Social Velocity » Convergence

The Next Generation of Philanthropy: An Interview with Jessamyn Lau

Nell Edgington — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:41:30 +0000

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Jessamyn Lau. As Program Leader of the innovative Peery Foundation, Jessamyn helps shape the foundation’s strategy, develops programs, strengthens the foundation’s portfolio, and supports existing grantees. Jessamyn’s MBA from Brigham Young University and time spent with Ashoka U have given her the perspective and skill-set to help the foundation develop new methods to support and build the field of social entrepreneurship. Jessamyn is currently working with BYU’s Ballard Center to create the Peery Social Entrepreneurship Program (PSEP), a cross campus initiative providing opportunities for students and faculty to engage with social entrepreneurship through curriculum, experiential learning, and research.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: At the Peery Foundation you have done some really interesting experiments with social media, even adding an element of crowd-sourcing via Twitter to your strategic planning process. But recently you have gone back and forth about whether you want to continue your PFWhiteboard blog. What has your thinking been about how social media fits into the overall work of the Peery Foundation?

Jessamyn: One thing we know about social media is that it’s a good tool for is spreading the word about our partners and their work. 90% of what we post/tweet is about our portfolio partners. Every now and then we try to figure out how else to deliberately use social media. We’ve tried stuff that hasn’t worked (so we stopped doing it), and we’ve tried stuff that did seem to yield value for us and others. In general it’s still throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. Intuitively we think social media is a good thing for our creativity, learning, and listening, however, we don’t feel tied to it as a core part of our strategy or practice. When it makes sense we use it, when it doesn’t we don’t.

Nell: What do you think holds foundations back from using social media and embracing greater transparency? What do you think will make that change?

Jessamyn: The tricky thing with social media is it’s really hard to link it to outcomes. Even when tangible examples of outcomes are illustrated it’s often a first-mover advantage and not something that will produce the same results if everyone did the same thing. If foundations could see how social media directly led to more impact it would be an easier sell. It’s a similar story with transparency. Being transparent requires change, time, dedication and a certain amount of risk. Without a clear and strong argument for how that leads to more impact it’s easier not to take the risk and stay quiet.

Another issue is strategic planning, which, at times, can become more of a bane than a boon to foundations. When it comes to social media many foundations think they need a strategy and a full blown plan before they will start using it. As with many things it’s hard to know exactly how Twitter or Facebook will be useful until you give it a go and play around a
little.

For the most part I think the change will only come with an increase of millennial philanthropists, foundation ED’s and program officers who come with a share-as-default mentality and bias towards creative experimentation in public.

Nell: You recently did a fascinating blog post about how the social entrepreneurship movement is encouraging young people to think they can solve the world’s problems, without much real world experience. How do we balance Generation Y’s zeal to find solutions with their youth and lack of experience?

Jessamyn: I don’t think I know the full answer to that, yet. My opinions on this point are still developing as the Peery Foundation works closely with BYU to build a cross-campus social entrepreneurship program. I’m not sure the overall problem is too much zeal or youth, or even too little experience -all of these things provide incredible value in the right context. I think what’s lacking are clearer expectations and support for students to build self-awareness and deliberate preparation in their development as social innovators. As I said, I’m still figuring it out -watch the PF Whiteboard over the coming months for more on this.

Nell: The Peery Foundation is one of few foundations that do mission-related investments. How did you decide to move into that realm and what do you think holds other foundation back from MRIs?

Jessamyn: Our primary function is to support and serve the social entrepreneurs we work with. We try to keep our funding as flexible as possible. Peery Foundation funding is generally unrestricted and the structure of a grant is often co-crafted with the entrepreneur. We have come to realize that entrepreneurs with differing business models, or at differing life-cycle stages, need different types of capital. Once we believe in a SE and their model for addressing poverty we want to always be open to providing the type of capital that they need at the time they need it.

We’re still at an early stage in developing our capacity to provide debt and other funding outside of philanthropy. In our philanthropic funding we’re not paper heavy and our agreements are very trust-based. It was definitely daunting to explore this new realm of traditional investment due diligence and contractual agreements. So far we’ve found the kind of support we need to help us make the leap fairly painlessly through the Toniic Network, and from sources such as Silicon Valley Community Foundation and University Impact Fund, and still feel like we’re able to retain our low-paper, trust based partnership approach to the extent that makes sense.

