd) and Stefan Lohuis (Rabobank), and was moderated by Tatiana Glad (Impact Hub Amsterdam). Amsterdam Capital Week took place on 26-30 September with a program of over 25 events, focusing on connecting all types of capital with both national and international startups and fast-growing scale-up companies. Kaline van Halder and Alexander Bongers of Crosswise Works, the producers of Capital Impact, made the following comment regarding the participation of EBAN Impact representatives in the event: “Hedda (Pahlson-Moller) and Cécile (Sevrain) from Tiime and the EBAN Impact Investing Committee were honored guests of Capital Impact, the flagship event on impact investing during Amsterdam Capital Week 2016. Firstly, they were just incredibly nice and very accessible. Next to that, we’d like to sincerely thank Hedda for her willingness to provide the audience some insight on what being a business angel is all about, as many business angels prefer to stay under the radar. Her approach to impact investing, as being value creation in its truest form, surely has inspired all delegates. Many were fascinated by her stories, which also had to do with her communication skills. She certainly is the expert, but she also knows how to package it. Long story short: truly inspiring person who’s doing truly inspiring stuff! Hopefully we can work alongside more often.” EIIC was honored to have participated in such a successful event and looks forward to being part of Amsterdam Capital Week again in the future.

For a year and through 20 countries, Europe Tomorrow team met the most inspiring social and environmental innovations of Europe. Here are the trends and the key insights of this social phenomenon. A book will be published by the end of 2016. It will be a restitution of the findings and a tool for advocacy and inspiration for the policy makers and politics. Socail-innovation-treds-EuropeTomorrow

“There’s a real hunger to understand impact investing. Everyone’s talking about it, saying, “I have to go speak to my boss about it and don’t know what to say”, David Banks, the head of ImpactAlpha was quoted in a recent study on impact investing education in the US and globally conducted by the Beeck Centre for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University. Existing learning opportunities do not meet market needs Many of the existing learning initiatives in the impact investing field focus on impact delivery organizations and social entrepreneurs only. Accelerators and investment ready programs, for example, help them meet the expectations of a growing number of investors exploring opportunities in this field. But what if part of the mismatch between demand and supply for impact capital was not only due to potential investees’ capacity constraints but also a lack of awareness, knowledge and skills on the side of investors and market intermediaries? In fact, Xavier de Souza Briggs of the Ford Foundation pointed to a significant gap on the supply side of the social investment market noting that there was “more investor appetite than […] investor preparedness” (Beeck report, 2016). An investor survey conducted by the Bertelsmann Foundation in 2015 found that asset owners lacked awareness as well as internal capacity to pursue an impact oriented investment strategy and identified a significant market gap of impact investment advisors and intermediaries with the required expertise and skills. For pioneer investors in the early days of impact investing, informal learning such as learning-by-doing, reading reports, following the industry events and networking with peers used to be the main source of learning. With the field maturing we see a range of formal learning opportunities emerging in the past years. This includes major industry conferences and events, customized learning opportunities and technical assistance for a specific target audience; research, trainings and webinars by academic institutions, non-profits and practioners institutions; fellowship opportunities and secondments as well as toolkits, best practice case studies and practioners research. However, a closer look confirms that what we need to think beyond what is out there both in terms of what kind of learning, to whom and how it is offered. Expand education in Europe and emerging countries In Europe, there are only few public, international learning initiatives for professionals and investors such as the Oxford Impact Investing Executive Program in the United Kingdom, the Centre for Social Investments at Heidelberg University in Germany and Finance for Change at the Impact Hub Berlin. In addition, the European Venture Philanthropy Association EVPA in Brussels offers trainings, research, events and peer learning for both members and non-members.In a few selected emerging country hubs such as Kenya, South Africa, India or LATAM countries a growing number of education initiatives target investors, fund managers and other financial practitioners often thanks to the direct or indirect support by development agencies such as USAID and DFID and a few market builders (e.g. ANDE trainings). Most of the existing learning initiatives in this field however, are still based in the US or UK using the respective country context as the main point of reference for any learning initiative. Address the content gap An increasing number of webinars, written material, conferences and 101 learning opportunities inspire and introduce newcomers to the field. Some complain, however, about the lack of consistency in the existing material, the confusion created by varying views on the same issues depending on the source of content as well as the superficiality of information provided. In fact, little content is available for those seeking in-depth knowledge to dissect what happens on the ground in actual deals. Guidance is also need for mainstream investors on how to apply traditional financial practice to impact investments including on exits, deal structuring, pricing or portfolio diversification and guidance to social and public investors on how to carry out due diligence and assess the financial potential of investees. A few players have published detailed experience and structures of investment mechanism such as hybrid finance, pay for success models, crowdfunding or community and place based investing (see case studies on hybrid finance by the German Financial Agency for Social Entrepreneurship FASE or guidance material on Social Impact Bonds by the UK Government) but practical interactive education on specific financial mechanism as well as sector specific instruments are still limited. The field also needs a broader understanding on mechanism for financing and supporting social innovation and systems change; on blended finance structures or on lean and integrated application of outcome measurement methods to just name a few. Integrate development of leadership skills in learning initiatives Learning in the social impact investing field is as much about personal and collective leadership development as it is about technical skills. Many investors and intermediaries are driven to this field at an infliction point in their personal and professional lives looking for their role in the emerging impact investing ecosystem and how they may use their financial, human and social capital for the common good. Furthermore, the cross-sectoral and innovative nature of the impact investing field needs leaders, who are able to bridge divides and “translate” between different partners and who have learned the art of leading collectively. The challenge for designers of learning initiatives here is to apply and link individual and collective leadership development tools to the social investment context. The Finance Innovation Lab in London, for example, founded by individuals from WWF UK and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales uses innovative leadership approaches and system thinking to build a financial system that serves people and planet. The Finance Innovation Labs at the Milken Institute regularly assembles a multidisciplinary group of investors, industry experts and public officials to tackle a specific financing or policy question. Don’t overlook intermediaries and government Players that may potentially have a high impact on scaling the impact investing field include lawyers and accountants, investment advisors and banks as well as rating agencies and market researchers. So far, there are few programs that consider the specific needs of these important eco-system players (see for example the legal

Findings suggest that – in certain market segments – investors might not need to expect lower returns as a tradeoff for impact PHILADELPHIA, PA – The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania announced on 7 October 2015 the release of a new report, “Great Expectations: Mission Preservation and Financial Performance in Impact Investments.” The new study provides an objective, rigorous look at two of the most important aspects of impact investing: financial returns and long-term impact. Specifically, the study explores the widespread assumption that impact investing private equity funds cannot achieve market-rate financial performance. The report’s findings suggest that – in certain market segments – investors might not need to expect lower returns as a tradeoff for social impact. Impact investing is an investment approach that intentionally seeks to generate measurable social or environmental impact alongside a positive financial return.  According to the study’s authors, certain market segments of funds in the sample yield returns close to those of public market indices. The new study evaluated the financial performance of 53 impact investing private equity funds—representing 557 individual investments—relative to public market indices such as the Russell 2000 and other benchmark indexes. The study also sought to determine what one might expect to happen to a portfolio company’s social or environmental mission when its impact investors seek liquidity. In doing so, the study acts as a key reference point for investors seeking to compare impact investing to other asset classes and investment options. The research found that impact funds in the sample that reported seeking market-rate return—which is only one segment of the broad spectrum of impact funds—demonstrated that they can achieve results comparable to market indices. The Wharton study marks one of the most rigorous and data-driven approaches to addressing this gap—employing a research methodology consistent with market analysis in other industries but rarely seen for impact investing. The research was supervised by two Wharton finance professors David Musto and Chris Geczy, and authored by the Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII). “Our research fills a near-void of rigorous analysis of private investment and social impact outcomes and most importantly the link between the ideals of doing well and doing good,” says Prof. Geczy. “The study examines the tension between profits and purpose, also bringing to bear analyses characterizing relative performance as well as statistical certainty about the result.  It represents an exciting initial advancement in our ongoing social impact research agenda.” The data collection effort was catalyzed by the Skopos Impact Fund, a global investment fund that aims to promote human dignity and social justice through impact investing. EMPEA, an independent nonprofit organization for private capital in emerging markets, was a collaborator in the project and recruited funds from their global membership to provide data to the study. EMPEA’s President and CEO, Robert van Zwieten, said the organization was “committed to providing members with authoritative intelligence—backed up with verifiable data—so they may successfully navigate the impact industry as well as other innovative markets.” In order to further understand issues such as impact investing financial performance and mission persistence, researchers at WSII intend to continue the project over many years to come. “As a research institution, we recognize the need for more rigorous data collection and analysis across this nuanced field, particularly on social outcomes” says Jacob Gray, Senior Director at WSII.  “For instance, the industry includes distinct market segments with very different social and financial value propositions. One must be very careful not to generalize the performance of the market-rate seeking segment of funds that we studied to the entire, multi-dimensional industry.” Read the report: great-expectations-mission-preservation-and-financial-performance-in-impact-investing Reposted from: University of Pennsylvania

On 18 June 2014, the Sierra Club released a report – Clean Energy Services For All (CES4All) — analyzing the future growth of the booming global off-grid solar market. According to CES4All, catalyzing the off-grid clean energy markets can help provide energy access for the 1.3 billion people around the world currently living without electricity while simultaneously creating a $12 billion annual market by 2030. “Our findings underscore just how large an influence this fast-growing clean energy market can have on global energy poverty. More importantly, our report emphasizes the need for international institutions, like the World Bank, to put their money where their mouth is by providing the investments required to spur this solar energy revolution,” said Justin Guay, Associate Director of the Sierra Club’s International Climate Program. The report also finds that, in order to support and foster this market and ultimately end energy poverty, international financial institutions must not only fulfill their stated commitments to supporting clean energy but also provide adequate funding quickly,over the next two to three years. By expanding solar power to those living beyond the energy grid, investments from international financial institutions — like the World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the African Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank — will be able to power life-changing interventions such as mobile phone charging, televisions, fans, and lighting. These initial interventions will ultimately help build a fundamentally different, distributed, and democratic power system for those currently living in energy poverty. This innovativation will, in turn, prioritize putting power in the hands of people today and allow them to move up the energy ladder rather than wait for decades for an energy grid that may or may not ever arrive. And not only is off-grid energy access possible, this report shows its already starting to become a reality. Seventy-five percent of new mobile connections come from these emerging markets, creating a demand for more electricity in rural off-grid areas. By using existing mobile phone access, off-grid companies are able to tap in to mobile money platforms to lower costs and increase access for payments to even the most remote of customers. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of cell phone towers that have been built off the grid are now providing access to “community power” for local people. This advancement isn’t just restricted to one geographic area either. In Bangladesh, 80,000 solar home systems are being installed each month, while in sub-Saharan Africa, the off-grid solar market has grown by 95 percent. With the support of major financial institutions, like the World Bank, these numbers can continue to grow and clean energy access will be achieved by all. The report was co-authored by Evan Mills of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Stewart Craine of Village Infrastructure Angels, and Justin Guay of the Sierra Club. Read the full report here. Originally posted on the Sierra Club website.

