Inspiring Social Entrepreneurs Podcast: Recent Episodes
Fergal Byrne
At Inspiring Social Entrepreneurs, we talk to experienced and successful social entrepreneurs and change makers, committed to building a better world.
Working as a social entrepreneur is hugely fulfilling – yet uniquely challenging. Social entrepreneurs need to balance business and social goals to succeed, often working in extremely challenging environments, with limited resources.
And it is often a lonely journey. Our aim is to share the inspiring stories, to explore the highs and the lows, learn how different social entrepreneurs have kept inspired, and draw out insights to help social entrepreneurs at all stages on their journey.
A fascinating, wide-ranging, and spirited discussion about the state of social entrepreneurship and innovation today, touching on key questions including how to effectively measure impact, the true availability of impact investment, how to manage hybrid social businesses –as well as the challenges social entrepreneurs face keeping focussed on the mission while generating cash flow and profit. Professor Malhotra also discusses some of the research and insights from his recent book Frontiers in Social Innovation-and reflects on some of the key trends that will impact future social innovation.
Neil Malhotra is the Edith M. Cornell Professor of Political Economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Louise and Claude N. Rosenberg, Jr. Director of the Center for Social Innovation, where he has developed a curriculum focused on social issues, impact measurement, and mission-driven business, amongst other topics. Neil recently edited Frontiers in Social Innovation: The Essential Handbook for Creating, Deploying, and Sustaining Creative Solutions to Systemic Problems
Deep dive on the role of technology in helping to solve the world’s greatest environmental questions-and a passionate argument for the impact of social entrepreneurship. Tom gives an overview of At One Ventures investments and key technologies that the fund has supported, with a particular focus on tree planting technologies. As well as discussing specific technologies and market applications, Tom shares his views on the dangers of increasing penetration of technologies in our lives and reflects on techno utopian approach to the environment associated with Silicon Valley. Tom also shares his concerns how we as a society have prioritized economy over society and environment: A fascinating, spirited discussion.
Tom Chi is founder At One Ventures a climate-focused VC fund investing in companies creating environmentally positive technology. At One Ventures, a climate-focused VC fund investing in companies creating environmentally positive technology. Before founding At One Ventures, Tom was Head of Experience and founding member of Google X who helped scale the company from six people to 600. His engineering and business background coupled with a passion for environmental sustainability inspired him to start a VC fund dedicated to improving planetary health.
In this episode, we welcome back Kevin Starr back to the podcast to update us on the work of the Mulago Foundation. Kevin explains how Mulago’s focus has inevitably extended over time to take into account climate and the environment--the focus of Mulago's Henry Arnhold Fellows Program. Kevin’s main focus at Mulago is lasting change at scale and he explains how he thinks about scaling-- and the importance of structuring investments to make sure that profit and impact are aligned. In this wide ranging and stimulating interview, Kevin shares his perspective on the state of social entrepreneurship today, the reality of impact investment, and his evolving thoughts on measuring impact.
Kevin is the founder of the Mulago Foundation, which funds early stage social entrepreneurs devoted to maximum impact at scale in developing countries. Kevin set up the Reiner Arnhold Fellows Program in 2003 to apply Mulago’s principles and tools to help social entrepreneurs turn good ideas into lasting change at scale-- and in 2016, the Henry Arnhold Fellows Program to add a focus on environmental solutions. Kevin was the primary instigator of Big Bang Philanthropy, a group of funders that work together to direct more money to those best at fighting poverty, Over the years, Kevin’s taught hundreds of social entrepreneurs
The Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) works on the ecological restoration and conservation of land and water resources in ecologically fragile, degraded regions of India, primarily through the collective efforts of village communities. FES is currently working with more than 20,000 village communities on more than 6 s million acres of common lands across 10 states of India.
Jagdeesh has overseen the growth of FES over 20 years--his work has been widely recognized and he has received the Times of India Social Impact award, the Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom Award on Commons, UN’s Land for Life award, and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
In this inspiring episode, Jagdeesh discusses FES' vital ecological restoration and conservation work in land and water resources in ecologically fragile, degraded regions of India, highlighting the distinctive way FES works with local communities, and its philosophy and approach to restoration. He also looks forward to his new role as Curator of the Promise of Commons Initiative in India.
Austin explains how Climate Neutral aims to inspire consumers to factor a brand’s climate impact into their buying decisions. Climate Neutral software enables organizations to have a verifiable carbon footprint-and it also enables Climate Neutral-certified brands to buy carbon offsets that deliver carbon mitigation. He explains the operations of the carbon-offset market, the company’s approach to building a brand, and some of the challenges of building up the company.
Austin has worked in technology, climate and clean energy finance for two decades with many small and early stage organizations. He also earned an MBA from Yale. Before launching Climate Neutral he was Vice President at a customer intelligence software platform for utilities and energy service providers.
Today's interview features Dr. Kate Roll an Assistant Professor and Head of Teaching at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). Kate is a political scientist interested in how business, technology, and the state interact to improve the lives of the most vulnerable. Bringing her background in international development, Kate discusses inclusive business and the concept of bottom of the pyramid development and it's consequences for corporations and impoverished populations. Kate also shares her insights on what makes NGO and corporate partnerships succeed- and perhaps more interestingly, what makes them fail.
Kate holds a BA in International Relations (honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from Brown University, and both an MPhil in International Development Studies (distinction) and DPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford. She has taught both undergraduate Empirical Politics and Management Studies at the University of Oxford, and she continues to teach both at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and on IIPP's flagship MPA in Innovation at University College London.
Her multi-disciplinary work brings a focus politics and power to questions such as 'who gets what after war?' and 'how should corporations work with those in poverty?' Committed to grounded research, she has conducted fieldwork in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Kenya. She currently leads research at IIPP focusing on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), with a particular interest in issues of financing and conflict (SDG16).
In this interview, Dr. Aparna Hegde, an internationally renowned Urogynecologist and the founder of the NGO, ARMMAN (Advancing Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity of Mothers, Children and Neonates) shares her insights behind building scalable programs using technology and partnerships to innovatively impact maternal and child health. ARMMAN leverages technology to design & implement sustainable interventions to reduce maternal, neonatal, child mortality and morbidity in underserved communities. Working in 16 states in India, ARMMAN's five programs have reached more than 18 million women and their children.
Drawing from her hard earned experiences pioneering ARMMAN, Aparna discusses the impressive partnership ARMMAN has built with the Indian government. Aparna also details a key factor contributing to the growth of ARMMAN: deploying technology to meet women where they are. Driven by her passion to empower underserved Indian women through public health, Aparna's vision for ARMMAN is unshakeable.
Aparna is TED Fellow 2020 and was awarded USAID ‘Social Entrepreneur’ award (2018), ‘Woman ChangeMaker’ award (Womanity Foundation, Geneva, 2017), Woman Icon Award in Asia by Nanyung University, Singapore (2016), ‘People’s Choice Award’ at Saving Lives at Birth event (Washington DC, 2011), among other awards. She has been featured as one of the five global women leaders in the Voice of America documentary, ‘A Single Step: Journeys of Women Leaders’ (2015). ARMMAN was awarded the British Medical Journal South Asia Award for ‘Maternal & Child Health Team’ (2018), WHO Public Health Champion Award (2017) & is the only Indian NGO to have ever won the ‘GSK-Save the Children International’ grant.
In this episode, Celina De Sola talks about the growth and development of Glasswing International, a non-profit which aims to address the root causes and consequences of violence and poverty in communities in El Salvador, and other Latin American countries. Celina talks about the importance at the outset of understanding the roots of violence, rather than the symptoms. She highlights the critical importance of applying rigorous tests to measure social impact. She shares her experience on how to find funding, form strategic partnerships and highlights the importance of establishing honest partnerships between donors and communities. Celina also discusses the strategy behind creating a robust program that involves multi-sector partnerships between the private and public sectors. Finally, she touches on the challenges of maintaining sustainable growth as a multi-regional social enterprise.