Nell: In some ways philanthropy has been a bit left behind by the impact investing movement. Why do you think that is and do you think philanthropic giving and impact investing will become more integrated?

Jessamyn: The potential of impact investing is huge, though I’m not sure I agree with the statement that impact investing (ii) has left behind philanthropy (charitable giving from individuals, corporations and foundations totaled over $290B in the US alone for 2010, impact investing is estimated at $50-100B in 2011). Though there is a lot of attention and discussion surrounding impact investing, there are still relatively few organizations actively channeling dollars to ii. Even in the future (when I think ii will absolutely eclipse philanthropy by the numbers), I see ii and philanthropy as very complimentary. In many cases philanthropic capital prepares the way for ii dollars, or continues to fund pieces of a model (overhead or continuing innovation) that ii capital can not.

Indeed, there are many incredibly efficient and effective models of social entrepreneurship with models not conducive to impact investment capital – they will probably always rely on philanthropic dollars. There will always be an important role for philanthropy to play. Philanthropy is the ultimate risk-taking capital. We should not lose sight of this or think that ii is here to replace philanthropy.

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

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Data and the Future of Philanthropy: An Interview with Lucy Bernholz

The Future of Financing Social Change: An Interview with Antony Bugg-Levine

10 Most Popular Posts of 2011

Nell Edgington — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:12:57 +0000

As 2011 comes to a close, I wanted to provide a list of the ten most popular Social Velocity blog posts this year. Then I’m taking a break from the blog until January.

I hope you all find time over the holidays to relax, unwind and spend time with friends and family. Thank you all for reading and contributing to the Social Velocity blog this year. I really appreciate all of my readers and look forward to talking with you in the new year. Happy Holidays!

The 10 most popular Social Velocity blog posts of 2011 were:

Photo Credit: Charline Tetiyevsky

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5 Nonprofit Trends to Watch in 2011

Talking About Rethinking Nonprofit Fundraising

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Nonprofits as Equal Partners in the Economy: An Interview with Robert Egger

Nell Edgington — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:58:50 +0000

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Robert Egger. Robert is the Founder and President of the DC Central Kitchen, the country’s first “community kitchen”, where food donated by hospitality businesses and farms is used to fuel a nationally recognized culinary arts job training program. In addition, Robert is the Founder and President of the just launched CForward, an advocacy organization that rallies employees of nonprofits to educate candidates about the economic role that nonprofits play in every community, and to support candidates who have detailed plans to strengthen the economy that includes nonprofits. Robert was included in the Non Profit Times list of the “50 Most Powerful and Influential” nonprofit leaders from 2006-2009, and speaks throughout the country and internationally on the subjects of hunger, sustainability, nonprofit political engagement and social enterprise.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: You have argued that nonprofits need to more assertively demonstrate how they are changing things (jobs created, dollars saved by society, etc), but this necessitates an understanding of and ability to articulate and track performance. Do you think the nonprofit sector as a whole is ready for that?

Robert: I don’t think we have a choice. There are external forces that will not allow organizations to go-it-alone, or do what they’ve always done, indefinitely, any longer. The “era of extra” in America, when our manufacturing economy produced enough extra money to sustain (however anemically) the hundreds of thousands of nonprofits, has passed. Plus, donors are more and more demanding of groups now. They want results.

And while many groups may struggle to move beyond antidotes to better articulate their already amazing economic results, there are assets available in every community that can help speed up the transition.

EVERY university and college is brimming with a generation raised doing service, and they would readily embrace the opportunity to help groups measure, and then use new media outlets to market themselves, with gusto.

There are also well-skilled Baby Boomers surging into the sector, equally anxious to be part of rocking their community. The only thing we have to fear is the fear of opening up to change and embracing new ideas. That will be particularly hard for older leaders, or founders who have so much invested in their vision or systems. I understand that trepidation… up to a point.

To be honest, human service nonprofits ask for that kind of courage everyday from the people we serve. Since 1989, we at the DC Central Kitchen have asked that of the recovering addicts and ex-cons who come looking for a second or third chance at change. Shouldn’t we in the sector be equally willing to let go of old habits and be open to new ways of making money? I think so.

Nell: You have worked in social services, feeding and finding jobs for the homeless. Are social problems like hunger, homelessness, poverty ever solvable without fixing the underlying infrastructure inequalities that caused them in the first place? How can and should a nonprofit work to solve something that has a much larger underlying cause?