It is no secret, I’m a firm believer that impact investing is a movement that is taking off and here to stay. In the U.S. and around the world we’ve seen segments of the market start to move from informed, to educated, to activated. We’ve seen private capital unleashed with a focus on impact across sectors, geographies and asset classes. As an investor and a philanthropist, I’m encouraged by the good news I’ve seen, highlighting growth in the number of successful social enterprises. But even as we celebrate the major milestones we’ve achieved in impact investing, it’s important to remember that these are still the early days of impact investing and we have to pay attention to the critiques from skeptics. But first, let’s be clear on what is meant by impact investing. The definition we use at the Case Foundation is the one developed by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) — the closest thing the field has to a trade association. “Impact investments are investments made into companies, organizations and funds with the intention to generate measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.” At the Case Foundation, we work hard at being active listeners in order to be better advocates for change. And as we continue efforts to take the impact investing movement into the mainstream, I want to review some of the myths and skeptical perceptions that we’re hearing, which may be posing barriers to taking impact investing to the next level. Myth #1: You need to sacrifice profit for purpose “It’s great to invest in companies that want to create social impact, but by taking away a sole focus on making a profit, aren’t you always making some concessions when it comes to returns?” It’s a common refrain I hear from skeptics who believe that impact investing can’t deliver strong financial returns, but increasingly reports are proving otherwise. For example, in 2015 the GIIN and Cambridge Associates released “The Impact Investing Benchmark,” which reveals that for the 51 private equity impact funds it was possible to perform not only at but above market rate returns. Also in 2015, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania released “Great Expectations,” demonstrating that among 53 global private equity impact funds, concessionary returns weren’t necessary in order to preserve their social or environmental purpose. The 2016 annual impact investor survey released by the GIIN, JPMorgan and the Impact Programme reveals the positive experience of the investors surveyed — 89% of respondents reported “financial performance in line with or better” than their expectations, and 99% reported impact performance “in line with or better than” expectations. Much like other types of investments, what we’re seeing with impact investing are returns that fall along a spectrum, with investments targeting a variety of financial and social outcomes, and an increasing evidence base showing you do not have to sacrifice profit for purpose. Additionally, impact companies are increasingly taking a place among the world’s most iconic brands — driven by both their financial performance and social impact. Strong brands have been built in this space, including Patagonia, Warby Parker and SolarCity to name a few. These brands represent a new generation of consumer companies that are demonstrating mission-focused approaches that include care and concern for humanity and/or for the well being of our planet, and in so doing, they are strongly attracting the next generation of consumers. Patagonia’s strong consumer appeal and brand recognition has led to double-digit annual growth, while Warby Parker, an online consumer retailer, has emerged as a next generation company whose valuation is considered to top $1 billion — a significant feat ahead of an “exit” such as an IPO or acquisition. Myth #2: Impact Investing is cannibalizing philanthropy With more foundations jumping into the fray, there has been some concern that impact investing will simply replace grantmaking, creating a gap in funding or potentially forcing nonprofits to take on a less than ideal operating structure to be investment- friendly. Some fear that impact investing is being viewed as a “silver bullet” when rather it is a new arrow in our quiver as we seek to champion all paths in our efforts toward social impact. We agree that foundations should be thoughtful and strategic as they incorporate this new tool into their community development, conservation, education or other charitable funding strategies to avoid the potential pitfalls of the “square peg round hole” problem or cannibalizing effects. It is important to recognize that estimates suggest that less than 1% of grant budgets are designated as impact investments — we have a long way to go before this important movement detracts considerably from the grantmaking among foundations. Our hope for the sector is that through effective integration, impact investments will work as a strong complement to, rather than a replacement for, other philanthropic tools through either mission related or program related investments (MRIs or PRIs). A November 2015 SSIR article, Philanthropy’s New Frontier — Impact Investing, provides examples of the unique role that foundations can play in effectively filling a funding gap for pioneering social enterprises that market-rate-seeking investors can’t meet and how those investments can align with programmatic strategy. Myth #3:The market is limited to “do gooders” — the serious, savvy players haven’t jumped in Perhaps the greatest single change that has driven the momentum of impact investing is the “broadening of the tent” in recent years, as world-class investors, respected financial institutions, private equity and venture funds have all jumped into the space. And most recently, significant policy changes pave the way for foundations and pension funds to play an increasing role. Indeed, we are truly seeing deal flow across a broad spectrum of asset classes and an equally broadening array of investor classes emerge. Add to this some world-class investors and respected institutions that have stepped into the game, including Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla, Marc Andreessen, BlackRock, Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs and more. And Nancy Pfund recently closed a new $400 million impact fund, the second fund for DBL Partners. As these well established investors and firms move in, impact investing is moving away from a niche

Over the last half decade in the trenches of impact investing, I have collected a few lessons learned: the opportunities, what’s going well, and what needs improvement. What I have learned is that marginal impact is better than not doing anything at all. We can’t underestimate the cost of inaction given the size and immediacy of the world’s problems. When people stop talking and “decide to do,” they often suffer from analysis paralysis. Many would-be impact investors are letting the drive for perfect be the enemy of good. Progress towards impact is better than no impact at all, as long as all parties involved are honest with each other, always learning and sharing their findings. A better way forward depends on a lot of at-bats, and to extend the analogy, we need a functional system in place for people to swing more times. We need funding mechanisms and support systems to allow a wide variety of learning to take place and be shared. Current fund structures prevent true iterative learning for both social enterprises as well as impact investors. Many would-be impact investors are letting the drive for perfect be the enemy of good. Yet we can’t underestimate the opportunity cost of inaction, given the size, speed, and immediacy of the world’s problems. The risk of no action is infinitely bigger than acting on only things that are cookie cutter, which impact investing is becoming defined by. So what should we do? Here are four changes I’d like to see take place in impact investment: 1. Define the problem Figure out what problem—specifically—each individual or organization is trying to solve. Spend lots of time exploring the problem. 2. Figure out the risk tolerance of the individual If they aren’t somewhat risk-tolerant, they are in the wrong place. 3. Figure out the game plan for learning-by-doing How can you test your hypotheses? How would you know if you are right? How would you know if you are wrong? How do you share what you learned? 4. Explore the use of risk capital for funding risk Program-related investments are by definition risk capital for which only less than 1% of foundation assets are used (0.05 of which is put into equity). If you don’t know about program-related investments, you should. Progress towards impact is better than no impact at all, as long as all parties are always sharing findings. So, it seems we’re willing to take risks. But to what end? How can impact investing go mainstream? Ross Baird Ross is the Executive Director of Village Capital and has worked with over 350 entrepreneurs in Village Capital cohorts using a pioneering peer investment model. Before launching Village Capital, he was at First Light Ventures and as an entrepreneur with four start-up ventures. Original article

Merida, Mexico — On his trip to Mexico last week, the Pope called for a more ethical capitalism. “The flow of capital cannot decide the flow and life of people,” he said during a packed mass in the border town of Juarez. A few thousand miles southeast, here in Merida, hundreds of investors, entrepreneurs and social justice advocates gathered to advance just such a financial system. The conversation at last week’s Latin America Impact Investing Forum, or FLII, tackled the challenge of redirecting capital towards businesses solving problems in the region’s poorest communities. What we’re doing is going to change financial markets. It’s going to begin to allocate resources not on the basis of just risk and return, but on risk, return and impact.Sir Ronald Cohen Now in its sixth year, the FLII is the largest impact investing gathering in Latin America. Discussions ranged from the potential of new social impact bonds and other pay-for-success models now popping up across Latin America; to the burgeoning interest of the region’s millennials trying to bring talent to the growing sector; to Brazil and Mexico’s entrance into the Global Impact Investing Steering Committee, the global body charged with promoting impact investing around the world and pushing for policy support in national markets. For Latin America, a big question is how much support governments and big institutions are prepared to give the growing sector. Sir Ronald Cohen, often regarded as “the father of British venture capital,” was in Mexico to support the homegrown movement. Cohen, who leads the Global Impact Investing Steering Committee, joined the conference to meet with impact investing leaders from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. Cohen told the crowd that impact investing represented a revolution, disrupting business, philanthropy, government and civil society as we know it. In the future, financial markets will consider impact, alongside risk and return. ImpactAlpha sat down with Cohen to discuss Latin America’s impact ecosystem, Wall Street’s role, and the threat of “rogue” impact investors. We were joined by Juan Del Cerro from Disruptivo.tv. ImpactAlpha: As you travel around the world to conferences like this, what’s the level of enthusiasm you are seeing for impact investment? Sir Ronald Cohen: The response has been great. Here at the Latin America Impact Investing Forum, for instance, there are people from more than 20 countries, all thoughtful, dynamic people, who’ve gone out of their way to come here. You realize this matters to a lot of people. And you can feel the atmosphere changing, country by country. Disruptivo.tv: Can you explain the role of Global Impact Investing Steering Group? Cohen: The U.K. government set up, on behalf of the G8, a task force to catalyze the global impact investment market. It did this in 2013 and we published our report a year later. The feeling was that we should not just stop. But if we wanted to continue we needed to broaden the group beyond the task force countries, the G8. So we decided to created a Global Steering Group, which would take the baton from the task force and push the implementation of impact investment across the world. The question was how many countries we would accept as members, because there’s a limit to how many new members we could absorb. We said we’ll take five, and the criteria is you’ve got a functioning task force in your country. This shows you are serious about impact investment. So we had invitations to join. We picked five countries from those who applied – Mexico, Brazil, India, Israel and Portugal – where a lot is happening in the country and a task force exists. ImpactAlpha: Why was it important to add new members?  Cohen: So each country has a shot at becoming the leader in impact investing. It’s not like tech, where you need an ecosystem that is complicated to put together. There are social issues everywhere across the world and there are entrepreneurs everywhere across the world. We’ve just been in a discussion with Colombia about post-conflict issues. Colombia could well innovate in this area if the right people pick it up and put the effort behind it and from there it can spread to other countries in the world. The social issues differ and there are some things in common, so I’m interested in helping anybody serious who wants to try to get impact investing going in their country. So from here I’m going to Silicon Valley. Then I’m off to Washington D.C., where the Brooking Institute has a whole meeting scheduled with 250 people on social impact bonds. A couple of weeks later I’m going to India, I’m visiting three cities in India. And it’s all demand. Demand is pulling me rather than my having to go around pushing it. What interests me, is just as with tech, as you began to discover that tech can happen anywhere in the world–I mean the United States dominated it hands down but there were great software writers in Sweden and Finland and elsewhere. I think with social it’s going to be the same. If we want to improve people’s lives we have to do things at scale. It has to be global from the get-go and we have to think in terms of interventions that can be scalable. Which is why we’re thinking about very large outcomes funds for specific issues. ImpactAlpha: Will the outcomes fund be tied to the new Sustainable Development Goals? Cohen: Not necessarily. Because there are 17 goals, I’m not sure we can go all the way through them. But education clearly is a major, major way of improving people’s lives. If you can prevent someone from dropping out of school or university, it’s probably the single biggest influence you can have on how their life goes after that. So why I am going around all these different countries? Because all of these different countries have got people there that deserve to be helped and there are people who want to help them. Disruptivo.tv: What are a couple things that the rest of the world can learn from Latin America? Cohen: I think each country has its own ecosystem. When I went to visit Brazil, I