Glasswing is a non-profit which aims to address the root causes and consequences of violence and poverty, by building partnerships across public, private, and civil society sectors to implement public education, health, and community development programs. Set up in El Salvador, Glasswing has expanded Glasswing to eight other countries in Central and South America. In their thirteen years of operation Glasswing has impacted 1.1 million people and mobilized over 120,000 volunteers.
Celina de Sola has more than 20 years of experience in international development and social change. She’s worked as a consultant for organizations like the Population Council and family foundations. Celina was also a crisis interventionist for Latino immigrants in the US, and subsequently spent over five years as Director of Emergency Response for AmeriCares, leading responses to complex humanitarian crises. Celina is a Fellow of the Obama Foundation, Ashoka, LEGO ReImagine Learning, Penn Social Impact, is a Skoll Foundation Awardee and a Tallberg Global Leader. Celina holds a Masters degree in Public Health from Harvard University and Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice.
Kendis Paris is the founder of Truckers Against Trafficking, (TAT) founded in 2011. Beginning with the trucking industry, Kendis is building an anti-human trafficking movement model that could be applied across every mode of transportation in the US and beyond. Through TAT, Kendis is creating an entirely new role for truckers by targeting them in awareness-building campaigns about the issue; building a clear, safe pathway for them to act when they detect abuse; and using the trucking industry infrastructure as a strategic platform for the movement.
In this interview Kendis talks about the origins of TAT and the process of building the organization into a non-profit that has trained 845,000 people including truckers and law enforcement officers in how to spot and take action to aid a potentially trafficked victim. Kendis shares the motivations of the truckers she has encountered through TAT, sharing that truckers have expressed to her, “I have a daughter, I have granddaughters, how can I be a trucker against trafficking?”
Drawing from her systems change perspective, Kendis reveals the ways in which law enforcement and state agencies are involved in fighting human trafficking. Kendis explores the impact measurements that TAT tracks and her experience with creating policy change to further impact on state and federal levels. Finally, Kendis details the next steps to re-scale and recover from the effects of the pandemic.
EcoHimal Nepal is non-government organization (NGO) founded in 2009 with the goal of achieving sustainable development through community empowerment in Nepal’s mountain areas. It has almost two decades of experience in livelihoods enhancement through sustainable development and community capacity-building, having worked in the region since 1992 as the Asian Regional Office of Eco Himal, an international non-government organization (INGO) based in Salzburg, Austria. As a national NGO, EcoHimal Nepal will support the Nepal Government’s policy and work as a development partner in building the nation.
EcoHimal’s mission is a prosperous, empowered and self-sustained Nepali society free of poverty, injustice and social discrimination. It works to achieve sustainable development through community empowerment in Nepal’s mountain areas by improving local livelihoods ensuring management and access to natural resources by local communities, and reducing vulnerabilities of mountain communities to environmental disasters. In this inspiring interview, Narayan discusses the growth and evolution of EcoHimal and the organization’s current scope and focus. He discusses the roots of the environmental problems in rural areas in Nepal and EcoHimal’s distinctive, community-led approach to dealing with these issues—with a specific focus on education—and its work to enhance livelihoods of mountain communities. Narayan also talks about EcoHimal’s recent approach to funding and partnerships –including the success they’ve had with The Glacier Trust (UK) in enabling farmers to produce, roast and sell coffee as a climate change adaptation strategy.
Sue is Founder of Bioregional, a UK social entreprise that, works with partners to create better, more sustainable places to live, work and do business. Bioregional developed BedZED eco-village the first of its kind in the UK and out of this the One Planet Living approach, ten interconnected and holistic principles to show people how to make sustainable living actionable and desirable. Sue was also instrumental in designing SDG12, focused on sustainable consumption and production – essential to One Planet Living. Sue is an Ashoka fellow.
In this inspiring interview, Nadina Galle, CEO & Co-Founder at Green City Watch, speaks to the growing trend of urbanization, and the key role that that urban forests play in greening cities. She explains how Green City Watch uses powerful AI and machine learning technologies to provide a cost-effective solution to oversee and manage urban green spaces and talks about the company’s first product focused on urban forests.
Nadina Galle is an ecologist whose practice spans the fields of sustainability, technology, and urbanism. She is CEO & Co-Founder at Green City Watch in Amsterdam, a global, award-winning geospatial AI company focused on renaturing cities and development of urban forests. Nadina holds degrees in ecology, evolutionary biology and earth sciences from the universities of Toronto, Singapore, and Amsterdam. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Ecological Engineering, at University College Dublin Spatial Dynamics Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Senseable City Lab, and Trinity College Dublin.
Dr Morgan Phillips joined The Glacier Trust in December 2016. He is responsible for the day-to-day running of the charity, with specific focus on project development, partnerships, strategy and fundraising. Morgan holds a BSc in Geography, an MSc in Environmental Science, Policy and Planning and a PhD in Environmental Education. He worked at Keep Britain Tidy for five years, spending two years as a Team Leader in Community Engagement and three years as Education Manager. Previously, Morgan ran a small intercultural understanding charity, Global Footsteps and lectured on the politics of climate change at Brunel University. Alongside his role as Co-Director for The Glacier Trust, Morgan also works freelance in sustainability education.
In this interview, Morgan discusses the important work that Glacier Trust is doing in Nepal, focusing in particular on the Trust’s agricultural and education projects. Morgan shares his first hand experience of the impact receding glaciers in the Himalayas-often called the third pole, the largest concentration of ice after the South and North Poles-and the desperate impacts on farming and local communities. Helping farmers adapt to climate change is at the heart of the work that the Glacier Trust undertakes, largely working with a number of local NGOs in Nepal. Morgan talks about the increasing awareness of the threat and impact of climate change within local farming communities—and some of the successes that local NGOs have had helping farmers their farming practices –and how these practices are shared across different communities. Morgan also talks about the neglected problem posed by glacier lakes in the Himalayas and the threat of flooding.
In this interview, social entrepreneur Jordan Kassalow, and rabbi and author, Jennifer Krausediscuss Dare to Matter, their inspiring new bookwhich brings together Jordan’s experience as a successful social entrepreneur and Jennifer’s deep insights into inherited Jewish traditions. They set the context clearly from the outset—an economic model that does not work for many, and intense and growing societal pressure on young people and people in the workplace. Against this background, a growing number of individuals are yearning to find a deep meaning in life beyond the material –Jordan cites recent research on the limited impact that material wealth has on happiness, beyond a certain level. Both Jordan and Jennifer are passionate about the potential for every individual to make a difference in the world—and they share their thoughts on how to integrate what you do to earn a paycheck with your desire to build a better world. While recognising that not everyone will live a life like Mother Theresa, Jennifer believes “there is something in the world that calls on, that needs each and every one of us” –and they highlight the central importance of “Discover the Need that Needs you Most.” This is hugely inspiring interview that will help those that want to make a difference in the world live a life with purpose by using their unique gifts.
Jordan Kassalow is the founder of VisionSpring, a successful social entreprise that works to ensure affordable access to eyewear, everywhere, as well as co-founding EYElliance, a multi-stakeholder coalition driving global strategy to increase access to eyeglasses at scale. Jordan also launched the Global Health Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Jordan served as director of the River Blindness Division at Helen Keller International. He is a fellow at Draper Richards Kaplan, Skoll, Ashoka, and the Aspen Institute. Jennifer Krause is a rabbi and author who weaves together an innovative mix of sacred text, contemporary experience, and popular culture in her work. She is the author of The Answer: Making Sense of Life, One Question at a Time and her writing and commentary have been featured in Newsweek, The New York Times, and, Time.com
Rebecca Masisak is CEO of TechSoup–she sets the strategic direction and provides executive oversight of all aspects of the organization and its global operations. Ms. Masisak joined TechSoup in 2001 to launch its e-commerce donation platform, moving the organization from a local San Francisco Bay Area focus to a national reach. In 2006, she founded the TechSoup Global Network to scale the program’s impact globally. Ms. Masisak became CEO of the organization in 2012, after having served the prior six years as co-CEO. She previously worked as a strategy consultant with Coopers & Lybrand and in leadership roles at several Internet businesses.