Robert: I divide my time 49/51.

49% is spent helping colleagues at The Kitchen, or any nonprofit, work stronger, better, faster. But that’s all I’ll give to traditional charity, no matter how bold the effort.

Why? Because grant-funded charity cannot solve the problem. It’s beyond the ability of nonprofits—socially, politically and economically.

That’s why I devote 51% of my energy to forwarding tactics and strategies that help us as a sector (and we as a country) develop the civic courage, economic open-mindedness and political will required to finally root out, root causes.

That was why I Co-Convened the first Nonprofit Congress in 2006. I wanted to challenge the canard that the sector is too diverse to find common ground. I wanted to help inspire groups to climb out of their individual silos and embrace our shared opportunity to change the rules of the game, versus continuing to play by outdated (and economically flawed) dictates.

Most of all, I wanted us to be directly involved in the wide-open Presidential race of 2007 and the dozens of Governor’s races of 2010. I wanted to challenge candidates to vie for our votes, not take them for granted. I still believe that this is the strategy we need to take.

That is why, on Nov 4th, I launched CForward, a PAC (political action committee) for nonprofits. Our goal—to openly support and help elect a new generation of legislators who show up on day one, fully invested in partnering with nonprofits to strengthen the economy.

Admittedly, CForward is a long term strategy for change, but I advance immediate, on-the-ground tactics with equal audacity.

One of many ideas I think could move the dime involves mergers. Not in the two-become-one model, although that’s essential in the current economic climate. No, I’m talking about merging things that matter. If, for example, the top 25 nonprofits in any town merged their banking business and shopped their combined cash-flow, they could leverage their assets and advocate for seats on the board of the bank and work for access to capital (rather than remain encumbered by the grant system).

Another version–what if we developed a “nonprofit seal of approval” for businesses? We could suggest that if citizens wanted to decrease the need for charity, or lower taxes—they could support businesses that we identified as providing good wages, healthcare or other benefits that would decrease demand for services and increase independence. Imagine if we directed our 90 million volunteers to see daily commerce as philanthropy!!

That’s what interests me. What resources do we have and how we can use them differently?

Nell: You are sometimes viewed as a renegade in the nonprofit sector, in that you are not happy with the status quo and you challenge nonprofits to do more and better. Since the nonprofit sector is such a consensus-driven, collaboration-oriented one, have your opinions served you and your work well or ill?

Robert: The better question is; “Has consensus served the sector well?” I genuflect to the power of being open and inclusive, but I think consensus has been used as an excuse for inactivity. Fraternity has been used as a shield to stifle critical review of groups or ideas whose time has passed. The perceived lack of unifying forces has left us fighting each other for scraps. And our silo mentality has left us politically weak at the very moment we should be advocating for a more pronounced role in strengthening the economy. We are 10% of America’s economy. There are 100 million people who work at, or volunteer with, a nonprofit. Of greater potential is the 90 million strong Millennial generation that has been raised doing service and who are now beginning to flood out of schools. They are out of work. They are poor, pissed-off and plugged in. And they are our natural allies in pursuing new policies.

In short—why should we occupy the streets when we can take over the town.

If the organizations that purport to lead the sector can’t bridge the barriers that divide us and help us find common ground to build upon, then I say it’s time for new leadership.

Nell: You have strong opinions about what nonprofits should do differently, but what about philanthropists and government? Where do they fit into what needs to change in the social sector?

Robert: We are ALL trapped by charity.

It is rooted in all faith traditions and deeply ingrained in the American experience. Yet, it is driven by the “redemption of the giver, versus the liberation of the receiver” power dynamic. That flawed flow cascades down from government and foundations to nonprofits, and from nonprofits down to those we “serve”. None are truly liberated, and each resents the other. What’s important to recognize is that it’s not the players who are flawed, it’s the game itself.

I work for the day when nonprofits are viewed, rightly, as equal partners in the American economy. For those who would scoff at that idea, I suggest they ask any Chamber of Commerce what makes a town or state attractive to business. You know what they will include on ANY list? Quality healthcare. Vibrant arts & culture. Access to higher education. Strong communities of faith. A clean environment and recreational space for families.

ALL nonprofits!!

Our work enables businesses to make profit, yet, we settle with token grants. We are told that we cannot be openly political when businesses can post placards in their windows for candidates who they feel represent their interests. I say it’s time to re-negotiate.