Interview to Uli Grabenwarter, Strategic Adviser of Stone Soup Consulting and Deputy Director – Equity Investments at the European Investment Fund. By Pilar Balet. Posted on February 23rd 2016 1. How do you see the social enterprises sector evolving not just in Europe, but the world? The social enterprises sector has come a long way over the last decade. It is now at a very decisive injunction point that will decide how it will move forward. On one hand, for the first time social enterprises are becoming aware of being targets of investment communities as investors move beyond the philanthropic space and use impact investing to scale the scope of their activities for doing good for society. On the other hand, we see that the societal issues that social enterprises typically deal with have evolved a lot in these ten years. Social enterprises today need to change gears, not only do something that is basically good, but reflect on how they can make the social value that they create tangible and scalable. Those are the two biggest challenges that these enterprises are facing today, and that is what is at the base of the debate linked not only to measuring, evidencing and monitoring impact, but also to how impact is priced in the market. 2. What would you say are the main opportunities and challenges in the sector at the moment? The opportunity is very clear and definite. Our socioeconomic system operates with assumptions that will not uphold in the future. One big element is linked to the State’s finances and how the public sector is going to fulfil its role as a welfare State.  Businesses across all sectors are facing more and more the issue of assessing sustainability as one of the factors of competitiveness. Competitiveness today is not only about the smartness of the product, but how you deal with resources that are vital for your business’ processes. It is also looking at how you deal with externalities and stakeholders. All those issues are today at the very core of successful businesses and impact investing. “Traditional companies can learn a great deal from social enterprises” Traditional companies can learn a great deal from social enterprises. Actually, social enterprises have a very odd business proposition, even strange from an investment point of view. They usually work towards solving a societal issue, which means that they seek to make disappear the reason why they exist. Thus, a succesful social enterprise will eliminate its business model reason of being. This might sound weird to investors at the beginning, but it is actually nothing else than what any business in today’s enterprise market environment needs to do. We are in a time where the most important feature for competitiveness is innovation. Social enterprises are bound to work at the edge of this because when they solve a societal issue they need to persist, continue and find the next issue and the solution that goes with it. Innovation is at the base of social enterprises and that is the big opportunity that we have. Not just for social enterprises, but also for society. 3. Coming down to Europe, it seems like the continent is evidencing the emergence of an ecosystem of social enterprises, incubators, accelerators and impact investors. Would you say it is something that will fade with fashion or is it here for good? It is definitely something fashionable at the moment, yes. It is one of the risks that you may want to refer to. Social enterprises are not just about feeling good, but also about the change that they bring about. The change that can be tangibly sensed by their stakeholders, but also scaled in relation to the problem that they want to tackle. Historically, social enterprises have frequently adopted a very limited area of action and of the impact they can create. They are often limited by the scale they can reach with the funding they can attract. That has been the case due to the blurred border between philanthropic investment and for profit investment. On the other side, even for-profit investors in social enterprises have so far not been challenging enough about scaling the impact that these businesses can achieve. We have social enterprises that grow locally, but stagnate at that level. We have incubators mushrooming everywhere and social venture funds trying to bring about that type of businesses. But there is still too little thought spent on how we can really make the value that they create tangible to society and also economically integrated, in the value that those companies have and the revenues that they generate. That is one of the big issues that we have to tackle today. 4. What is most innovative of the projects that the European Investment Fund is currently working with? What type or fields are creating the most social change? The EIF is an investor. We invest in social enterprises directly and indirectly. But the social change and innovation is actually carried out by the social entrepreneur and the social enterprise itself. It is not something we can praise us for. We haven’t been at the origin of the brilliant idea that solves the societal issue, we merely enable it to materialise through our funding.  When we invest in social enterprises, we in a way “buy” an idea and try to bring it forward. “the social change and innovation is actually carried out by the social entrepreneur and the social enterprise itself” However, we are innovative in the financing tools that we make available to social enterprises in order to scale their activities. We’ve done that with our first product, the fund of social venture funds, and have spread access to finance for companies across Europe. In addition, we are currently working on payment-by-results instruments that will give different types of social enterprises access to for profit investment capital. Besides, we are also looking at implementing a co-investment scheme that will give social business angels and social enterprises access to additional capital in order to increase their reach.

The lackluster performance of major markets and the depressing outlook in the Eurozone and North America have made high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and their families rethink their investment strategies and priorities. To counter the dip in traditional investment performance, those managing assets for HNWIs have looked to diversify their assets.  As a result, there is renewed investment interest and activity in the Eurozone and Asia Pacific.  New investment opportunities are also opening up in several countries in South America. At the same time, the Eurozone is showing signs of recovery.  The monetary and fiscal reforms instituted by several sovereign states, plus the infusion of funds from European Central Bank, have started to pay off. Recently, there has been an increased infusion of funds into real estate in the UK and other EU countries.  UK investment platform Cofunds reported that net inflows into the Investment Management Association haveincreased by more than 400 percent  in the past year. A Forbes report by Panos Mourdoukoutas noted, “Eurozone Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and credit marketsare coming back to life.  Last week, two Spanish REITs attracted strong investment interest, as they made their debut as publicly traded funds.” The Asia-Pacific region has also drawn the attention of the world’s wealthiest. An Asia Asset Management report states that, “Asia-Pacific’s wealthiest investors are moving much more of their money into direct investment opportunities and away from capital markets as they see greater opportunities in other businesses and real estate rather than equity and bond markets. In this respect, family offices in the region are following trends in Europe, where concern over some financial products has led many of them to embrace direct investing in a more concerted manner in the last few years.” There are many opportunities for direct investment in the Asia-Pacific Region outside of real estate.  It is home to more than 70 percent of the world’s population. Except for Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand,  the majority of countries in Asia are still underdeveloped, particularly in the infrastructure sector. To meet the demands of their large populations,  the energy sector will likely  top these developing countries’ agenda over the next five to ten years, including exploration of alternative and renewable energy resources like solar, driven by rising fuel costs. Another growth region is South America.  Like their counterparts in Asia, most countries in South America are also developing. While many investors avoided South American markets because of problems with political stability, recent reforms have made the region an interesting new landscape for foreign investors, with Brazil leading the pack. Overseas Property Mall have listed Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Peru and  Uruguay among South American countries with strong investment potentials. Also of interest is the fact that Brazil will host the Summer Olympics in 2016, generating a range of investment opportunities that are likely to cascade onto other neighboring countries mentioned in Overseas Property Mall’s list. Many analysts on Wall Street are bearish on the future of traditional US market products.  But global wealth managers can see growing opportunities in the UK and South America that can help balance the downturn in other sectors. Note: This article was  first published in the first issue of Family Offices Today. This article appeared at thesoholoft.com on November  9, 2015.

Judith Rodin President, The Rockefeller Foundation Margot Brandenburg Former Senior Associate Director Today, our new e-book hit the digital shelves, “The Power of Impact Investing: Putting Markets to Work for Profit and Global Good.” This e-book has been in the making since 2007, when the term “impact investing” was first coined at a convening hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation at our Bellagio Conference Center. Seven years later, we are proud that impact investments are punching bigger than the weight of those two words, providing a vibrant and viable option for investors looking to generate both financial return and make social or environmental impact. Here’s what we’ve learned along the way: 1. Impact investing is incredibly diverse. While all impact investing is united by a dual intent to generate both financial and social returns, the opportunities within the umbrella are vast. They include microfinance, affordable housing development, conservation and renewable energy finance and social impact bonds, to name just a few. And it varies by asset class, the investor’s risk tolerance and expectation of return, sector and geographical scope. Impact investments can take the form of equity, debt, cash deposits or another hybrid form. Investors are as diverse as impact investing itself—ranging from private bankers, institutional investors, board members of nonprofits, or the smaller-scale crowd-funders who represent an array of goals, appetite for risk, amount of capital to spare and time horizon. There is something for everyone. 2. Impact enterprises are at the heart of impact investing. Impact enterprises—more traditionally referred to as social enterprises—combine passion with good ideas. They are creating jobs, providing critical goods and services, and creating social and environmental benefits. Without these enterprises and other, non-enterprise destinations for capital—such community facilities and sustainably managed natural resources—impact investors could not translate their dollars into their desired impacts. For example, an impact investor who wanted to help improve sanitation in Africa could not do so much without enterprises, such as Ecotact, which developed a waterless toilet that is funded through modest user fees and local advertising. More work is needed to build a robust pipeline of impact enterprises to absorb the incoming capital. 3. Of all the support mechanisms needed for successful impact investing, impact rating and measurement systems are among the most critical. These systems not only help mission-focused investors and fund managers assess the social and environmental performance of their investments, but also enable impact enterprises to measure and improve their operations and services. Today, effective measurement systems such as the Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS) and theImpact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS) are leading the pack, but continued refinement of these tools will only increase investors’ confidence and enterprises’ performance. 4. Data on investments that fail are as valuable as positive track records. Many investments—even mainstream investments—have the potential to fail, and often do. Understandably, investors are often hesitant to share this kind of data. But the open sharing of information and lessons learned will help both investors and companies spend more time on scaling up models that work. 5. The universe for impact investing is global, as both a destination and source for impact capital.In its early years, impact investing gained its greatest momentum in North America and in parts of Europe, such as the United Kingdom. But recently, impact investing is gaining traction in South and Southeast Asia, India, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East where it can play a critical role in the continent’s continued economic and social development. 6. Governments play a critical role in the decisions of impact investors. It might not be immediately obvious to the average investor, but governments can make their lives easier or harder, depending on the kind of environment they create for impact investing. Some of the ways that governments can enable impact investing include introducing benefit corporation legislation, providing lower corporate income taxes for high-impact businesses, funding incubators, and making equity investments. 7. If impact investing becomes “business as usual,” the future will be a much different place. As far as impact investing has come in seven years, there is still more to do to make it the norm, and give everyday investors access to a range of investment products. But if we do, aspirational estimates suggest that impact investments could one day represent 1 percent of professionally managed global assets, channeling up to hundreds of billions of dollars towards solutions that can address some of our biggest problems, from poor health to climate change. We keep learning more about this exciting field every day—and our imaginations keep growing with every new possibility. Thank you to all who have been a part of this mutual learning over the last 7 years, and we hope you are as proud of this e-book and the progress it represents as we are. This article originally appeared here.