Ms. Masisak holds an M.B.A. from the Columbia University Business School. In 2017, she was honored as one of the nonprofit sector’s “top 50 most influential leaders” by the Nonprofit Times and named one of the “most influential women of the Bay Area” by the San Francisco Business Times. She co-leads the Bay Area Social Enterprise Leadership Forum.
In this insightful interview, Rebecca talks about the tech challenges that NGOs and social benefit organisations face, the importance of technology within the sector and TechSoup’s growth and evolution. She highlights the key role of tech donors supporting the sector and the way that TechSoup works with a growing number of corporate donors to deliver services around the world. Rebecca also identifies some of the distinct problems that NGOs face trying to fund technology development in the current business climate. She also discusses how the organisation has dealt with scaling, collectively growing the tech resources devoted to expanding the capacity of the global social sector and how the organisation has achieved its hugely impressive impact.
TechSoup has recently launched a $11.5 million growth capital campaign, an ambitious initiative to nearly double the number of nonprofit organizations it serves. The campaign includes opportunities to invest in TechSoup’s growth through a Direct Public Offering (DPO). With investment minimums as low as $50, the DPO is uniquely structured to engage with TechSoup’s community, including the nonprofits they serve and the technology companies they partner with. The DPO is gathering grassroots support and attracting the interest of major impact investors, including Microsoft Philanthropies, which recently made a $1 million impact investment into the DPO. The investment will enable TechSoup to develop new offerings to help nonprofits utilize technology to amplify their mission and impact. The investment it will also encourage investors of all stripes to support TechSoup’s growth initiative and catalyze the impact to the sector.
In this inspiring and thought-provoking interview, Jed describes his decades long work in the field of impact investment and the motivation behind his most recent book The Purpose of Capital: Elements of Impact, Financial Flows, and Natural Being. Jed explores the historic roots of our understanding of capital—and goes on to suggest that the idea that there is this gap between philanthropic capital and market rate capital is not correct-that all investments should be considered impactful. Rather than seeing progress as linear, Jed argues we should consider it as a spiral, where we can search for both a deeper and higher understanding. He also asks us to stop seeing ourselves and our successes as separate, but rather to see how we are all connected—and he challenges each of us to pause and reflect on what our fundamental intent is – to be successful, or to have a positive impact—and inspires us to transform financial and investment models to optimize the legacy we leave on society and the environment. This is a fascinating discussion questions the idea that financial returns re the main driver for creating impact in the world and offers the prospect of healing the long standing separation between economic/financial value and social/environmental value.
Jed Emerson is strategic advisor to family offices and wealth management firms executing diverse approaches to investing for financial returns with social and environmental impact. Co-author of the first book on impact investing, as well as six other books on impact investing and social entrepreneurship, he has been active in both fields for nearly thirty years. He has served as founding director and board member of diverse social enterprises and impact investment groups. Emerson is a Senior Research Fellow at University of Heidelberg’s Center on Social Investing and has held faculty appointments at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford business schools. He has taught social entrepreneurship at Kellogg Business School and NYU-Abu Dhabi in the U.A.E. In the late 90s, Emerson coined the concept of Blended Value to describe the reality that the value we create in our lives and through our investing is a blend of social, environmental and economic elements. While the value we create is whole, we are asked to choose between doing well or doing good, making money or engaging in philanthropy and working in nonprofit or for-profit organizations.
As the former Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, Ann Mei served as the first Executive Director of the US Global Development Lab. In this role, Ann Mei was responsible for identifying breakthrough innovations and transforming the way development was done in order to accelerate our pace of progress. Her firsthand knowledge in both tech and nonprofit startups have provided her with keen insight into the many challenges inhibiting the growth of new ideas. Ann Mei describes in this interview the difference between the traditional Lean Startup Model and the Lean Impact model she proposes in her new book, Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good. She explores with us some unique ways to consider scalability from the beginning, workarounds for handling limitations and/or restrictions to funding and donor relationships, and dares us to think BIGGER by focusing on the needs of the world rather than the constraints that can hinder our creativity. Ann Mei encourages all businesses to adopt a Lean Model as a standard best practice as so understanding and adaptation can be applied as quickly as possible for optimal performance solutions.
With a natural philanthropic spirit, Randy Paynter founded the online advocacy website, Care2, in 1998 with the hope of making the world a kinder, more inclusive, and sustainable space. The business works by focusing on two aspects in which to generate support for social and environmental causes around the world. First, they empower individuals to take collective action through the petition of their own campaigns. Second, they work directly with non-profits to craft campaigns in an effort to generate/ recruit more donor prospects. Their scale and expertise allows them to effectively navigate shifts in the online market to maximize connections between activists and individuals, organizations, and responsible businesses trying to make positive impacts. Since it’s creation, Care2 has recruited over 90 million donor prospects for non-profits making them a leader in online advocacy.
In this interview, Randy outlines the initial challenges he faced while raising money to start Care2, and his sincere belief in creating an “engine for good” business model where good actions generate revenues that will help fuel more good actions. He discusses the concept that positive feedback through donation helps drive personal motivations to do more, and offers some examples of the types of hyper local or hyper specific campaigns that work well. Randy describes how big changes with the internet, primarily through the growth of Facebook and Google, has shifted the way we engage with various causes and non-profits by generating “interruptions” on social media. This may play an important role in the general increase seen in activism. As the spotlight grows on the transparency and accountability of businesses and governments, Randy mentions how these organizations will need to embrace more socially and environmentally sustainable practices.
Harish Hande is an Indian social entrepreneur who co-founded SELCO India in 1995 to eradicate poverty by promoting sustainable technologies in rural India. SELCO India is a social enterprise that provides sustainable energy services to the poor in India, sustainable energy solutions and services to under-served households and businesses. SELCO empowers its customer by providing a complete package of product, service and consumer financing through grameena banks, cooperative societies, commercial banks and micro-finance institutions. Harish has won numerous award including the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, for “his pragmatic efforts to put solar power technology in the hands of the poor.” Hande was also named the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation.
In this wide ranging and fascinating interview, Harish discusses the underlying myths that SELCO was set up to disprove: 1) Poor people cannot afford sustainable technologies; 2) Poor people cannot maintain sustainable technologies; 3) Social ventures cannot be run as commercial entities. Harish is outspoken about the possibilities for poor people to rise from poverty and shares his vision for helping alleviate poverty in India. He identifies the flaws at the heart of “Bottom of the pyramid” thinking—the poor as consumers-rather than also as possible innovators and entrepreneurs — and also criticises traditional thinking about “frugal innovation.” This is an hugely inspiring interview full of powerful ideas and insights based on Harish’ experience working with poorest people in India.
Odin Mühlenbein is Partner at Ashoka Germany and Lead of Advisory at Ashoka Globalizer–an accelerator program that helps advanced social entrepreneurs from around the world develop strategies for social system change. Odin takes the learnings from Ashoka Globalizer to spread the word about system change and systems thinking, both within Ashoka and the field of social entrepreneurship. Previously, Odin worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and co-founded two social ventures.
In this interview, Odin talks the growth and importance of systems entrepreneurs — and the ways in which Ashoka Globalizer promotes insights and learnings about social system change, gleaned across the Ashoka network. Odin discusses the distinct role that system change entrepreneurs can play and how social entrepreneurs more generally can embrace the power of systems thinking-and discusses the importance of “tipping points’ in systems at a global level. Odin identifies the qualities a social entrepreneur needs to cultivate in order to become a successful systems entrepreneur. Finally, he discusses the perennial challenge of funding these ventures.