I believe our country’s economic future rests on re-aligning the sectors, and being bold enough to see opportunity beyond current constraints or lines of demarcation that divide our resources when we should be aligning our assets.

Nell: What do you think about the recent growth of double-bottomline investing and for-profit social enterprises? Do you view for-profit social entrepreneurs, and those who invest in them, as competitive or additive to the nonprofit sector?

Robert: I believe the only sustainable future for philanthropy is for cause and commerce to be interwoven.

We still cling to two ideas about money—Friedman’s notion that business exists to make money for investors, and Carnegie’s idea (still foolishly forwarded by Gates and Buffet) that you should give money back at the end of your life, often attempting to offset the damage made by the very pursuit of profit.

Both are boring, outdated, and flawed ideas…and each rests on the participation of a benign consumer, blinded by the role their purchases make in maintaining the status quo of the day.

For me, social enterprise isn’t about nonprofits making money; it’s about consumers awakening to the power of pennies. It’s Capitalism 2.0.

Gandhi used the boycott of table salt to get the British crown to the negotiating table. Dr King used the boycott of the dimes it took to ride the busses of Montgomery to crack racism in America. Chavez used the boycott of table grapes to finally get land owners to give migrant workers basic sanitation and access to education for their children.

Social enterprise builds on that proven power but flips the energy to a “buy-cott” , where we reward and incentivize corporate behavior we know will begin to offset the need for charity. It uses market forces to compel other businesses, however reluctant, to follow suit or fail based on how they make their money everyday.

Social enterprise opens that door.

But I’m also very deeply invested in new ideas about how we incentivize investment and performance in nonprofits.

For example, If you invested $1,000 in Microsoft in 1986, you now have over $500K in the bank. Yet, if you invested that same sum in the Grameen Bank, which has elevated millions of people out of poverty with micro-loans, all you were eligible for was a one-time tax deduction, because it’s a charity. Why not a new tax system where you could earn an increasing tax deduction based on the same return-on-investment formula as a dividend check if an organization can show verifiable economic return? Imagine regular people being able to attain wealth by investing in groups that make the community economically stronger or more civically secure? I do…and that’s why I think social enterprise is so exciting. It says you can develop a strong society and a vibrant, open economy at the same time.

But to move beyond social enterprise or micro-credit or empowerment driven nonprofits being a novelty, we need to elect people who understand that power, and turn to the nonprofit sector and offer opportunities and partnerships to see it grow.

That’s why I launched CForward…to work with other citizens who work at nonprofits to elect people who have that kind of foresight and courage. It’s not as hard as you might imagine, and it is so much closer than you think.

Related posts:

The Future of Financing Social Change: An Interview with Antony Bugg-Levine

The Next Generation of Philanthropy: An Interview with Jessamyn Lau

Too Many Nonprofits…Or A Weak Ecosystem?

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: September

Nell Edgington — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:24:24 +0000

There were lots of great discussions and developments in the world of social innovation in September. So much so, that I had a really hard time narrowing down to ten. But alas, here are my top 10 of the last month. As always, please add what I missed to the comments. If you’d like to see the expanded list of what catches my eye, follow me on Twitter @nedgington.

You can also read the lists of Great Reads from previous months here.

Two really interesting divergent reports on the results of social change work. First, a $1 million, 6-year study of nonprofit After School Matters shows that the program doesn’t really change lives.

And a year after Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million grant to Newark public schools, some positive results are trickling in.

After the August resignation of Steve Jobs from Apple due to health reasons, people came out in droves to criticize him for his poor philanthropic record. Dan Pallotta rose to his defense, arguing, in a thought-provoking way, that Jobs’ contributions to the world at large make him the World’s Greatest Philanthropist.

In an exciting move to kick-start social impact bonds (a government bond that allows private investors to invest capital in nonprofits and then gain a return if the nonprofit achieves promised outcomes), the Rockefeller Foundation granted Social Finance $500K to develop the social impact bond market in the US.

September was the month of the 4th annual Social Capital Markets Conference that brings social entrepreneurs and the funders of social entrepreneurs together. Over the course of the four SoCap conferences there has been a recurring tension between philanthropy and impact investing. Adin Miller reported from SoCap that the great convergence between philanthropy and impact investing has disappointingly not yet happened.

The Washington Post shows us the devastating impact of the economic crisis in five charts.