Natural resources, which include minerals, metals, oil or gas, occupy a central role in our everyday life. Minerals are essential to our economic development. The minerals, particularly the metals, have specific properties such as high strength, durability, conductor of heat and electricity and aesthetic appeal that endear them to the industries, and us. Figure 1, from the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICCM), shows the location of mining around the world from 1850 to present. At first, you can see a dramatic increase in the developed countries then a dramatic decline in recent years. The mining locations around the world shifted from developed to developing countries, starting mid 20th century. According to the statistics provided by ICCM, the demand for minerals grows once a country reaches the 30% urbanization mark and when per capita income reaches $5000 – $10 000 per year. Large countries (Brazil, China, India) have reached those benchmarks, thus, during the last couple of decades, the demand for minerals grew exponentially worldwide. The increased demand for metals and the increased value of most metals have resulted in a significant development of the mining industry, from US $214 billion in 2000 to US $644 billion in 2010. In addition, the ICCM report revealed that the top 3 metals mined are iron ore, gold and copper. Together, they account for 68 percent of the total value mined (US$ 854 billion) produced globally in 2011. The remaining 32 percent comprised nickel, phosphate rock, zinc, PGMs, diamonds and other metals. They may not be economically important, but they are strategically important in our daily living. World Mining by Region 1850-present Figure 1. Location of mining around the world, 1850-present. The demand for rare minerals on the global market is driven by technological advances. Products like microprocessors, sophisticated medical devices, aircraft engines, and all sorts of electric and electronic equipment depend on the extraction of such minerals. Mining was (and in many ways it still is) a tough industry from all points of view: risky and expensive for investors, hazardous for the workers and last, but not least, with a bad reputation among the ecologists. Work conditions improved drastically in the last decades, as well as environment protection standards, but the industry still has a rather bad public reputation. However, companies specialized in natural resources exploitation (mining for minerals included) are ready to change the face of this industry through crowdfunding. This type of public financing ensures easier access to the money, transparency, full disclosure of financial interests, technological advances and better protection for the environment. Crowdfunding recently became an option for companies that are trying to finance their mining-related projects and for accredited investors interested in this industry. A U.S. based tech startup, ExplorationFunder, launched in 2013 the world’s first crowdfunding platform that intends to connect accredited investors with junior mining firms. On a market averse to risk, early stage exploration and development mining companies are having an increasingly hard time finding investors – and this is where ExplorationFunder intervenes. Robert Leclerc, CEO and co-founder of ExplorationFunder, declared that he hopes the platform will become “The Facebook” for natural resources companies. KlondikeStrike Canada is the world’s first equity crowdfunding platform for mining investing, soon to be launched in 2014. Mining companies will be able to list their projects on the platform. Accredited investors have the opportunity to select the ones they are interested in. Not all companies that apply will be accepted and listed on the platform. KlondikeStrike Canada has advisers that will select only viable, trustworthy projects. The final approval for each project will come from investors. The crowdfunding platform’s promoters declared that the typical mining project will be between $500 and $10 million. Some companies managed to gather funds in record amount of time, for projects that are truly sci-fi. Planetary Resources, a mining company that intends to mine near-Earth asteroids, raised $1 million dollars on Kickstarter in just 20 days, in June 2013. The money will be used to send a telescope into space to search for potential asteroids suitable for mining. Although the days of mining on asteroids might be a little further down the road, the very fact that a startup company got so much public support for a project so ambitious says a lot about the huge opportunity provided by crowdfunding. A cutting-edge project such as the one proposed by Planetary Resources would have been nearly impossible to finance through conventional channels Case study: how crowdfunding could make a difference Rosia Montana is a small town located in Transylvania, in the middle of Romania, in an area very rich in gold and other mineral resources. Gold and other metals were extracted here since Roman times or before. During the last decade, the small town of Rosia Montana became the scene of a battle that involved a mining company, corrupt officials, unemployed miners and very active and vocal environmental activists. Gabriel Resources LTD, a Canadian TSX listed company, tried to push for the development of a controversial mining project that would have become Europe’s largest open-pit gold mine. The extraction process would have been based on cyanides, and 8 million ounces of gold and other rare metals would have been extracted over a period of 25 years. The project raised public suspicions right from the start: the company had no previous mining experience and was founded in Channel Island of Jersey, a well-known tax haven. The company obtained a very generous mining license from the Romanian government for that area, and the vast majority of the citizens suspect that the officials were corrupted by the company. The biggest concerns, however, were raised by the immense pond of cyanide infested sludge that would result from the mining project and the estimated 214 million tons of dust particles. While some of the locals, unemployed miners, were militating for the project, the vast majority of people living in that area were firmly against the project. In 2013 after some of the largest public manifestations seen by Romania

Coworking is often considered to be a conduit to address various needs faced by communities, whether that be the lack of affordable infrastructure, community and support. For today’s freelancers, entrepreneurs and creative thinkers, coworking spaces have been a godsend, helping individuals to avoid isolation and find success in their professional lives. Yet, aside from the professional benefits, the coworking concept has been also been considered by some to be a valuable tool in addressing social issues. Entrepreneurs, Vasili Sofiadellis and Paul Keursten, have realized the potential of utilizing coworking a social tool, and have recently announced their plans to open a coworking space that will cater to the needs of the countless individuals suffering from the current refugee crisis. In October of 2015, they travelled together to Lesvos in Greece, an area of Europe that has witnessed one of the greatest concentration of refugees, the majority of them fleeing from Syria. We spoke with Vasili about their experience in Lesvos and how they plan to move forward with this inspiring space. Hi, Vasili. Can you please tell us a bit about your (and Paul’s) experience with coworking and what led you ultimately travel to Lesvos? I am a South African Greek National, based in Cape Town, and I have been visiting the birthplace of my parents, Lesvos, every year for the past 10 years. I have my own company, from which I plan to launch a socially oriented health tech accelerator. Previously, I was running a PriceWaterhouseCoopers office within a local tech incubator and coworking space. In addition to my own projects, I am also a board member of the Silicon Cape Initiative, which is a not for profit entity focusing on supporting tech entrepreneurs. I am also a founding crew member of the StartupBoat, an initiative to find tech solutions for the refugee crisis. In 2015, We traveled to Greece twice with the goal of finding ways tosupport this crisis. My colleague, Dr. Paul Keursten is an entrepreneur and consultant, who places innovation, entrepreneurship and learning at the core of his work. Paul focuses on supporting others to fully develop and utilize their talents in order to achieve success and contribute to a better world. Together with Mark Seftel, Paul started OPEN, a collaborative workspace company that designs, builds and manages coworking and innovation spaces across South Africa. Paul’s work in OPEN builds on the experience he gained in Maliebaan45, launched in 2008, which was the first high-end, boutique coworking space in the Netherlands. At the 2015 Coworking Europe conference in Milan, you and Paul presented your idea to create a coworking space that would cater to refugees. Can you please tell us a bit about the concept, and also about some of the ideas that you came up with at the unconference? I work from Paul’s coworking space here in Cape Town, and upon returning from Greece, Paul and I discussed the refugee crisis. Paul was immediately keen to set up a coworking space in Lesvos through which we could create an enabling environment. At the unconference, we presented our idea to several representatives of the coworking community who are very interested in supporting our project. You cited that when you visited Lesvos you were inspired to start this project. What were some of the stories that you heard while visiting with refugees? Firstly, what stood out was how amazing these people were. Not one of them wanted to leave their homes, which really brings home the point that they had no choice in the matter. Secondly, many of them were highly educated and had their own financial independence. One man, an industrial engineer, shared his story with us, explaining that all he wanted was to be safe and to find his wife and daughter, whom he was forced to leave behind. He had moved twice while in Syria, but was ultimately forced to leave. We also met a man, and his three beautiful daughters, whose wife had stayed behind with the youngest child because he did not want to get onto a boat. All three of his daughters spoke English, and were studying at university. What were some specific needs that you discovered while meeting with refugees in Lesvos? The immediate needs were for wifi and electricity to charge their phones. They wanted to communicate with their loved ones. We notice that every refugee had a smartphone. Secondly, the biggest need was for people to recognize the tough road and many challenges that the refugees faced. It is important to acknowledge their bravery for undertaking this journey into the deep unknown! When these people arrive, they are celebrating with tears of joy for arriving safely in Europe and also the prospect for a better future. Many have lost not only all of their belongings, but also family members and loved ones. It was completely inspiring to see the sheer determination and optimism these individuals carry, as they have the attitude that the glass is always half full. After arriving on shore and celebrating, most refugees then walk for over 72 km to reach Mytilini. Many of them have no idea what awaits them or how they’re going to get there, but the one thing that they do know, is that they are going to get there no matter what (« there » being mostly Germany and Sweden). You mentioned that many of the refugees were entrepreneurs, what did they say were their biggest obstacles? My opinion of an entrepreneur is someone who perseveres in that which he believes in. This was not more evident than it was in the determination of these refugees. I have new-found respect for the Syrians of whom I was fortunate enough to meet. I am certain, that given half a chance to run a business, or any other opportunity, these people will succeed with flying colors! It is imperative for Europe not only embrace these people, but to also create an enabling environment for these inspiring people to integrate into communities and provide them with the opportunities through which

By David Drake All startups need capital to innovate, launch, scale and grow. For companies seeking additional financing for their working capital or to expand its operations but do not yet want to risk an IPO, using the newly approved Regulation A+ is a possible alternative.   Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. (BJICA) is one firm that was able to successfully raise $750,000 from 1800 ice cream lovers within 60 days by employing the mandates of the former Regulation A offering with all its  cumbersome procedures. New York Super Fudge Chunk from Ben & Jerry’s (Photo credit: www.benandjerrys.com.mx) One of the leading real estate #crowdfunding platforms, Fundrise, also used Regulation A  to raise funds for its first project in Washington DC called Maketto, an old building renovated and converted into a communal market where people converge and socialize as well. They purchased the building using their own money and raised $350,000 from 175 investors at $100 per share for the renovation. Its second Regulation A offering was for 906 H Street NE LLC in Washington DC. Fundrise raised $350,000 from the crowd, with $182,400 raised 2 days after offering went live. For its 3rd Regulation A offering in 2014, Fundrise chose the property at 1539 7th Street NW, Washington DC. Estimated project cost was $2 million, with $350,000 made available for general public investing  for as little as $100 per share. Ben Miller, co-founder and CEO of Fundrise, at Maketto, their first project funded through the old Regulation A (Photo credit: cnbc.com) Regulation A+ is an upgrade/improvement on Regulation A. With Reg A, $5 million can be raised in an offering from unaccredited investors, subject to state blue sky laws.  On the other hand, using Tier 2 (exempted from state blue sky law)  of Reg A+ companies can raise up to $50 million online as capital; and only $20 million under Tier 1, subject to blue sky law (reviews and fees) but will not file audited accounts with SEC. Firms undergo a cumbersome,  tiring and expensive process using Reg A rules.  With the newly enacted Reg A+, the firms have two options to choose from – the amount to be raised and how to go about it. Last 21 May 2015, experts and thought leaders on Regulation A+, Crowdfunding and the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, as well as entrepreneurs, investors, angels, heads of venture capital firms, and industry professionals converged in New York City in a Master Class to discuss the nuances and opportunities brought about by the newly approved Regulation A+. This event brought  together crowdfunding stakeholders who deliberated  the viability of the new regulation and how it can successfully be applied in raising up to $50 million in capital. Panel 1: Allen Shayanfekr, Scott Andersen, and Alysse Romero are panel speakers I moderated the first panel wherein we discussed “Why startups should not ignore Regulation A+”. Alysse Romero,  Investor Representative for American Homeowner Preservation LLC, Allen Shayanfekr, Co-Founder of Sharestates  and Scott Andersen,  FinLawyer and ConsultDA partner, were panelists. Scott Andersen said, “It is still expensive to invest using Regulation A+ in comparison to a Reg D offering.  Keep in mind only a handful of  lawyers in North America during the last five years have actually prepared an offering using Reg A, and now with its broader scope and possibilities as Reg A+, attorneys are estimating total costs for conducting an offering, including obtaining an audit and making periodic disclosures, will be in the $75,000 range.” Allen Shayanfekr stated that the event was a blast and very educational for people who weren’t familiar with Regulation A+. He said the two most important takeaways for him were: “First, if you can do a private offering rather than a public one, you should stick to the private. It’s cheaper, faster, and with fewer reporting requirements. Second, if you decide to do a public offering – be prepared for a long process and also make sure you have an anchor investor to legitimize your raise.” Alysee Romero added that “the most transparent way to raise capital is to have a following, people who connect with you, your business, and your service or product etc. To get someone to emotionally connect is the most simplistic way to sell. It is also imperative to make sure your employees and partners are also passionate about what service/product you are offering.” Joe Rubin, moderator for Panel 2, with 3 of the 4 speakers (from left to right) Brad Kayton, Katherine O’Neill, and Alan McGlade. Not in photo: Nick Jekogian. Panel 2: Nick Jekogian, Brad Kayton, Katherine O’Neill, and Alan McGlade Panel 2 discussed “How crowdfunding fits within the current Angel Investors and Venture Capital landscape”.  Joe Rubin, Director and Co-Founder of FundingPost, was the moderator, with panelists:  Alan McGlade, Managing Director of Digital Entertainment Ventures; Brad Kayton, Angel Investor of Launchpad; Katherine O’Neill, Executive Director of JumpStart New Jersey Angel Network and Nick Jekogian, Founder & CEO of  Signature Group Investments. Scott Purcell of Fund America (standing) moderated Panel 3 with me and Bruce Lipnick of Asset Alliance/Crowd Alliance (middle) as panel speakers. Not in photo: Brian Newman of Prodigy Network. The 3rd  Panel discussed the impact of Regulation A+ on real estate crowdfunding. Scott Purcell, CEO of FundAmerica, served as  moderator. Brian Newman, Director of Business Development in Prodigy Network, and Bruce Lipnick,  Chairman and CEO of Crowd Alliance and Asset Alliance, and I served as panelists.   Regulation A+, according to Scott Purcell, “has the potential to become a game-changer for medium sized businesses that need strategic capital to grow.” Purcell mentioned ways on how firms in the ecosystem like FundAmerica are helping to reduce these costs. Because of the technology involved in offering securities online, it is great to know that firms like FundAmerica are providing tools and services to make it as easy as possible for online platforms to serve their customers and be compliant to regulations. Nedo Bellucci’s triplex penthouse at 57th Street was filled with conference participants The entrepreneurs and investors found the insights from