Dr. Charly Kleissner is a pioneer in the field of impact investment. He believes that the deeper meaning of wealth is to make a positive contribution to humanity and the planet. Dr. Kleissner co-founded KL Felicitas Foundation (www.klfelicitasfoundation.org), and Social-Impact International (www.social-impact.org), which help social entrepreneurs worldwide to accelerate and increase their impact. Dr. Kleissner co-founded Toniic and the 100% Impact Network, global networks for impact investors. Dr. Kleissner serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Global Hub Company (www.the-hub.net), and as Board Director and Chairman of the Investment Committee of ImpactAssets.
In this extended and wide-ranging interview, Charly paints an exciting picture of the state of impact investment today, talks about the importance of “deep impact investing”-and shares his abiding belief in the potential of changing the financial system to build a better world. Charly talks about his experience at TONIIC and the 100% impact network and highlights the results that have been achieved at the KL Felicitas Foundation (that impact investors can construct a 100% impact portfolio and achieve competitive financial returns in all asset classes while making a big impact). Charly highlights some of the important work the Foundation is doing supporting the impact investment ecosystem. Finally, he discusses how modern portfolio theory should be re-conceptualized to integrate positive impact. (This is an edited version of an interview posted on the Financing Social Entrepreneurs podcast.)
Jonah Sachs is an internationally recognized storyteller, author, and designer. He is the co-founder and chief storytelling officer of Free Range Studios, an advertising and marketing firm that specializes in nonprofits and socially responsible businesses. Jonah has helped hundreds of social brands and causes break through the media din with campaigns built on sound storytelling strategies. Jonah’s latest book, Unsafe Thinking, explores latest research into creativity and performance to present effective strategies to achieve higher performance and creativity and deliver successful innovation. In this interview, Jonah talks about the key ideas underlying his new book, and the importance of Unsafe Thinking for social entrepreneurs and innovators. He provides fresh and stimulating insights on creativity and the experience of “flow” –identifying when social innovators need to make sure that they are at their most creative –and when they need to focus on grit and determination to get things done. This is a fresh and stimulating look at latest thinking about creativity and effective performance which will be helpful to all social innovators.
Tim Freundlich is President of ImpactAssets, a boutique donor advised fund that specialises in socially responsible and impact investment options to mobilise human and financial capital towards a sustainable world. Tim is a long-term innovator in new financial instruments in the social enterprise sectors and was instrumental in establishing the precursor to ImpactAssets, the Calvert Giving Fund. Tim is also co-author of the ImpactAssets Handbook, an introductory text on how to become best positioned to engage in impact investing as an asset owner.
In this interview, Tim gives us an overview of ImpactAssets activities and the role of donor advised funds, philanthropic donations that are responsibly managed to maximise their long-term impact, allowing any individual donor in effect to be like the Gates Foundation. Tim discusses challenges and opportunities for financing small-scale social entrepreneurs and talks about different forms of impact investments, distinguishing between those that are “gap driven” and others that are “opportunity driven.” Tim is optimistic with regard to the millennial generation’s overwhelming support for purpose-driven business models. Given millennials are due to inherit the greatest generational wealth transfer in history this provides substantial opportunities for expanding such financial models. Finally, Tim stresses how impact investments’ rapid growth and proven track-record is changing finance and bringing impact led investing into the mainstream
(This is an edited version of the original podcast episode from the Financing Social Entrepreneurs podcast series.)
Harvey Koh is Managing Director at the global social change consulting firm FSG. Based in FSG’s Mumbai, India office, Harvey directs research and advocacy in the area of Inclusive Markets, advancing thinking about inclusive business and market-based solutions in development, with a global perspective. His primary focus is working with donors and companies to develop and scale inclusive business models that benefit the poor, across the housing, water and the healthcare sector.
In this interview, Harvey discusses FSG’s recent report Shaping Inclusive Markets: How Funders and Intermediaries can Help Markets Move Towards Greater Economic Inclusion. The report analyses historical cases where inclusive markets lead to expanded opportunities for a broadly shared prosperity and seeks to understand the ways in which they were achieved. Harvey stresses the importance of reimagining markets to produce inclusion. He underlines their importance in creating inclusive societies, as the poor are already participants in markets for basic services. He discusses some of the key findings from the report, particularly the importance of producer ownership in creating equitable livelihoods for poor and marginalised groups. He also addresses the importance of changing ownership structures in corporations, particularly the primacy of maximising shareholder return, in order to help businesses achieve long-term social goals. Finally, he briefly touches on the juncture between inclusive markets and sustainability issues.
Benetech Labs is the innovation engine of Benetech, a leading nonprofit that empowers communities through software for social good with a focus on education, human rights, poverty, and the environment. Benetech Labs works with communities and partners to identify needs and prototype software for social solutions and support solutions that deliver the greatest impact in the communities it serves. Benetech Labs uses a model very much like traditional venture capitalists use when evaluating projects with the key difference that Benetech Labs focuses on delivering maximum social good, not profit.
Anh is a seasoned nonprofit leader with expertise building scalable software for social good solutions through ecosystem engagement. At Benetech, Anh is responsible for leading Benetech Labs’ R&D work, engaging with communities, other technologists, and other non-profits around critical social issues to prototype new software solutions. Prior to Benetech, Anh led the development of a digital publishing platform for leading scientific and research publishers.
Joel Solomon is a highly experience social investor who has invested in over 100 early-growth stage companies in North America. Joel was instrumental in the development the Endswell Foundation, the largest, BC-based, charitable foundation in British Columbia funding environmental issues in the 1990s. Joel is currently Chair of Renewal Funds, Canada’s largest mission venture capital firm, with $98m assets under management. Joel is a Senior Advisor with RSF Social Finance, founding member of Social Venture Network, Business for Social Responsibility, the Tides Canada Foundation, and Board Chair of Hollyhock. He is co-author of the Clean Money Revolution, which will has now been published.
In this interview, Joel shares his perspective on the evolution of impact investing in the US, after years at the forefront front of social investment, and his experience building the Endswell Foundation. Joel discusses Renewal Funds investment strategy, what they are looking for in investee companies, and how they go about building a portfolio. He also provides advice for entrepreneurs that are looking to raise money for their business. Finally, Joel outlines some of the key ideas in his new book. Clean Money Revolution, and looks to the future of finance where profit & purpose are aligned.
Kevin Barenblat is a highly experienced software entrepreneur with a passion for applying technology for good. He is a big believer that talented people can leverage technology to create scalable solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems. Kevin is the founder of the Fast Forward accelerator that helps tech nonprofits by investing money, providing training and mentoring, and helping scale them to impact using what he calls a “well-established Silicon Valley playbook.” (An edited version of this podcast was posted on the Financing Social Entrepreneurs podcast).
Ned Breslin is the CEO at the Tennyson Center for Children, a 112 year non-profit based in Denver, Colorado, dedicated to helping children who have experienced severe abuse, neglect and/or trauma so they can bravely, and safely, change their life’s story. Ned previously worked in international water and sanitation for close to 30 years and is a 2011 winner of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
In this inspiring interview, Ned talks about his ongoing journey as a social entrepreneur, the challenges and motivation of working in the child welfare sector, after 30 years working in water and sanitation. Ned talks about how Tennyson is re-envisioning provision of child welfare, how he has approached fundraising, and the real meaning of advocacy. Ned also touches on important trends within the social sectors including growing interest in hyper-local social innovation. This is a powerful interview where Ned shares the fruit of a long and committed career at the forefront of social innovation.
Jonathan Lewis has had a long and varied career and vocation as a social justice activist and social entrepreneur. He is Founder of MCE Social Capital, an innovative social venture that finances small business loans to deeply impoverished people in 33 countries around the world. He is also Founder and President of the Opportunity Collaboration, an annual global strategic business retreat for anti-poverty leaders, and also co-founder of Copia Global, an Amazon-like consumer catalog. Jonathan has taught social entrepreneurship and lectured at universities around the world and is the author of the newly published The Unfinished Social Entrepreneur, a candid and provocative account of the challenges and questions facing all social entrepreneurs.