At long last, CharityNavigator, one of the best known nonprofit rating systems, unveils their Charity Navigator 2.0, an expanded rating system that includes financial health, accountability, and transparency measures. Every nonprofit should understand this important change and what it means for their organization.

Lucy Bernholz discusses a fascinating distinction between problems and difficulties and the implications for social change efforts. “Problems have solutions; solve them and problems go away. Difficulties don’t have solutions; they require continual address.”

On the Harvard Business Review blog Lucy Marcus argues In Troubled Times, Boards Must Step Up.

In a similar vein, Mario Morino from Venture Philanthropy Partners argues that Board Members Cannot Check Their Courage at the Door.

Photo Credit: MMcQuade

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: August

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: May

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: December

Talking About Rethinking Nonprofit Fundraising

Nell Edgington — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:12:31 +0000

Last Thursday I was a guest on Michael Chatman’s The Giving Show, a weekly radio show about philanthropy. I was delighted to talk with Michael and his listeners about how nonprofits need to rethink the ways they bring money in the door. If you missed the show, you can still listen to the podcast here.

Michael and I talk about:

How nonprofits need to finance, not fundraise for, their social impact
The difference between revenue and capital, and why it’s such an important distinction for nonprofits
When earned income is right for a nonprofit
The opportunity the recession poses for nonprofits
Why nonprofits must let go of the status quo
How to educate donors to be organization builders
Where innovation is happening in the nonprofit sector
The convergence of the nonprofit, for-profit and government sectors
Why overhead is NOT a dirty word

And much more. You can listen here.

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This Week’s The Giving Show

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Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series

This Week’s The Giving Show

Nell Edgington — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:22:19 +0000

I’m delighted to announce that I will be Michael Chatman’s guest on this week’s Giving Show. Michael was voted America’s Maverick Philanthropist and one of the nation’s leading authorities on new philanthropy. He heads the nation’s largest network of mission-related philanthropists giving up to $50,000 annually, The Association of Maverick Philanthropists.

Michael hosts a weekly radio show, called the Giving Show, the largest weekly audience devoted to the topic of philanthropy.

I’ll be Michael’s guest this week on Thursday, September 8th at 11:30am Eastern. You can click here to listen then.

We’ll be talking about Financing Not Fundraising, how to get your donors to be more effective, how philanthropy is changing, what the social entrepreneurship movement means for nonprofits and much more. I hope you’ll join us.

Click here to listen to the Giving Show on Thursday at 11:30am Eastern.

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: August

Nell Edgington — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:40:10 +0000

Since I was on vacation for a couple of weeks in August and pretty much unplugged, I’m probably not qualified to list the 10 greatest reads in social innovation for the month of August, but I’m still going to give it a shot. As always, please add what I missed to the comments.

You can also read the lists of Great Reads from previous months here.

Guest blogger on the Tactical Philanthropy blog, Jed Emerson, a pioneer in the impact investing arena, argues that impact investing is at risk of missing a key opportunity to move the field forward.

Strategic finance is one of the hardest things for many nonprofit leaders to master, but also one of the most critical. Nonprofit Finance Fund explains how to approach it.

Sea Change Capital Partners and Lodestar Foundation are partnering to create a new fund to pay for nonprofit collaboration and mergers. A pool of merger money is a great new addition to what is a pretty big hole in the nonprofit capital market.

From the Harvard Business Review blog comes the argument that sometimes it can be good for business to fire some customers. This concept should apply to nonprofits’ donors as well.

One of the biggest hurdles to nonprofit performance measurement is a lack of money to make it happen. On the Social Currency blog, Angela Francis explains how nonprofits can find the money for evaluation through capacity capital.

The biggest news in August was nonprofit Jumo’s merger with for-profit GOOD. Antony Bugg-Levine (who was just announced as the new CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund yesterday) explains how this merger is just the beginning of a real blurring of sector lines to come.

On August 24th, US Secretary of Education @arneduncan held a Twitter Town Hall to answer questions about America’s public education system and his ideas for reform. You can see the Tweets at #askarne or read the highlights here. He plans to hold another Twitter Town Hall soon.

The Future Generations blog offers a great framework and examples of that often touted, but rarely understood, concept: “scale.”

In the wake of Steve Jobs’ resignation from Apple, Cliff Kuang offers a reflection on Jobs as a supreme innovator and great user of technology.

From the tech blog, A Smart Bear, comes a lesson for entrepreneurs (and social entrepreneurs too) when being an expert is harmful.