by David Drake One of the outcomes of the 2008 global financial crisis was the “funding gap”. Banks were less willing to provide #loans and #investors moved #capital into more stable platforms. In general, the market tolerated less risk. In this new environment, raising capital became the greatest challenge for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). They needed new platforms. Enter #crowdfunding. While some players have been around since 2008, the huge crowdfunding wave crashed onto the market between 2012 and 2013, particularly in Europe and the U.S. As of April 2012, there were more than 450 crowdfunding websites worldwide. Given the relatively recent arrival of the crowdfunding wave to the market, its future iterations will be interesting to follow. Here are six waves to watch in crowdfunding. 1. Crowdfunding will continue to grow. Online crowdfunding platforms raised $2.7 billion in capital in 2012 with expectations that the number would reach $5 billion by 2013, according to a study from crowdfunding-focused research firm Massolution. And these figures will likely continue to rise. The World Bank commissioned a study and estimated that by 2025, the global crowdfunding market potential could be between $90 billion and $96 billion. This reveals that more entrepreneurs are turning to crowdfunding as a low pressure route for raising startup capital for their businesses. And while these figures take into account all crowdfunding models, the equity model could see a huge spike. Current equity crowdfunding rules by the SEC allows only participation from accredited investors. And with only 3 percent of the accredited investors in the U.S currently participating in startup investing, the prospect of the figure doubling is likely as more VCs embrace crowdfunding as a viable investment vehicle. 2. More industries will cut out the middle. Crowdfunding allows startup companies to connect easily with investors without going through a costly middle man. This trend is fast gaining traction in industries like real estate where there are many middlemen between entrepreneurs and prospective investors. For instance, real-estate agents, brokers and other intermediaries can significantly escalate the cost of executing projects. Some real estate development firms have decided to raise capital through crowdfunding to save on the cost of agent and broker fees. CEO Zeke Turner of Mainstreet Property Group raised about $1.8 million from accredited investors through its partnership with CrowdStreet, a crowdfunding platform. 3. Larger emphasis on social-media driven marketing. Because entrepreneurs are reaching out to people beyond their network, crowdfunding relies heavily on its “social edge” over more traditional marketing methods that cater to smaller group of investors. And startups are taking note, providing easier ways to engage with an expanded audience. New platforms, such as FundRazr, a social-media crowdfunding website has emerged to help generate traffic for an entrepreneur’s crowdfunding campaign. Among other features, FundRazr helps generate awareness for a crowdfunding campaign through a user’s social-media networks on sites like Facebook and Twitter. 4. More money will be invested in crowdfunding opportunities. Many large financial institutions, VCs and angel investors are moving assets into the equity crowdfunding wave. Some of them are even using their brokerages to advertise about crowdfunding opportunities to their investors, hoping to make money as advisors to those seeking investment counsel. The participation of these large brokerage firms in crowdfunding helps validate it as a new financial model. A recent study by crowdfunding platform ourcrowd reveals that of the 500,000 active angel investors in the world, 50,000 have invested through equity crowdfunding platforms. This trend helps entrepreneur gain access to big capital from top-notch investors they normally wouldn’t have been able to connect easily with. 5. Niche platforms will increase. While there are major crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo that cover various markets, there are niche platforms popping up for specific areas. By utilizing these platforms, startups now have a better chance at reaching their targeted audience. For instance, there are new platforms that specialize in areas like book publishing. Examples include Pentian and Pubslush that connect self-publishing authors with investors. Pentian affords average investors, who put in as low as $10, the opportunity to fund a book publishing project. In return, early supporters receive a signed copy and a share of the author’s royalty in the future. 6. Regulation A will become a bigger deal. Regulation A may serve as an alternative to equity crowdfunding provisions in 2014 and beyond. Regulation A allows smaller ventures (under $5 million) to avoid some of the more onerous financial reporting requirements until they amass greater profits. Already, Fundrise, a real-estate crowdfunding platform, is leading the way by leveraging on state laws which enables it to afford non-accredited investors the opportunity of investing as little as $100 into projects listed on its platform. This is good news for entrepreneurs interested in impact investment activities in specific communities of interest. Also, startup entrepreneurs who haven’t been able to raise capital for their businesses from high profile investors can now also do so easily from retail investors in their neighborhood. In addition, with the cap for amounts raised through a Regulation A offering currently placed at $5 million, this is an opportunity for early-stage entrepreneurs who have started setting their sights on expansion. Note: This article originally appeared on Entrepreneur with this link: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237789 Photo credit to good-wallpapers.com   David Drake is an early-stage equity expert and the founder and chairman of LDJ Capital, a New York City-based family office, and The Soho Loft Media Group – The Voice of Capital Formation – a global financial media company with three divisions: Victoria Global Corporate Communications, Times Impact Publications, and The Soho Loft Conferences. You can reach him directly at David@LDJCapital.com.

Bolstering the container-farming industry both locally and internationally, Hivos Food and Lifestyle Fund, based in the Hague, the Netherlands invested EUR 500,000.00 in a closed investment round in Cape Town-based container-farm construction business AgriLED. AgriLED manufactures and supplies container farms to smallholder farms, refugee camps and disaster agencies. It also makes market-leading full-spectrum LED Grow Lamps for controlled environment farms both locally and abroad and has had more than 2,000 tonnes of food grown under its lamps in the past year. This investment comes at a crucial time for both the Western Cape and South African agriculture economy and allows AgriLED to scale internationally through the Hivos Food and Lifestyle Fund footprint, to deploy its high-impact high-nutrition farms with the backing and expertise of a global impact team. Grown from the need of finding nutrition solutions that were both water- and space-smart in the drought-hit Western Cape in late-2017, Richard Lomax and Theo Pistorius started the business from their expertise in microbiology, remote sensing and electronic engineering. With insight from Richard’s family having worked with refugees, they developed LED Grow Lamps that produce better nutrition and taste while requiring less space and generating less heat than their pricier, foreign competitors. They mention, however, that the product development was always driven by their customers’ need for high-quality, nutritional food in extremely tough circumstances. This while still making sure the produce tastes great and the farms are economically viable for the suppliers, consumers and the producers. “Most refugee camps depend on very expensive donations to provide small amounts of fresh, nutritious food at great expense to their inhabitants, while fresh nutrition is almost impossible to find in disaster areas. After hundreds of customer interviews, we concluded that you need a low- cost, rapidly deployable, semi-permanent solution that would provide healthy, fresh, nutritious food from deployment day 1,” says Theo Pistorius, the managing director of AgriLED. “We also had to create a space for people to have something to do while in the camps or communities, as lack of activity was a mental killer. So we developed a hybrid-high-and-low-tech solution to grow the food even while in transit to the site, and provide sustainable employment in the communities where we deploy.” Jaap Spreeuwenberg, the Managing Director of Hivos Food and Lifestyle Fund, mentions that “AgriLED is the type of company that Hivos Food and Lifestyle Fund is looking for: its product delivers impact at its core, and when it scales it will increase both its profitability and impact in an exponential way. The containerized farm solutions increase food outputs and decrease costs substantially; an earn-back period between 24 and 36 months means buying its products is a rational solution for both the food entrepreneurs and the relief organisations that use the products to feed people in need.” He continues “The company is innovative and R&D-driven and sprung out of a practical solution to farm food in the drought-stricken Western Cape. Developed in the hardest of circumstances, it is a high quality, low-cost solution that can be of use all over the world. AgriLED will both help to provide healthy food for people in Southern Africa as well as provide an affordable and cheaper solution to provide vegetables, fruits and herbs in disaster areas and for refugees who would otherwise suffer from malnutrition, depend on dry-ration donations, or would not have food at all.” Asked about their choice in partner, Theo responds: “We specifically approached the Hivos Food & Lifestyle Fund, as we were looking for an impact-focused partner with whom we could walk a long-term path. They understand the core focus of the business and provide international scalability. Farm-to-fork and urban agriculture are growing trends in the world, and we found that South African technology doesn’t have to stand back in a growing global market. We can also service local businesses with high-quality products, that would help them supply local retailers and restaurants, and help their businesses grow. So, while helping local businesses win at farming sustainably, we also help those with the greatest need for food and skills-transfer, all around the world.” Focusing on farm-to-fork, impact-oriented equity investments in Southern Africa, specifically in the EUR 50,000.00 to EUR 500,000 bracket, Hivos Food & Lifestyle Fund provide a fitting partner to AgriLED’s global focus. AgriLED is based in Durbanville and can be visited at www.agriled.co.za.