Ron Cordes is a veteran of more than 30 years in the investment industry – he co-founded and then sold AssetMark Investment Services. In 2006, together with his wife Marty, Ron set up the Cordes Foundation — a family foundation focused on social entrepreneurship, impact investing and creating economic opportunities for women, later broadening its focus to include ethical fashion brands, sustainable manufacturing and engaging millennials in impact investing. The Cordes Foundation was one of the first foundations to commit itself to aligning 100% of assets to mission. Ron also chairs the Executive Committee for ImpactAssets, an initiative to catalyze capital for impact investments, formed in partnership with the Calvert Foundation.
In this interview, Ron talks about how he got started in philanthropy and talks about the work of the Cordes Foundation, highlighting the Foundation’s long-standing focus on providing economic opportunities for women and girls, and its growing interest in ethical fashion. Ron discusses the recent growth in impact investing and shares his views on the importance of generating market related returns within the sector. He discusses the Foundation’s pioneering move toward aligning 100% of assets to mission and some of the big changes taking place in philanthropy today. Finally, he talks about Opportunity Collaboration, an annual global poverty business retreat he co-chairs, and the Cordes Fellowships provided to emerging global social entrepreneurs.
Isaac is a designer-researcher focused on global health equity and creating complex health systems that are beneficial to healthcare staff working with poor and marginalised patient populations. He is the cofounder of Medic Mobile, a non-profit technology company specializing in mHealth. Medic Mobile is guided by a mission to support community health workers and families using mobile and web tools to help register pregnancies, track disease outbreaks faster, and keep stock of essential medicines.
Medic Mobile started small, but found ways to expand access to medical care by equipping over 18,000 healthcare workers providing healthcare for over 8 million people in rural communities. The company realised that smartphones were not always easily available, but that basic mobile phones and could be used to deliver health information. Thanks to Medic Mobile, healthcare workers in over 20 countries are now more easily able to contact each other, remind patients of appointments, collect information from patients in hard to access locations, do basic diagnosing of potentially fatal illnesses, and more.
In this interview, Isaac Holeman talks about Medic Mobile’s pioneering work and identifies some of the biggest decisions he has made on his journey as a social entrepreneur. He highlights the crucial importance of human centered design at the centre of Medic Mobile’s technology solution, and the time the team spent at the outset to understand the community healthcare worker ecosystem. Isaac talks about different approaches to scaling technology solutions and how identifying your likely scaling strategy will help to determine the best approach you take. This is an insightful interview with a leading mHealth company.
Kevin Starr has been supporting social entrepreneurs since before we used the term. He built the current incarnation of Mulago Foundation, a private foundation that funds early-stage social entrepreneurs devoted to maximum impact at scale in the lives of the poorest people in developing countries. In 2003, Kevin set up Rainer Arnhold Fellows Programme to apply Mulago’s principles and tools to help social entrepreneurs turn good ideas into lasting change at scale. The Mulago Foundation is currently funding fifty or so social ventures including Last Mile Health, One Acre Fund, Blue Ventures, Komaza, and The Boma Project.
In this revealing interview, Kevin talks about the Mulago Foundation’s investment philosophy and the different ways it supports social entrepreneurs. He presents a simple model of sources of finance for social entrepreneurs-and advises as to the appropriateness of each– and he shares his thoughts on how social impact can best be scaled. Kevin gives a frank assessment of the state of impact investing today, warns of the dangers of investors prioritising business models over impact models, and cautions social entrepreneurs about over-reliance on for-profit business models when working on solutions for the very poor. (A version of this interview has previously been posted on the Financing Social Entrepreneurs site).
Simprints is a nonprofit tech company from the University of Cambridge that is building an affordable, secure, rugged, open-source fingerprint system that works in the world’s toughest settings. According to the World Bank, an estimated 1.1 billion people, the majority of them living in Asia and Africa, struggle to access basic services and rights due to an inability to prove their identity – Simprints is developing open source software and biometric hardware to break this identification bottleneck and empower mobile tools used by researchers, NGOs, and governments fighting poverty around the world.
In this interview, Toby sets the scene explaining about the identity challenges faced by poor people around the world and the disastrous impact on their lives, particularly when it comes to healthcare. He talks about the company’s journey from initial idea to set up and growth and the scale of the different challenges that they have faced at different stages of the journey. Toby explains the thinking behind setting up as a tech non-profit and identifies the different skills that they have needed to develop to succeed. He talks about the invaluable support that Simprints has received on this journey, and the different partnerships it has developed. This is a inspiring-interview, rich in insights, with lots of hard won advice for social entrepreneurs in all sectors.
KJ Erickson is Founder and CEO of Simbi, an innovative technology platform that allows people around the world to exchange or barter services. Users can do exchanges directly, or for credits that can be spent in the Simbi network. Prior to Simbi, KJ spent 9 years as the Founder and Executive Director of FORGE, a nonprofit that provides education, skills training, and entrepreneurial resources to more than 70,000 refugees in war-torn Africa.
KJ has won many awards include the Skoll Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship, the Do Something Award for public service, and the Stanford Haas Public Service Fellowship.
In 2014, KJ was a Skoll Scholar at Oxford’s Saïd Business School where she completed her MBA. In this interview, KJ talks about the roots of the Simbi idea, how it works, and common misconceptions. She talks about her experience as a social innovator and some of the challenges they have faced building the business. KJ gives a candid explanation why she thinks professional investors like FundersClub, Y Combinator & Greylock Partners invested in Simbi –and talks about her future aspirations for the business.
Biplab Ketan Paul is founder of Naireeta Services, an Indian social enterprise that has developed an innovative water management solution, the Bhungroo system, a unique irrigation system based on rainwater harvesting for farmers facing both drought and flooding situations Paul, together with his wife Trupti Jain, has spent some 17 years developing and improving the Bhungroo system which now benefits some 100,000 farmers in India. Paul has won multiple awards for his work including the Millennium Alliance Award for Global impact and India Innovation Growth Award-he is also an Ashoka fellow.
Gregg is founder of Adventure Scientists, a US non profit that partners with various conservation groups around the world to collect data from the outdoors that are crucial to unlocking solutions to the world’s environmental challenges. Since its founding in 2011, it has sent thousands of volunteers on missions to collect data from remote, difficult-to-access locations for conservation groups. This has led to the discovery of more than three dozen new species, provided key information to guide climate change decision-making, and helped protect threatened wildlife habitat around the world.
Eric Nee is managing editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), which has been serving global leaders of social change for almost 15 years- via its quarterly magazine, online articles, podcasts, videos, webinars, and conferences. Eric has some 30 years experience in the publishing industry; before joining Fortune, Eric launched Forbes’s Silicon Valley bureau, where he was bureau manager.
In this interview, Eric gives a fascinating overview of the state of social innovation today — and talks about some of the most exciting trends that he sees. From his unique vantage point at the intersection of the government, non-profit, and business sectors, Eric talks about evolving models of social innovation –and identifies some of the most interesting cross-sector initiatives in recent years. He also explores the rise of impact investing and talks about some trends in support for social innovation within Silicon Valley.
Ben is founder of Agora Parternships an organisation that provides early stage social entrepreneurs in Latin America with the resources they need to grow-primarily through the Agora Accelerator, a four month program designed to provide entrepreneurs access to the knowledge, networks, and capital they need to succeed. Since 2011, Agora has supported some 125 companies that have raised $52 million and created 5000 jobs, ninety per cent of which are still operating.
Oorja is a social enterprise that enables underserved rural communities in India to transform their crop waste crop waste into clean energy and biochar using hybrid solar and biomass-powered microgrids. Some 450 million people in rural India do not have access to reliable electricity — Oorja’s mission is to provide clean energy access to these people with a particular focus on local communities whilst promoting sustainable local economic development.
