Business models for Social Entrepreneurs 0 Reply

Social entrepreneurship initiatives have been growing fast in the latest years moved by the desire of changing the world, gathering knowledge and resources, making changes happen. New entrepreneurs are born every day motivated for bringing social change to their communities. However, as discussed during the first session of this cycle on social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurs need to have some competences and resources, among them basic knowledge on business and organisation models.

During the session experts based in Portugal and Cape Verde will address entrepreneurs doubts and questions regarding “what´s a business model, business activity versus social activity, social entreprises models existing in different countries. The objective is to clarify concepts and analyse together with social entrepreneurs the best business model they can use to launch their projects by taking into advantages and disadvantages.

With this purpose a session on business models for social entrepreneurs will take place on 30 May from 15h to 17h London time. Dialogue Cafés participating are DC Lisbon (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian), DC Évora (EvoraTech Fab Lab da ADRAL) and DC Cidade de Praia (Instituto Pedro Pires para a Liderança). The session will take place in Portuguese.

Programme

• Dialogue Café Évora (ÉvoraTech by ADRAL): 
  • Daniel Janeiro, ÉvoraTech/ADRAL

• Dialogue Café Lisbon (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian): 
  • Nuno Januario, AlmaPhotography, Universidade Lusíada 

• Dialogue Café Cidade de Praia (Instituto Pedro Pires para a Liderança): 
  • Samir Pereira, Director da Startup Grind Praia

 For further information and registration contact us.

Funding Social Innovation: exploring the funding ecosystem in Europe 0 Reply

SIX organised a session on social finance as part of the Social Innovation Europe Initiative. The main purpose of the session was to get practical input and thoughts on the current state and current developments in the funding systems in place to support social innovations in Europe. These thoughts and insights will now be woven into the Social Innovation Europe initiative’s report on the topic for the European Commission. It has been shown over the last decades that there is a lot of excitement and energy surrounding social innovations across Europe but no sustainable market for social investments. Apart from traditional grant funding infrastructure, there is little appropriate support for social innovations and our focus must turn to new financial instruments.

As part of the session, participants discussed the following questions:

What type of funding has promoted the most socially innovative activities?

How can the European Commission encourage and support social innovation activities? What kinds of finance would better support social innovation?

What role should the private sector play? What would be the role of different tools offered by that sector – for instance through capital markets or through banking finance? How might private investors be empowered to drive positive change? What can be done on a European level?

Can foundations play a greater role in funding and financing social innovation? How could this be further enhanced by European Commission support

Where do we want to be in 10 years time? What do we want the finance infrastructure look like?

For more information about social innovation exchange and the Social Innovation Europe initiative see www.socialinnovationexchange.org. For more information on Dialogue Cafe contact jude@dialoguecafe.org

Funding Social Innovation: exploring the funding ecosystem in Europe 1

Tomorrow at Dialogue Cafe:

This event is organised by the Social Innovation eXchange (SIX), with Cisco and Dialogue Cafe, and will bring together participants from Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy.

This SIX TelePresence session will focus on the ecology of finance which supports, directs and, in some cases, blocks the processes of social innovation. All over the world, there are now many funds for social innovation, as well as institutions with dedicated innovation units or teams within large institutions who play a key role in mobilising resources for social innovation. Despite this, finance for social innovation is often inadequate, ill-suited, or unsustainable, and therefore remains a key factor hindering the development of social innovation.

This TelePresence session is part of the part of the Social Innovation Europe Initiative. The Social Innovation eXchange will be producing a report which will explore what a new funding model for social innovation in Europe might look like and how the selection of projects might be optimised. The idea of a multi stage fund through stages of innovation will be developed. The report will look at types (and possible combinations) of instruments needed by social innovators and ways to improve access by social innovators to existing financial resources. This TelePresence session offers a unique opportunity to guide this report and its eventual recommendations at a key moment in its development.

On 1 June 2011, SIX will bring together a selection of people for whom the ecology of finance is a primary concern; public managers and staff, social innovators, business partners, researchers, consultants and others with a stake in the finance and growth of social innovations will come together for a truly global discussion.