By Devin Thorpe Omidyar Network, an impact investing pioneer, recently published a new report entitled “Frontier Capital” on impact investing. Given the attention that has been paid to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which parallels the structure of the Omidyar Network in some respects–critically allowing for both impact investing and traditional philanthropy–I’ve taken time with Paula Goldman, a report author and Senior Director, Global Lead for Impact Investing at Omidyar Network to get her take on the report. Goldman makes three key observations about impact investing for 2016: We’re at a tipping point for impact investing The next generation is more socially minded and will push for change Capital and technology will drive innovation in emerging markets Let’s take a look at each of these key issues through Goldman’s eyes. She notes, “Interest in impact investing is at an all-time high with champions including the Pope and Bill Gates. However, to date, the amount of capital being deployed to impact investing is still relatively small – constituting less than 0.1% of total capital markets today. In 2016, we will see interest in impact investing convert into exponentially more action — taking a significant leap forward from an ‘unorthodox’ idea to more mainstream.” She explains the parallels between the founding of Omidyar Network and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to help make that case that impact assets will grow dramatically. Ebay and Omidyar Network founder Pierre Omidyar recognized early in his journey as a philanthropist that addressing big social challenges would require the use of multiple assets. His experience at eBay was that markets, in particular, are an incredible tool for positive social impact. As a result, in 2004 he created Omidyar Network as both a traditional foundation and an LLC so that he could invest in the right changemaker, regardless of whether it is a for-profit or nonprofit. The recently announced Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is taking a similar hybrid approach in establishing an LLC that can make for-profit investments in addition to nonprofit grants. I expect others to follow suit in 2016 and beyond. Goldman looks at the demographics of “NextGens” to drive much of that shift. She notes, “There are incredible demographic shifts underway, including the impending $41T wealth transfer to ‘NextGens.’ We’re also seeing more young investors really drive impact investing. The next generation of investors is more globally aware and connected, viewing investing in a fundamentally different way. 67% of Millennials see investment decisions as a way to express social, political, or environmental values versus only 36% of Baby Boomers – nearly twice as many.” “For example, Millennial employees at BlackRock were a significant influence in the development of the company’s first impact investing fund. Major mainstream investment firms are responding to an increase in demand from Individual and institutional investors alike,” she adds. Goldman sees emerging markets as a place where impact investing and technology will come together to lead innovation. She explains: “2016 will be the year where entrepreneurs and investors leverage the ubiquity of smartphone technology and demographic shifts to fuel the next wave of innovation and impact in emerging markets. We’ve identified a $3 trillion opportunity just above the base of the pyramid to achieve both financial returns and social impact — what we’ve called “frontier capital,” which is early stage risk capital in emerging markets directed towards businesses that serve those earning between $2 and $8 daily. These people have greater purchasing power and a steadier income than the very bottom of the pyramid, but still benefit greatly from products and services that improve their lives. Companies like Lenddo and MicroEnsure are leveraging technology to create socially impactful businesses that directly serve this population, enabling them to scale more effectively and serve the bottom of the pyramid without subsidy. This article originally appeared on Forbes.

10 December 2015 – London and Washington DC LeapFrog Investments is set to receive up to $200m from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the OPIC Board of Directors announced today. This is the largest commitment in history to any impact fund manager. It also brings commitments to LeapFrog to over 1 billion USD, heralding the arrival of the first billion-dollar group dedicated to equity impact investing. LeapFrog plans to invest the capital in financial services and healthcare companies, in both Africa and emerging Asia. By focusing on these underserved markets, LeapFrog portfolio companies recorded a 60% average revenue growth last year, and now serve 51.8 million people. Elizabeth Littlefield, President and CEO of OPIC, said “LeapFrog’s innovative approach paired with sound commercial performance has helped spark high-impact business activity in emerging markets. Today millions more people across the developing world have access to financial tools, and tens of thousands have jobs because of fast-growing companies supported by LeapFrog. I look forward to the results of OPIC’s support to this exciting fund manager.” Leading US investors in LeapFrog’s funds to date include AIG, J.P. Morgan, MetLife, Prudential Financial, RGA, and TIAA-CREF. Global investors in LeapFrog include Alliance Trust, AXA, HESTA, Partner Re, Swiss Re, XL Catlin and Zurich. Many sophisticated investors are joining the move towards what LeapFrog terms “profit with purpose” investment strategies. U.S. pension plans and endowments in particular saw a recent shift in U.S. policy to enable them to consider a wider range of investment opportunities, combining financial reward and impact. “This commitment marks a transformative moment for impact investing,” said Dr. Andrew Kuper, Founder and CEO of LeapFrog. “OPIC’s vision and capital are a magnet for other leading institutions, revealing how to invest in companies that reach billions of underserved consumers. The greatest financial and social opportunity of our era is to serve these real needs, tapping vast new markets, and achieving profit with purpose.” The World Bank estimates that over 4 billion people worldwide are earning under $10 per day Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). This population is rising toward the middle class, but lacks access to essential financial tools and healthcare services. Recognizing the power of the private sector to serve these needs, development finance institutions including the EIB, IFC, FMO, KfW/ DEG and Proparco were all early investors in LeapFrog. OPIC’s historic commitment to LeapFrog marks a new level of recognition for the private sector as a source of social change. Since launching with President Clinton in 2009, LeapFrog has emphasized the need for scale and strong returns in impact investing. This article originally appeared on LeapFrog´s website.

By Bertil van Vugt, Inclusive Business Accelerator and Mirko Zuerker, SEED The growth and success of green and inclusive business models with high impact potential is central to the challenges many emerging economies are facing. These enterprises not only spur development and market growth, but also ensure the preservation of the very base of our global economy – environmental and social resources. Thus, these small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may just be the backbone of tomorrow’s global economy. The considerable political and economic momentum that has been built around social entrepreneurial activity is therefore not surprising. And yet, a lack of access to finance for SMEs – described as “one of the greater challenges” by theWorld Economic Forum – has not yet been sufficiently addressed. This financing gap is particularly problematic for social enterprises, as they not only find themselves stuck in the “missing middle” gap of the ‘post start up pre scale up’ phase with other SMEs, but moreover struggle to find an investor equally committed to their social mission. Hot topic Impact investing has become a hot topic and is increasingly being explored by the investor community. Numerous calls to action have spurred promising initiatives, but essential challenges remain: Firstly, high transaction costs prevent both investors and entrepreneurs from finding fruitful partnerships. Secondly, even promising new impact investing structures and vehicles still exclude a large group of investors and businesses focusing on early-stage ventures. Investors often associate impact investing with high risk, unaware that a large number of social enterprises are profitable and have great potential. Moreover, research, due diligence and monitoring costs are high for a single investor. Even where venture capital could be mobilized, many still fear exiting may be a problem, as potential buyers are hard to find – especially when investing in social enterprises. Struggle to find deals Similarly, investors struggle to identify matching and promising ventures. In this emerging global market with very diverse actors, the likelihood of finding a mission and finance product match through one-on-one pitches is especially low. Currently huge potential is lost, making the “missing middle” gap and lack of low-scale, globally accessible impact investment structures a considerable drain for growth. To tackle these issues initiatives for impact investor and entrepreneurial networks are valuable progress. Forums such as the Global Impact Investing Network, the Aspen Network, the Investors’ Circle and Toniic aggregate expertise, provide space to share knowledge, best practices and potential deals – mostly among investors, and offer valuable tools. Namely, the impact base online directory of investment vehicles, and a global dealflow platform. High barriers However, barriers to enter these organizations are high: be it in financing targets, membership fees or level of formalization. Financing targets of members exceed what many entrepreneurs can offer, despite their growth potential (which again showcases the “missing middle” gap). On the supply side, small actors who are just starting to consider becoming part of the impact investment space, may find the costs of joining these groups too high. This is certainly the case for small business ventures. Thus, existing structures are valuable, but not effective enough in facilitating much needed partnerships at scale. Both small investors and businesses are especially in need of stronger facilitation and yet thus far left out of impact investment networking we see thus far. Geographically, existing structures, though building global networks and branching out to some extent, are thus far largely centered in North America and Europe, leaving other potential areas largely untapped. Early stage finance and support Networks should spread wider globally, and above all, a low-cost, easy entrance network including both parties is needed. Serving as a knowledge, best practice and deal flow platform like existing forums, it should focus especially on early-stage social enterprises and investors. It is this group that needs the most facilitation and support. The emerging angel networks such as the Intellecap Impact Investment Network in India and the new African Business Angel Network (ABAN) to support the development of early stage investor networks across the continent are examples of promising initiatives in this direction. With their knowledge of the local markets angel investors will be able to play a crucial role in the development of starting inclusive business entrepreneurs as they offer both hard and soft capital. The angel-funded startup companies that are able to scale up fast then become interesting for the larger impact funds, which creates an exit possibility for the first investors. In addition, interaction between early-stage social enterprises and investors cannot only spur co-investment but also allows both sides to get to better understand the needs of potential partners. Even the development of new finance vehicles at small scale and common impact measurement standards – each currently a key topic in addressing the “missing middle” gap – could be spurred by such a forum. A small scale, better accessibility and a higher level of interaction are key. Innovatively addressing these needs may just be the decisive step in scaling up impact investment, unlocking the potential of tomorrows flourishing SMEs. SEED and the Inclusive Business Accelerator (IBA) joined forces to link selected social and environmental enterprises with both hard and soft capital that is required to scale their businesses. At the Nairobi Investor Forum on 9 September selected SEED Winners will pitch their enterprises. During a break-out session at theSEED Africa Symposium on 10 September investors will showcase their impact investing products in a reverse pitching and reverse matchmaking format. If you want to learn more or join us for those events, please contact us at invest@seed.uno or visit: https://www.seed.uno/symposium/programme.html This article was published here.