Chuck Slaughter is Founder and CEO of Living Goods, a social enterprise building a sustainable distribution platform for products designed to fight poverty and disease in the developing world. Living Goods operates networks of independent entrepreneurs (currently in Uganda, Kenya, and Myanmar) who make a living by selling medicines and products to poor people that can help improve their health, wealth, and productivity. It uses a successful direct selling model like Avon Products. A recent university study shows that Living Goods’ Community Health Agents are reducing child deaths by 25% for less than $2 a year per person. Living Goods aims to reach 50 million people in the next ten years with its innovative sustainable model.
Chuck has extensive experience as a businessman. He founded TravelSmith and grew it to over two million customers and $100 million in sales. After selling TravelSmith in 2004, Chuck devoted his entrepreneurial instincts to building vibrant enterprises in both the private and social sectors. Chuck currently serves on the boards of The Initiative for Global Development, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Three Day Blinds, and Living Goods, and is a former board member of Spiegel Brands. He is a recipient of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and is a Draper Richards Fellow.
Alex is the CEO and co-founder of Conservation X Labs, a startup for tech innovation for conservation and development. Prior to founding Conservation X Labs Alex served as the Chief Scientist at USAID and founded the Global Development Lab. Conservation X Labs aims to harness exponential technologies, open innovation, and entrepreneurship to dramatically improve the efficacy, scale and sustainability of conservation efforts to end human induced extinction.
Echoing Green is a leading global non-profit that provides seed funding and technical assistance to emerging social entrepreneurs with ideas for social change. The organisation is celebrating its 30 anniversary in 2017. Over that time it has forged a community of global pioneers, now over 700 strong, and played a pioneering role helping accelerate these leaders to impact the world. Cheryl Dorsey has been at the helm since 2002 and has overseen Echoing Green’s development into a leading global non-profit.
In this interview, posted jointly with Financing Social Entrepreneurs (www.financingsocialentrepreneurs.com) Cheryl takes us back in time to the foundation of the organisation and highlights the central and on-going importance of its fellowship program, providing grant money for social entrepreneurs, and the strength of this community. She also highlights Echoing Green’s work supporting the evolving social entrepreneurship ecosystem and how it has been responding to the changes taking place in the field of social entrepreneurship. Cheryl gives her views on the key trends she sees in social entrepreneurship and impact investing today, and, looking to the future, shares her vision for the future of this unique organisation.
Jordan Kassalow is founder of VisionSpring, a US social enterprise whose mission is to expand affordable access to eyewear, everywhere. To date, VisionSpring has distributed over 3.5 million eyeglasses to their target customers, who typically earns below $4 per day. They estimate their total economic impact to be over $756 million.
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 600 million people could have their vision restored with access to eyeglasses. With the goal of increasing impact, Jordan recently set up EYElliance–a multi-stakeholder initiative to radically scale provision of eyeglasses to people with refractive error who do not have access to eyeglasses.
Christian is a scholar of social innovation –he is the Leo Tindemans Chair for Business Model Innovation at KU Leuven — a visiting scholar at the Stanford University Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society and an academic visitor at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. Christian, together with Johanna Mair are co-authors of the recently published Innovation and Scaling for Impact: How Effective Social Enterprises Do It.
Willy Oppenheim is an educator, a researcher, and the founder of Omprakash a social enterprise working to make international volunteering more ethical and impactful. Willy founded Omprakash (www.omprakash.org) in 2004 with the goal of creating a platform to connect volunteers with social impact opportunities around the world. Omprakash is a free online platform that connects grassroots health, education, and environmental organizations in over 30 countries with a global audience of volunteers, donors, and classrooms that can learn from and support their work.
Willy studied anthropology and religion as an undergraduate and went on to earn his doctorate in Education from Oxford University. He continues to lead Omprakash and its newest initiative, Omprakash EdGE, which is an online training and mentorship program intended to help university students enrich their international learning and impact.
Marc is on faculty at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. His research and teaching focus on innovation, institutions and infrastructure, with particular empirical projects at the intersection of organizational strategy and economic sociology in nascent markets. Current work explores early moments approaches in markets for UK impact investment, ecosystems services in Amazon Peru, climate change adaption, and Cascadia ‘conscious capitalism’. Marc has a distinctive, ‘organisation-rich’view on the role of social entrepreneurs as system builders, creating and strengthening nascent markets, where institutional rules and conventions have not yet settled ambiguity.
Marc is involved with initiatives at Oxford and elsewhere. He is Academic Lead for ‘Ideas to Impact’ (I2I) initiative, a collaboration with the Oxford Sciences and Engineering Division in support of innovation and enterprise. He is founding convenor of the research seminar series ‘Strategies, Institutions and Practices at Saïd’. Marc also acts as an advisor to several technology and social innovation start-ups founded by recent Oxford alumni including Pivotus Ventures and Global Thinkers Forum. He serves in advisory roles for UK Participatory City and for the Banff Centre #AltNow entrepreneurial initiatives to address economic inequality in Canada.
In this interview, Marc shares his views on the role of social entrepreneurs as system builders, working to overcome various kinds of inertia and to mobilize and combine resources across broad social expanses. Marc highlights the importance of social change in systems terms and the work of social innovators in the idiom of systems change.
Jeffrey Hollender is a social entrepreneur, author and activist. After a wide ranging entrepreneurial career, Jeffrey co-founded Seventh Generation and built it over 25 years into a leading natural product company recognised for its authenticity, transparency, and progressive business practices. Jeffrey recently co-founded Hollender Sustainable Brands, which sells Sustain Natural sexual wellness products; he is CEO and Chief Inspired Protagonist. Jeffrey is Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Greenpeace USA and has also served on the board of Verite, a leading labor rights organization, as well as Health Care Without Harm, and Practically Green. He has written six books including The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win.
Noora Health is an innovative non-profit that provides health training to help patients transition between hospital and home -one of the most precarious and rushed times in healthcare delivery. Noora provides training and information to caregivers and patients after surgery to ensure that patients are well taken of during their recovery process –to improve health outcomes and save lives.
To date, Noora has trained and certified more than 25,000 caregivers representing over 18,000 patients—and has demonstrated dramatic improvement in patient health outcomes. Outcomes recorded include a 36% decrease in 30-day complication rates and a 23% decrease in 30-day readmission rates, in the hospitals where the programme is implemented. The team recently completed Y Combinator, in the first ever batch of social ventures.
In this interview, the team talks about:
- The surprisingly powerful impact of post-hospital health support services
- How Noora Health turns hospital hallways and waiting rooms into classrooms
- How the team developed-and refined –the original idea for Noora Health
- Noora’s distinct –and highly successful–approach to funding their venture
- Noora Health’s aspiration for the future
Envirofit is a global social enterprise that develops innovative smart cookstoves designed to reduce smoke and CO2 emissions and enable families to live healthier lives, while reducing climate change and increasing clean energy initiatives.
Since the company was set up in 2003 it has grown into a global company serving over five million people, with over a dozen products and regional headquarters in East Africa, West Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
In this interview, Ron talks about:
- how a clean technology cookstove can be a life changing event
- The power of execution
- Bill’s philosophy of getting and staying close to users, using focus groups and other communications to develop “products that users have a passion to own.”
- How Envirofit was set up from the outset to manufacture at scale
Taylor has spent almost a decade designing data systems for leading international development organizations. He co-founded Vera Solutions—an organization that works with social impact organizations to create affordable, powerful and flexible technology solutions that put real-time information in the hands of the people who need it. Vera has now served more than 175 organisations around the world.
Taylor also set up OpenFn.org, a platform that helps organizations connect their technologies to create complete information systems, from program monitoring and evaluation to community health worker tools in the field. OpenFn automates the flow of data between existing tools to save time, save money, and prevent human error in data processing. In the end, he hopes that decision makers, from the board to the front-lines, will get better data, faster.
Mariana is CEO & Founder of SEIF, the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative & Foundation, based in Switzerland. SEIF was established in 2010 to develop a wide variety of business creation and growth workshops, and support social businesses looking for funding – it has catalysed the development of a more professional community of social entrepreneurs and innovators in Switzerland.
