There are plenty of ups and downs this week with everyone in the office busy with a million things. Tonight we were having a private launch party for
Better-The-World in our office and there were more than 100 people attended. They included friends, partners and investors all celebrating a big milestone. Prof Michael Rouse from Ivey (their advisor) was here proudly supporting his students (and investment) who decided to become social entrepreneur after graduating from b-school. Idea Couture is proud of these people as their incubator.
There’s never a better (and more difficult) time to start a social venture. First, you must have a very neat idea. Second, the idea needs to be able to change the world. Third, it needs to create adequate shareholder return for investors and fourth, it needs to same time deliver on its social mission. And there are many more…who says social venture start-up is easy? The team did a fantastic job the last 12 months. This is no questions it is the coolest social venture start-up in 2009.
There are a lot of frustrations with large organizations how little they are doing from a social responsibility perspective. The combination of a new US administration, an economic crisis highlighting systemic failures in our approaches to capitalism and a growing frustration with promises to change the world and come up short, the idea of new, pragmatic approaches to tackling our toughest problems will continue to captivate. Smart governments understand the power of social ventures and will support it with new policy. The banks will never get this. I would rather give money to these social ventures than bailing out those bankers.
So what are the hottest trends this year?
Open social innovation education platform - More universities and B-school will incorporate social entrepreneurship and social enterprise into their curriculum. These institutions will develop programs to support youth-led innovation beginning as early as high school. These educational platform will be global in nature.
Social enterprise hedge fund - It is time to put the tools and skills of hedge fund managers back to work, but as social hedge fund managers. Imagine having using real options approach to investing hundreds of social ventures, derisking these social ventures by investing in a large portfolio of social enterprises.
Bottom of the pyramid innovation - There are a lot of ideas coming from developing countries and expect that there will be many green innovators, particularly those focused on the bottom of the pyramid to drive change. Social ventures will be seen as a cooler than tech start-ups and many young brains will be aspired.
The firewall that exists between business, social ventures and non-profits should never have existed. The way we measure corporate performance should based on the ability to create the largest set of overall returns possible-financial, social, and environmental-to maximize total value and total returns on investments. We must start from there in order to change management behavior and decision. If a triple bottom line positively impacts a company’s valuation, guarantee new behavior will emerge.