Photo Credit: afunkydamsel

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: September

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What Social Entrepreneurs Can Teach The Nonprofit Sector

Nell Edgington — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:47:45 +0000

I’ve written before that with the excitement around the social entrepreneurship movement there is a danger that we are abandoning the nonprofit sector. Indeed, there is sometimes a tendency to dismiss the sector that was working on social change long before it was “cool”. Often the older nonprofit sector is left behind, partly because the sector tends to be risk- and change-averse. Again and again, I’ve heard that innovation will never become part of the nonprofit system — that nonprofits are too set in their ways. Or that the sector is too broken to emerge anew.

That attitude, though, is unacceptable. The nonprofit sector is an enormous part of our economy and has a long history of working towards social change. If we were to cast it aside completely, we’d lose the tremendous resources (money, people, mind-share) that are being invested in that sector every day. The nonprofit sector has tremendous potential for innovation. Indeed, without innovation in the nonprofit sector, the broader movement to solve social problems is doomed.

So instead of tossing it aside, let’s remake it, re-envision, restructure and reinvent it.

To that end, Social Velocity is hosting a webinar on July 12th, titled “What Nonprofits Can Learn From Social Entrepreneurs,” which will help nonprofit leaders understand the new models, funding approaches, messaging, systems that social entrepreneurs are employing to create social change. If nonprofit leaders can understand this new movement and integrate some of the ideas into their work, they can achieve more social change.

This webinar will help nonprofit leaders understand the social entrepreneurship movement and the innovative people, organizations and funding vehicles that are solving social problems in new, exciting ways. It will help nonprofit leaders understand what they can do to keep up, and how to make their own organizations more innovative, attract new kinds of funding, and achieve their social change goals more effectively.

The webinar will include:

Case studies of nonprofit and for-profit social entrepreneurs
Examples of philanthropists and social investors who are funding social change in new ways
How social entrepreneurs are becoming more effective at making a case for support
What the social capital market is and how it’s evolving
What new foundation funding vehicles like “mission-related” and “program-related” invesments are
What “venture philanthropy,” “philanthropic equity,” and “growth capital” are and how to organizations are using them to grow their organizations
New models nonprofit growth
New legal structures for social change organizations
Inspiration for taking your organization to the next level

What Nonprofits Can Learn From Social Entrepreneurs
A Social Velocity Webinar
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
12 noon – 1:00 pm (EST)
Registration Fee: $40

I hope to see you there!

Photo Credit: katrinalopez

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Socap Day 2: Unlocking the Nonprofit Capital Space

Nell Edgington — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:07:11 +0000

Day 2 of SoCap was by far my favorite. It started with an interesting keynote from Julie Sunderland of the Gates Foundation. She offered a perhaps more realistic, bordering on the pessimistic, view of the social capital market space. She said that Gates struggles to find entities that can absorb the size investments they want to make. They get excited about the idea of bringing together foundation, government and private dollars in stacked deals, but that the work is complicated and hard and they have yet to craft one of these deals simply because it is extremely difficult to determine the terms. All of this underlines what I’ve said in a previous post: in the nonprofit, philanthropic and government worlds there is still much work to be done to unlock capital.

The first session of the day for me was “Lessons of Behavioral Finance: Understanding and Overcoming Barriers to Impact Investing” with Hope Neighbor and her ground-breaking research, Money for Good, released earlier this year calculating a $120 billion pool of potential impact investing money that is sitting on the sidelines. Hope said that despite our desires to the contrary, people still very much think of their charitable giving as separate from their impact investing, “the reality is that people compartmentalize their money.” And only 3% of the population uses data to compare the organizations they give to.

My favorite session of the day, by far, was “Deep Dive Into the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative.” This session was exactly what I was hoping to see more of at SoCap this year. A group of leaders in Cleveland realized that the heart of their city was quickly deteriorating and no one was doing anything about it. They formed a coalition of the anchor institutions in Cleveland (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, etc), foundations, city leaders and others to create the Evergreen Cooperatives that brings career-track jobs and green, employee-owned businesses to the inner city, transforming a city that has lost 50% of its population in the last 50 years. Beyond the fascinating coalition, business model and results this project is achieving, lies its impressive financing. A combination of bonds, foundation grants, loans, HUD money and others launched this project and financed the 3 businesses they currently operate (a green laundry, an organic greenhouse, and a solar power company). According to Evergreen leaders, “Cleveland wants to be where the world is going, not where the world is.”