The SEIF Awards for Social Entrepreneurship is the largest business plan competition in German-speaking Europe. SEIF has also recently developed the Impact Investors Circle comprising business angels, family offices and other investors interested in funding social businesses to deliver a financial return and social impact in Switzerland and across German speaking Europe.
John is the Founder and CEO of PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools), a rapidly growing and multiple award-winning social enterprise that widens access to secondary education in Africa.
Ten years ago John began working full time on setting up PEAS –the aim was to create a sustainable and self-sufficient network of schools, which can thrive with government support. The charity now has a network of 28 schools in Uganda and 2 in Zambia.
PEAS students tend to come from poorer backgrounds than government or private schools in Uganda. Even though many of the schools are in hard to reach rural areas, PEAS students are achieving exam results that are above the national average. Three
PEAS schools have recently been recognised by the Ministry of Education in Uganda as being amongst the top performing secondary schools in the country. PEAS’s ambition is now to lead a charter school movement by helping Africa governments create enabling education ecosystems that get millions more kids through quality secondary school.
John has gone on to become a member of the Courvoisier Future 500, the Rockefeller Top One Hundred Next Century Innovators and the Charity Times Awards Rising CEO star. In 2013, PEAS won the UK Charity Awards and the WISE Global Innovation Awards.
Deep is an Indian social worker and NGO activist He co-founded the pioneering Indian non-profit organisation, Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), of which he was the Executive Director till 2007.
PRADAN is involved in building self-help groups, developing land and water resource, natural resource management, forest-based livelihood, horticulture and agriculture.
Deepwas awarded the 2009 Magsaysay award for Community Leadership for his work for “development of rural communities.” He is also a recipient of the civilian honour of Padma Shri.
In this interview, Deep discusses:
- PRADAN’s growth and success
- PRADAN’s vision to improve productivity of natural resources
- Insights from PRADAN’s pioneering apprenticeship programme
- The impact of India’s falling levels of rural life
- What it means for India to be a developed economy
MyAgro is an award-winning social business which allows farmers in West Africa to buy fertilizer and seed by a series of small payments via a mobile phone platform and a network of local village vendors
Myagro’s helps farmers move out of poverty and has led a doubling of farm income. It has grown almost five fold the last year, and aims to grow to 75,000 farmers over the next five years.
Anushka was an early employee at both One Acre Fund, where she served as the Director of Innovation and Core Programs, and Kiva.org, where she created the Kiva Fellows Program.
In this interview, Anushka discusses:
- The vital role small holders play in developing countries
- The power of the layaway model
- The MyAgro business model
- How MyAgro works with “champion farmers” to spread the word about their services
- How MyAgro helps farmers double their income
James Perry is Co- Chair and Co-founder of B Lab UK-a UK registered charity, which exists to support a community of UK-based B Corps; he was also instrumental in managing the launch of B Corps in the UK
James is currently Chief Executive of Panahpur, where he has led the transition from a traditional grant making charitable trust into a sustainable social impact investor.
James chaired the UK Mission Alignment Working Group for the UK Advisory Board of the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce and has been Deputy Chairman of the Social Stock Exchange.
In this interview, James discusses:
- What is means to be a B Corporation
- The growth of B Corps in the UK
- Why B Corporations access great talent
- Purpose and B Corporations
- Why investors like B Corporations
Michael Norton has had a prolific career in the world of social change. In 1975, Michael set up Directory of Social Change, the UK’s leading provider of information and training to the non-profit sector. Twenty years later, he set up the Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action. In 2000, he co-founded UnLtd, which supports social entrepreneurs.
Michael also co-founded the International Centre for Social Franchising and is also co-founder of Buzzbnk, an internet platform to enable the crowd-funding of social ventures. He is currently establishing a social investment find in the UK to invest at an early stage in emerging social ventures and he is encouraging and supporting social enterprise and better Corporate Social Responsibility in China, where he holds a Professorship at the China Global Philanthropy Institute.
In this interview, Michael talks about:
- The exciting role that foundations can play in funding social innovation
- His plans for a new trust-based approach to social investment
- The funding gap – and how to fill it
- The right reason to measure impact
- How social enterprises can enhance their impact
Rodney is Founder of ClearlySo which works with high-impact businesses, charities and funds in the UK to raise capital, and introduces them to institutional and individual investors. ClearlySo is Europe’s leading impact investment bank, and has helped nearly 100 clients raise more than £108 million in investment capital by leveraging its extensive network of high-net-worth individual and institutional investors.
Rodney held senior management posts at Lehman Brothers and Paribas, before founding the fintech venture capital firm Catalyst. A pioneer in this impact investment marketplace Rodney teaches impact investment at the Said Business School (Oxford) to MBAs and in the Executive Education programme. He is a former Board Chair of Shelter, JustGiving and Spacehive, and holds an MBA and BA from the University of Rochester.
In this interview, Rod discusses:
- How ClearlySo funds social innovation
- The funding landscape for social innovation in the UK
- The role of foundations in funding social innovation
- The funding gap for high impact low return organisations
- The crucial role of teams in raising funds for social innovation
Stephen Dawson is a pioneer in the field of venture philanthropy in the UK. A former venture capitalist, he was involved for 25 years with ECI, where he was until recently non-executive chairman.
Stephen was a co-founder of Impetus Trust- now Impetus-PEF- the first British venture philanthropy organisation, investing in charities and social enterprises that fight economic disadvantage; he was also a founder trustee of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA).
Stephen was co-founder and chairman of Jacana Partners which was established to tackle poverty in Africa by helping build a venture capital industry. He has received many awards for his work including an OBE for services to the voluntary sector in 2011.
In this interview, Stephen talks about:
- The rise of venture philanthropy in the UK
- How venture philanthropy works
- The growth and success of IntoUniversity
- The importance of building a broad funding base
- The pain –and value- of the venture philanthropy due diligence process
Nithya is the President and Co-Founder of Nexleaf Analytics, a nonprofit based in Los Angeles, California. Nexleaf’s mission is to build, scale, and support wireless technologies and data analytics tools to measure the impact of public health and environmental interventions in the field.
Nexleaf’s is current focussing on key projects in supporting vaccine delivery in developing countries (ColdTrace) and evaluating the impact of improved cookstoves (StoveTrace).
In this interview, Nithya talks about:
- Nexleaf’s work helping customers deliver impact
- The big, neglected, question in social innovation: how do you fix things?
- The importance of developing standard operating procedures for maintenance
- Building win-win partnerships
- Nexleaf’s approach to scaling
Ned is the cofounder of d.light, a for-profit social enterprise that designs, manufactures and distributes solar lights and power products to the developing world; the company provides high quality light and cost savings to households, farms and small businesses.
d.light has developed a wide range of solar lighting products at different prices, from desk lights and portable solar lanterns to solar home systems that power radios and mobile phones; the d.light A1 is the world’s most affordable high-quality solar light.
To date, d.light has sold 13 million solar light and power products in nearly 60 countries, improving the lives of nearly 60 million people. According to the World Bank’s Programme ‘Lighting Global’, d.light has been listed as the leading solar lantern manufacturer.
In this interview, Ned talks about
- How d.light got started
- The potential of solar energy in emerging markets throughout the world
- How to think about scaling-from the very beginning
- When and how to look for venture capital
- Where d.light has focussed its innovation efforts
- Ned’s vision for the future
Alasdair is Executive Director and cofounder of Blue Ventures, an innovative social enterprise that works with coastal communities to rebuild tropical fisheries.
Blue Ventures work with some of the the world’s poorest coastal communities, developing transformational approaches to marine protection by creating incentives for small-scale fishing communities to support fisheries management and marine conservation efforts. Among other successes, Blue Ventures’ models have inspired the largest locally-managed marine protected areas in the Indian Ocean and been replicated in coastal states in Africa, the Indian Ocean and southeast Asia.