On Thursday morning, the European Investment Bank (EIB) Institute and the European Commission held the Social Innovation Investor’s Fair at the EIB in Luxembourg-Kirchberg. Guy Clausse, Dean at the EIB Institute, welcomed everyone with Hedda Pahlson-Moller, CEO at Omsint and Tiime, talked about boosting social enterprise across Europe by creating social innovation structures that lead to systemic change. She added that various entrepreneurs have been chosen to present their projects in front of venture capitalists and other professional ventures, with the format including counter pitches which have been intended to stimulate creativity and making projects better. Twelve projects have been chosen from the Social Innovation Tournament and the Social Innovation Competition which showcase European social impact projects. The former is a flagship initiative of the EIB Institute’s Social Programme and financially rewards projects which aim to fight unemployment, marginalisation of disadvantaged communities or promote access to education in a wide range of fields. The Social Innovation Competition invited Europeans to develop game-changing ideas which could advance Europe’s growth model by challenging current assumptions and conceiving of new solutions. The selected projects are now seeking investment in order to reach their targets. The eight 3-minute presentations were as follows: – Hand-in-Scan (Budapest, Hungary): The growing problem of infections which is not only a problem of HealthCare. They have developed a digital image-based analysis which can be immeditaely uploaded to servers. One single case cost €5,000; one model costs €10,000. They are looking for €2.45m in capital. Candace Johnson said a business plan is needed to show how the business will grow. – Orti-Alti (Turin, Italy): an urban regenation project to grow plants and vegetables above street-level in regenerated spaces, rooves, etc. They are looking for €50k to market and grow the network to produce up to 6 tonnes of vegetables annually. Marcus Freiburg (FAST) acknowledged the proof-of-concept but urged the project to work more on the business plan and financial model. – Progetto Ould (Italy): the project addresses textile waste, helping the fashion inductry to rebuild their image, by recycling. They collect discarded material and make up clothes which they sell in their own shops (2) and other sales outlets (10). Their aim is to double their 2015 turnover by 2019 and are asking for €150k investment to develop the eCommerce website. Candace Johnson suggested the presenter could have communicated a more positive message and value proposition, also encouraging the pop-up-store approach. – Politeia 2.0 (Greece): to create a living laboratory for innovation and governance, reconnecting citizens with decision-making processes in Greece. Their open toolkit is being used by many mayors. They are looking for €50,000 to scale up and make a change, investing in democracy. Markus Freiburg urged the project to work on the business model which could also look for public money. – Magdas Hotel (Austria): the hotel run by refugees, turning perceived disadvantages into advantages by turning a former retirement home into a hotel and recycling the former contents. The project received international media attention since opening 10 months ago. They are looking to expand the concept internationally. Candace Johnson urged the project to have a mission statement and a clear USP, as well as focusing more on the skills of the refugees. – Mobilearn (Sweden): Approximately 1 billion people are misplaced world-wide today, needed food, shelter and information – tools for integration; without these, ghettoes are created. The project takes the most information from various administrations and translates them. They are asking for €250,000 to set up a presence in Brussels. Marcus Freiburg suggested the added value of the project be presented more clearly. – Blue Badge Style (UK): a style guide for the less able, a commercial company with a social impact. Going out requires military planning and comes with anxiety due to a lack of information. The project informs people where to go by a website, an app and an online access brochure. The project is looking for €490,000 in seed funding to provide 12-18 months effort in Europe. Candace Johnson urged the project to think bigger, comparing the model adopted by egergy credits. – Piano C (Italy): In Italy, more than 30% of women do not return to the workplace after maternity leave. Women should not have to choose between a career and a family. The project promotes back-to-work programmes for mothers. Marcus Freiburg urged the project to focus more on identifying the impact change and to look at added value for other stakeholders. The four 1-minute pitches were as follows: – Ufeed (Spain): the project uses mobile devices and social media to help people in need by encouraging brands to donate directly to approved NGOs, with the funds raised paying for projects around the world. – Filsia (Greece): the project provides hardware and software for rehabilitation concerning muscoskeletal, cognitive and neurological disabilities. – Adie (Faance): the projects fights unemployment by encouraging individuals to operate franchising solutions, with 3 services offered to provide 200 jobs already. The aim is to provide 3,000 joby by 2020. – Mattecentrum (Sweden): the project stimulate interest in mathematics, offer social franchising internationally. Dominik Dominik said he was impressed with the elevator pitches which he admitted are very difficult to achieve. He stressed the need to include a Call to Action in each pitch. Nicolas Buck of NYUKO talked about social entrepreneurship in Luxembourg and acknowledged the high attrition rate, with only 10% becoming successful. He referred to the 1,2,3 GO Social competition where, since 2011, 18 successful social businesses have be borne out of 131 initial applications. The Investor’s Fair took place as part of the 2-day conference on ‘Boosting Social Enterprises in Europe’ from 3 to 4 December 2015. The conference is organised by the Luxembourg Ministy of Labour, Employment and the Social and Solidarity Economy and aims to examine how social innovaton is created and can be systematically integrated into the creation of economic activities. Photo by Geoff Thompson Original article appears here.

by David Drake The crowdfunding wave that took off in the US and Europe in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis has since spread into different countries of the world, disrupting established institutional practices of financing a business startup. In particular, the alternative finance landscape of many countries, previously dominated by peer-to-peer lending, has been impacted in a profound way. Firms in the US real estate industry were among the first to catch the wave but could not launch out due to regulatory restrictions. However, the passing into law of the Jumpstart our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, in 2012 allowed them to ride upon it and bring this new investment phenomenon into the mainstream of real estate investing. The wave also took off in the European real estate industry, however with a lesser intensity than what was witnessed in the U.S. Nevertheless, the few firms present in the industry have been known for their innovative platforms, thus establishing Europe as a leader in terms of innovation. Developing nations of the world in Asia and Africa have not been left out of this change. Despite the absence of a legal framework for crowdfunding activities in most of these countries, the wave is seen crashing into different industries and disrupting conventional practices of raising funds for business start ups. This development has not gone unnoticed by regulators in some of the countries that have either just released new crowdfunding laws or are on the verge of doing so. India and Japan were the first to legalize crowdfunding in Asia by passing laws that allow for the practice of equity based crowdfunding. China and other countries are expected follow suit. As a crowdfunding advocate, I am privileged to have been part of the organizers of the foremost crowdfunding conferences in these regions. It is therefore a delight to watch how the crowdfunding wave is presently causing wrenching changes in their investment landscape. Here’s a rundown of the 10 leading real estate crowdfunding platforms with operations outside the US, selected according to the number of deals funded and amount of money raised, listed in no particular order: CoAssets (Southeast Asia: Malaysia, HongKong, Singapore) — This is Singapore’s foremost real estate crowdfunding#platform which is leading the pack in the Asian market. To date, it has over 7,000 members that have invested over S$36 million (about $27 million) in more than 15 projects via its platform. Early this year, the firm has raised S$1 million ($773k) in Series A funding. So far investors have received S$120,000 in payouts with an average return of 10 to 20 percent. iFunding (Asia)— In the US, iFunding is one of the leading platforms in the sector and is also one of its pioneers. It came to the spotlight when it launched the world’s first ever app for real estate crowdfunding. In 2013, iFunding Asia was launched, as a joint venture with its New York-based counterpart,  across 18 Asian countries. The combined US and Asian operations have raised more than $31 million to fund more than 25 projects on its platform. Co-owning (Sweden)– Co-owning is a real estate crowdfunding platform in Sweden that allows accredited investors to participate in international deals. It has raised more than $17 million from project deals in Stockholm, Sweden, and Barcelona. TheHouseCrowd (UK)— With The House Crowd, average investors with as little as £1000 can take a foot on the UK “property ladder.” Since 2012, the firm purchased and refurbished 121 properties and has raised more than £10 million(about $15.8 million). Companisto (Europe)— Companisto is an equity-based crowdfunding platform in Germany that allows retail investors participate in the funding of startups and real estate projects. Its real estate crowdfunding offer for a five-star-superior luxury resort, Weissenhaus, has raised a historic €7,500,000 (nearly $8.6 million), making it one of Europe’s most successful crowdfunding offer ever. The platform boasts of more than €19 million invested on its platform to fund various projects and start-ups. Mayfair&Morgan (Dubai and UK)— Mayfair & Morgan is reputed as  one of Europe’s largest property crowdfunding platform having raised over €5 million (about $6.2 million) at its launch. With £1,000, an individual can invest in high yield residential properties, with an annual growth rate of 13% to 16%. PropertyMoose (UK)— PropertyMoose is a UK-based real estate crowdfunding platform that allows investors with as little as £500 to participate in the UK buy to let property market. Its track record shows that it has 3,167 investors using the platform and has invested £1,074,000 in total. Return to investors in terms of paid rent in 2015 currently totals £11,343. Lymo (France)— Lymo is one of Europe’s foremost real estate crowdfunding platform. Launched in 2013, the firm currently has now over 6000 members who have invested over €2 million (over $2.2 million) into projects via its platform. The firm has already given back over €0.5 M with a 10% annual interest to investors. * (see note below) CrowdfundUP (Australia)— Launched early this year, CrowdfundUP is a Perth-based property crowdfunding platform backed by high-level investors such as BDO Australia. Megara was the first developer which participated in its platform and has raised $500,000 in its Beatrice project deal listed on the platform. Its property developer partners include AYR International, Twin Ocean Property, Australian Development Capital, and Proud Property Group. WealthMigrate (South Africa, Australia, UK, Asia) — WealthMigrate is a global real estate crowdfunding platform operating in 5 continents. The firm affords average accredited investors with as little as $10,000 to participate in real estate offerings across the globe. The founders have a combined experience of over 200 years in global real estate investing, have facilitated over 10,000 investments for clients around the globe totalling $1.34 billion in real estate transactions. Other Real Estate Crowdfunding Players On the Rise TimesRealtyNews compiled a track list of more than 50 platforms that operate outside the United States. Of these,  the following platforms are on the rise, and it would be wise to be on the lookout as to their progress (in no particular order): com (France) — Citylize is one of the few real estate crowdfunding platforms in France. Minimum investment on the

by David Drake The crowdfunding wave that took off in the US and Europe in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis has since spread into different countries of the world, disrupting established institutional practices of financing a business startup. In particular, the alternative finance landscape of many countries, previously dominated by peer-to-peer lending, has been impacted in a profound way. Firms in the US real estate industry were among the first to catch the wave but could not launch out due to regulatory restrictions. However, the passing into law of the Jumpstart our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, in 2012 allowed them to ride upon it and bring this new investment phenomenon into the mainstream of real estate investing. The wave also took off in the European real estate industry, however with a lesser intensity than what was witnessed in the U.S. Nevertheless, the few firms present in the industry have been known for their innovative platforms, thus establishing Europe as a leader in terms of innovation. Developing nations of the world in Asia and Africa have not been left out of this change. Despite the absence of a legal framework for crowdfunding activities in most of these countries, the wave is seen crashing into different industries and disrupting conventional practices of raising funds for business start ups. This development has not gone unnoticed by regulators in some of the countries that have either just released new crowdfunding laws or are on the verge of doing so. India and Japan were the first to legalize crowdfunding in Asia by passing laws that allow for the practice of equity based crowdfunding. China and other countries are expected follow suit. As a crowdfunding advocate, I am privileged to have been part of the organizers of the foremost crowdfunding conferences in these regions. It is therefore a delight to watch how the crowdfunding wave is presently causing wrenching changes in their investment landscape. Here’s a rundown of the 10 leading real estate crowdfunding platforms with operations outside the US, selected according to the number of deals funded and amount of money raised, listed in no particular order: CoAssets (Southeast Asia: Malaysia, HongKong, Singapore) — This is Singapore’s foremost real estate crowdfunding#platform which is leading the pack in the Asian market. To date, it has over 7,000 members that have invested over S$36 million (about $27 million) in more than 15 projects via its platform. Early this year, the firm has raised S$1 million ($773k) in Series A funding. So far investors have received S$120,000 in payouts with an average return of 10 to 20 percent. iFunding (Asia)— In the US, iFunding is one of the leading platforms in the sector and is also one of its pioneers. It came to the spotlight when it launched the world’s first ever app for real estate crowdfunding. In 2013, iFunding Asia was launched, as a joint venture with its New York-based counterpart,  across 18 Asian countries. The combined US and Asian operations have raised more than $31 million to fund more than 25 projects on its platform. Co-owning (Sweden)– Co-owning is a real estate crowdfunding platform in Sweden that allows accredited investors to participate in international deals. It has raised more than $17 million from project deals in Stockholm, Sweden, and Barcelona. TheHouseCrowd (UK)— With The House Crowd, average investors with as little as £1000 can take a foot on the UK “property ladder.” Since 2012, the firm purchased and refurbished 121 properties and has raised more than £10 million(about $15.8 million). Companisto (Europe)— Companisto is an equity-based crowdfunding platform in Germany that allows retail investors participate in the funding of startups and real estate projects. Its real estate crowdfunding offer for a five-star-superior luxury resort, Weissenhaus, has raised a historic €7,500,000 (nearly $8.6 million), making it one of Europe’s most successful crowdfunding offer ever. The platform boasts of more than €19 million invested on its platform to fund various projects and start-ups. Mayfair&Morgan (Dubai and UK)— Mayfair & Morgan is reputed as  one of Europe’s largest property crowdfunding platform having raised over €5 million (about $6.2 million) at its launch. With £1,000, an individual can invest in high yield residential properties, with an annual growth rate of 13% to 16%. PropertyMoose (UK)— PropertyMoose is a UK-based real estate crowdfunding platform that allows investors with as little as £500 to participate in the UK buy to let property market. Its track record shows that it has 3,167 investors using the platform and has invested £1,074,000 in total. Return to investors in terms of paid rent in 2015 currently totals £11,343. Lymo (France)— Lymo is one of Europe’s foremost real estate crowdfunding platform. Launched in 2013, the firm currently has now over 6000 members who have invested over €2 million (over $2.2 million) into projects via its platform. The firm has already given back over €0.5 M with a 10% annual interest to investors. * (see note below) CrowdfundUP (Australia)— Launched early this year, CrowdfundUP is a Perth-based property crowdfunding platform backed by high-level investors such as BDO Australia. Megara was the first developer which participated in its platform and has raised $500,000 in its Beatrice project deal listed on the platform. Its property developer partners include AYR International, Twin Ocean Property, Australian Development Capital, and Proud Property Group. WealthMigrate (South Africa, Australia, UK, Asia) — WealthMigrate is a global real estate crowdfunding platform operating in 5 continents. The firm affords average accredited investors with as little as $10,000 to participate in real estate offerings across the globe. The founders have a combined experience of over 200 years in global real estate investing, have facilitated over 10,000 investments for clients around the globe totalling $1.34 billion in real estate transactions. Other Real Estate Crowdfunding Players On the Rise TimesRealtyNews compiled a track list of more than 50 platforms that operate outside the United States. Of these,  the following platforms are on the rise, and it would be wise to be on the lookout as to their progress (in no particular order): com (France) — Citylize is one of the few real estate crowdfunding platforms in France. Minimum investment on the