To scale this project to create 5,000 jobs (the area needs 46,000 jobs), which will be the impetus to truly transform the inner city economy, they are creating a CDFI and looking to use PRIs and MRIs. What excites me so much about this project is not the spirit of collaboration and tremendous results, but how they are bringing public, private and philanthropic money together in a truly innovative convergence. THIS is the kind of social capital market I’m talking about. Impact investing is great, but it is only ONE piece of the puzzle. I would love to see more examples like Evergreen at SoCap.

The last breakout session I attended for the day was “Nonprofit Analysis: Beyond Metrics,” which gave a great overview of the growing nonprofit evaluators market through the lens of rating one nonprofit, DC Central Kitchen. It was interesting to see how Charity Navigator, the most well-known nonprofit evaluator, has evolved from a system driven purely by IRS 990 form overhead ratios to a three-pronged review including transparency and impact evaluations.

The end of the session gave me serious pause, however, when a member of the audience asked whether any of the evaluators might use the GIIRS system coming out of the impact investing world to rate nonprofit impact. Ken Berger admitted he wasn’t familiar with GIIRS and Tim Ogden of GiveWell said he was skeptical of social return on investment (SROI) calculations in general. Again, my point that the philanthropic and impact investing worlds aren’t communicating and collaborating becomes apparent. Wouldn’t that be amazing if impact in both the philanthropic and impact investing worlds could be measured in a comparable way? That would be truly innovative!

So, although Day 2 of SoCap provided much more conversation and examples of how the philanthropic and government capital markets are evolving, there is still much work to be done to bring both capital fully into the social capital market. Perhaps at SoCap 2011?

Photo Credit: Markets for Good

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Here Comes SoCap

Nell Edgington — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:18:18 +0000

So it’s my favorite time of year again, well at least in the world of social innovation. The Social Capital Markets Conference in San Francisco starts Monday. There are a lot of social innovation conferences, in fact you can read a great rundown on many of this Fall’s best. But SoCap is by far my favorite. It is the one place where the disparate array of people who are interested in how to get more money flowing to social impact come together for 3 days. There are nonprofit, for-profit and hybrid social entrepreneurs; philanthropists; social investors; government bureaucrats and anyone in between. It seems this conference more than any other is a microcosm of the convergence that is happening in the world of social innovation between the public, private and government sectors.

I’ll be honest, the first two years of the conference were a little heavy on the for-profit social entrepreneurship side, leaving somewhat behind government and nonprofit. There were sessions and speakers from those worlds, to be sure, but the emphasis of the conference in the beginning was how to get money flowing more readily to double bottom-line businesses (for-profit businesses that are making money AND creating a social impact).

This year’s conference promises to open wide the doors of the social capital market. For starters, SoCap organizers have developed 6 “tracks” that each focus on a particular area of the social capital market. The track that interests me the most, of course, is the one focusing on nonprofit/philanthropy. Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy has put together a nice track with cutting-edge topics in the world of making money work better in the nonprofit sector:

Decriminalizing Fundraising
Scaling Social Impact
Individual Donors Practicing Unconstrained Philanthropy
The Lessons of Behavioral Finance
When to Invest and When to Give
Nonprofit Analysis: Beyond Metrics

In addition there are several other tracks that hold great appeal: Impact Investing, New Money, Metrics and System Thinking and so on. And then there are some fabulous speakers including Jacqueline Novogratz from Acumen Fund, Matt Flannery from Kiva, speakers from the Gates Foundation and Root Capital and many others. Add to that the side sessions, pitch events and more, and my head starts to spin. Three days is just not enough.

I’ll be blogging from the conference as I did last year (you can read my blogs from SoCap09 here, here and here).

What I love so much about SoCap is that it really challenges this burgeoning community/movement/space to do more, to ask harder questions, to push the momentum forward. You come out of a session with many more questions than you had going in. But also, so much more energy to break out of the normal way of thinking and envision a different path forward. Because at its essence, SoCap is about creating something completely new. It’s about creating a space where money and social impact meet and create a synergy that can, we hope, change the world. The old rules and constraints don’t apply. This conference and all the people attending it, in person or via social media networks, are writing the new rule book. And that’s exciting, challenging, exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time.

If you are attending SoCap too, let me know. See you there!

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