by David Drake In an exclusive report, Reuters says EU will come out with a document next week that will implement a #pan-european#crowdfunding law. And yet the US JOBS Act for equity crowdfunding is nearing it’s second year and won’t become a practical law earlier than 1000 days after it was signed into a law April 5, 2012 by President Obama. The proposal to be released according to Reuters next week shows activity.​ ​However, EU has similar processes as the US , which can be tedious and time-consuming. It takes EU laws potentially 1000 days as well to be implemented and that is not from a proposal but from the moment the EU Commission and Parliament passes it into law. We could be looking at a 3-5 year time frame should the proposal come out next week before it can be implemented. ​These things take time. There is a process. I wrote about this 15 months ago: 1000 days for an EU JOBS Act. In parallell,​ Alessandro Lerro in Italy has been representing the majority of crowdfund​ing for equity startup platforms where Italy,​ a year ago,​ passed a crowdfund​ing law that none has to date been able to leverage there.  ​ There is a lot of red tape but it is a movement towards liberation of capital and investments in Italy.​ ​ Lerro says, “It’s interesting that the EU is so convinced about the opportunity to boost crowdfunding as an innovative financial tool, that it is choosing to soften the approach against State aids; in Italy, this could mean a wide extension to all the SME of the Government’s support from policy to innovation, so boosting the economic recovery.” Photo credit: global.unc.edu Note: This article originally appeared on Equities with this link  http://www.equities.com/editors-desk/crowdfunding/global-crowdfunding-update-will-the-pan-european-law-overtake-the-us-jobs-act on March 24, 2014   David Drake is an early-stage equity expert and the founder and chairman of LDJ Capital, a New York City private equity advisory firm, and The Soho Loft – The Voice of Capital Formation – a global financial media company with divisions in Corporate Communications, Publishing and Expos. You can reach him directly at David@LDJCapital.com.

Making an impact and doing charity is not the same thing – and you should do both. In general, business angels a lot of capability and resources and are therefore responsible to work for making the world a better place. A growing international trend is “impact investing” which means aiming for results on top of – or besides – the profit. One can of course argue that all businesses, in fact all decisions we make, have an impact. But impact investing is about evaluating the results in proportion to competitors in the same branch as well as considering both negative and positive effects and the big picture. Impact investing is not solving old problems by creating new ones. Nor is it about transferring market shares from one actor to another without improving anything. The insight that many things have to change if we want to save planet earth is spreading. I’m glad that business angels in growing numbers are opening their eyes for the impacts that can be done. It also goes well together with one of the common reasons to become a business angel – namely to give back to society. Business angels are also savvy in this regard, they have realized that investing where there’s an impact is profitable. A growing numbers of buyers and consumers want to buy responsibly, therefore often choosing the moral winner over the cheaper alternative. Impact investing is however not – and should not be mixed up with – charity. Charity is also needed, there will never be any business sense in all the important actions we need to do for the future of our planet and humankind. We should all do charity. And those who have more have a certain duty to do more. FiBAN is as an organization on a small scale supporting for example WWF’s initiative for a cleaner Baltic Sea and a better environment. Jan D. Oker-Blom Managing Director, FiBAN jan(a)fiban .org

  Impact Investing is a rising phenomenon in the Nordic region. NFBAN (Nordic Female Business Angel Network), in partnership with the EBAN Impact Investment Committee (EIIC), launched on the 20th of August the 1st Social Entrepreneur Competition. The competition, aimed at encouraging Nordic social entrepreneurship and social innovation, it was a true success. The competition was open to all Nordic entrepreneurs with a business idea solving a social problem in society. Vast number of Nordic entrepreneurs showed participated the competition. Their business ideas covered a wide range of social issues, from health care to renewable sources of energy or more sustainable tourism solutions. After prescreening the best 8 participants were chosen for on-line pitching contest. Online pitching session was coordinated by EBAN’s president Candace Johnson and EBAN’s team in Brussels headquarters. Every entrepreneur had 4 minutes to present their business idea to a jury with members of the NFBAN and the EBAN Impact Investing Committee, all of them with a significant background in social entrepreneurship. The jury members gave their feedback and comments to the entrepreneurs and then announced the 2 best participants, BooknHeal and Handscover. The 2 winners attended the NFBAN launch event on Thursday 27th August in Helsinki, where they had a chance to pitch their company to NFBAN and EIIC members.  Awards were also given in launch event by NFBAN broad members. Jury members were: Florence Korhonen (NFBAN, EBAN impact investment committee) Marijn Bergsma (EBAN) Alison Fort (EBAN impact investment committee) Jay Mitra (University of Essex) Candace Johnson (EBAN impact investment committee) Taru Haajanen (NFBAN) Kimmo Lipponen (Arvoliitto)

According to several studies, the World’s population is expected to increase by 2 billion in the next 3 decades. This means that roughly 9 billion humans will look for food, water and energy, with the same resources available today on the Earth. Consequently, it is quite probable that the private sector will be always more frequently involved in developing new business models to supply the growing demand of services and goods. This article clearly explains that including environmental, social and governance criteria into one’s own portfolio is not merely philanthropy, but probably the greatest opportunity for companies to sustain the growth in the long-run. Read the full article below Source: Morgan Stanley

Even though Social Impact Investing has never been a pressing issue as much as today, several misconceptions still remain the primary obstacle to raise relevant financial resources. For this reason the British Prime Minister D. Cameron has undertaken new global initiatives in order to develop more sustainable business models. In the article below we briefly give a look at the main points of this ambitious program. Read the full article below Source: European Impact Investing – Luxembourg

Read this article to know more about: What is Impact Investing – Core Characteristics of Impact Investing – What is The Role of the Global Impact Investing Network: About Impact Investing. We wrote also a special page where we explain what Impact Investing is and how it works.

Impact investing has captured the world’s imagination – the tables have turned and we are learning to harness the power of markets to solve social problems. EBAN recognizes and embraces the role its community will play in capturing the enormous potential for true valuecreation. So what is this ‘impact’ business all about? Simply put, impact investment aims to generate specific beneficial social or environmental effects alongside financial gain. It is a tool to deploy capital – alongside traditional investing models and philanthropy – to address societal issues. Who better than entrepreneurs to create these innovative solutions that tackle social end environmental challenges as opportunities (we call them ‘social entrepreneurs)? And who knows better than Business Angels and Seed Capitalists what entrepreneurs need to thrive…? To paint the bigger picture, we are talking about an estimated 250 funds actively raising capital in a market that the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) estimates at $45 billioni… and growing fast.The future driving force of the social impact space will come from us, the private investors, who make seed capital available to the change-makers of today and tomorrow. Sustainable business models are a no-brainer Understanding and optimizing the societal impact of our investments is an inevitable step in ensuring maximum return – it’s simply good business sense to focus on sustainability. A new and exciting flow of projects tackling issues like social housing, green/clean technology, education and healthcare with profitable business models are emerging as exciting investment opportunities. Across Europe, social enterprises are making headlines and luring traditional and social capital alike. In Germany, a ground-breaking model integrates autistic people in software testing positions, outperforming any average IT consultant. In Belgium, a project to bring schooling to street kids drives revenues by coaching CEOs in ‘street smarts’. New attractive investment opportunities are developing through innovative solutions to waste management optimization, energy efficiency, re-integrating ‘outsiders’ into the employment market and caring for the elderly. The desire to combine investments and social responsibility is hard to resist. There is a broad range of products to meet the demand of a new generation of socially conscious investors (and consumers). As long as such investments produce competitive returns – both financial and social – their popularity will only grow. So what is EBAN’s role? So, 2015 is the year for all private investors in the EBAN network to consider allocating some of their investment portfolio to this exciting and emerging asset class. There are several ways to be involved – either directly as equity, debt, crowd funding or indirectly in an advisory capacity. The EBAN Impact Investing Committee (EIIC) has been launched as a response to the compelling call to action of the entire investment ecosystem. The committee includes among its ranks passionate individuals with a common goal: unlocking social and environmental challenges while generating financial profit. The team endeavours to be ambassadors of Impact Investing within EBAN, developing bridges with other European and global Impact Investing communities and establishing a constant dialogue with policy makers relevant to the impact investing industry. You will find information on the EIIC objectives and working groups here: http://www.ebanimpact.org. Please watch for our new LinkedIn page and website. Join us. And bring in others. Together we can influence the inevitable shift to sustainable investing. Best regards Hedda Pahlson-Moller (OMSINT/TIIME) EBAN Board Member / President of the EBAN Impact Investing Committee (EIIC) http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/09/20/is-social-impact-investing-the-next-venture-capital/

As member of EVPA – European Venture Philanthropy Association, we are proud to announce the publication of a presentation article on their website. Link: EBAN Launches Committee on Impact Investing

This article tries to show ways towards the co-existence of these two mindsets as shareholders of the same company and the opportunity this presents for all stakeholders of social enterprises. Link: Funding Social Businesses on Mainstream Markets

Find and read important reports about Impact Investing with a quick presentation in this special article. Link: What Good Is Impact Investing?