Over the last decade, Blue Ventures’ innovative approach has inspired communities, NGOs, businesses, and government agencies to support grassroots marine conservation efforts at scale, having a transformational impact on national fisheries and marine conservation policy. Its work has led to new approaches to community-led fisheries management and to financing and incentivising marine conservation.
Al has won many awards for his work. Al is a TED Fellow, an Ashoka Fellow, and 2015 winner of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the WWF Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Award.
In this interview, Alasdair talks about:
- The critical need for innovation in the environmental conservation sector
- The tremendous opportunity and potential of working through local communities
- Why being a social enterprise is crucial to Blue Venture’s success
- The potential of viral social innovation in the conservation space
- Why being able to say ‘no’ to funders matters
Marc Koska has been on an amazing 30 year mission to eliminate dirty syringes responsible for more than a million deaths a year. Marc invented the non-reusable K1 syringe – thus preventing the medical transmission of blood-borne diseases. Since the first K1 syringe was sold, more than five billon K1 syringes have been sold worldwide.
Marc is also the founder of the SafePoint charity -which educates people on the dangers of reusing syringes. Marc has been intensely involved in advocacy –including years of lobbying the World Health Organisation (WHO) to introduce guidelines promoting single use syringes. (The WHO began a global campaign warning of the dangers of reusable needles in 2015).
In this interview, Marc talks about:
- How Marc began his journey
- The problem with syringes
- How Marc spent 3 years trying to understand the problem –before beginning to try to find a solution
- Marc’s approach to advocacy
- Marc’s vision for the future
The BOMA Project is a U.S. nonprofit and Kenyan NGO committed to building resiliency and ending extreme poverty in the drylands of Africa by focusing on enrolling ultra-poor women in a two-year poverty graduation program.
BOMA’s Rural Entrepreneur Access Project helps women to “graduate” from extreme poverty through a sequence of interventions that include a cash grant to start a business, financial and life skills training, mentoring, and the formation of formal savings accounts so that mothers can feed their families, pay for school fees and medical care and accumulate savings so they can survive shocks like drought.
BOMA’s goal is to change the lives of 100,000 women and children by 2018, and 1 million women and children by 2021. Earlier this year, BOMA was among a select group of 19 winners, chosen from over 1,700 applicants worldwide, for a prestigious grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Kathleen graduated from St. Lawrence University with a B.A. in government.
In this interview, Kathleen talks about:
- Why poverty graduation programmes are so important as a tool to reach the Sustainable Development Goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030
- The challenge of getting a social innovation organisation off the ground
- The importance of “evidence of impact” to raise funds
- How BOMA won a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- BOMA’s scaling options
Xavier is the Co-Founder and CEO of Off.Grid:Electric, a distributed renewable energy company operating in Arusha, Tanzania.
Off.Grid:Electric radically reduces the cost and risk of adopting solar energy for off-grid households worldwide, allowing them to replace kerosene with solar for as little as $2.50 per month.
Xavier is a serial social entrepreneur. Prior to setting up Off.Grid:Electric he co- founded Better World Books, a $60 Million triple bottom line online bookstore that has raised over $11 Million for literacy around the world.
In this interview, Xavier discusses:
- The potential pitfalls of setting up a for profit company with impact
- The critical importance of getting the business model right
- Brutal realistic about cost base
- The critical importance of getting the pilot stage right
- Why Off.Grid electric is increasing the pace of experimentation
- The importance of doing research on the ground
Pascal is a technology enthusiast with a wide ranging career which includes setting up a couple of technology companies, working at eBay, Mozilla Labs, as well as a stint at Google.org investing into social impact organizations around the world.
Pascal now heads up the startup initiatives at Singularity University- whose aim is to grow startups solving the most intractable problems in the world, Pascal is the entrepreneurship chair and responsible for the Startup Accelerator and Venture Fund.
Pascal publishes his opinionated newsletter, ‘The Heretic’, which is read by tens of thousands of entrepreneurs around the globe.
In this interview, Pascal discusses:
- The most important skill, often overlooked, required to succeed as a social entrepreneur
- How to build a social support network
- Keys to funding success
- How to find leverage to succeed
- Some exciting high-potential startups at Singularity University
Sharath Jeevan is Founder and CEO of STIR Education, a social entreprise that is building a teacher-led movement in India and Uganda. to address the learning crisis in developing countries.
STIR aims to build a movement of teachers, motivated to improve their teaching quality and influence the system. The aim is to reignite the spark in teachers and empower them to become committed, skilled and influential teachers.
STIR is currently working with about 12,000 teachers in India and Uganda with an impact on 500,000 children. STIR’s ultimate goal is improve learning levels for 40 million children in developing countries.
Prior to founding STIR in early 2012, Sharath founded Teaching Leaders, an innovative UK education non-profit
In this interview, Sharath shares discusses:
- How STIR identifies, tests and scales promising school and teacher ‘micro-innovations’
- STIR’s approach to people centred change
- How STIR creates positive networks of peers to support teacher growth and development
- STIR’s striking improvements in teacher motivation and student learning outcomes
- Getting to the tipping point
Jagdeesh Rao is the Chief Executive of the Foundation for Ecological Security, India (FES). FES is working towards the ecological restoration and conservation of land and water resources in ecologically fragile, degraded and marginalised regions of India, primarily through the concentrated and collective efforts of village communities.
FES works with almost 9,000 village communities across eight Indian states, helping protect more than 4 million acres of common lands. FES helps villagers secure community rights to publicly-owned land and support regulations tomanage it in a more sustainable and productive way.
In this interview, Jagdeesh discusses:
- How FES works to reduce rural inequalities
- The vital importance of decentralized governance of natural resources
- How FES balances short and longer term ecosystem regeneration
- How ecosystem regeneration, even in the short term, generates economic benefits
- The surprisingly long term perspective taken by village communities
Kate Otto is founder and CEO of Everyday Ambassador, an organisation helping schools and organizations create lasting, positive social change. She is also author of “Everyday Ambassador: Make a Difference by Connecting in a Disconnected World.” Kate is also health consultant and has worked for The World Bank, USAID, and various grassroots organizations. She is currently is a Reynolds Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship, member of the Academy of Achievement, Luce Scholar, and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
In this interview Kate discusses:
- What it means to be an “everyday ambassador”
- How to create “person to person change in the world
- How simple things like paying attention to others in our day-to-day lives
- can help change the world
- What young people can do to step up to the next level and contribute to building a better world”
Paul Polak is the co-founder and CEO of Windhorse International, a for-profit social venture that designs radically affordable, life-saving or income-generating technology to serve the poorest people in the world. In 2008, Polak founded D-Rev, a non-profit with the aim of designing and delivering medical products to people living on less than $4 a day
Polak was born in the Czech Republic and raised in Canada. He holds an M.D. degree from the University of Western Ontario.In addition to his social ventures, he has practiced psychiatry in Colorado for 23 years. Paul is also the author of“Out of Poverty.”
In this interview, Paul discusses:
- Why improving livelihoods is so important to lift people out of poverty
- The only way to reach scale as a social venture
- Why social entrepreneurs need to continually ask questions
- Why impact investors need to take bigger risks
- The importance of big goals
Paul Matteucci is founder of Feeding 10 Billion, a non-profit resource centre for food system entrepreneurs-its mission is to help food and agriculture entrepreneurs build sustainable companies that make an impact, create jobs and generate returns for investors. Paul is also a general partner of U.S. Venture Partners.
In this interview, Paul discusses:
- The three “wicked problems” facing the food and agricultural sector
- The importance of a centralised information portal for the food industry
- Why Paul believes in companies with “double sustainability”
- The promise of “precision agriculture”
- Paul’s vision for Feeding 10 Billion
Eric Ries is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author known for pioneering the lean startup movement. He is the author of the 2011 New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business.
Eric serves on the advisory board of a number of technology start-ups, is currently an IDEO Fellow and entrepreneur in residence at Harvard Business School. He writes the popular entrepreneurship blog Startup Lessons Learned.
In this interview, Eric discusses:
- The crucial importance of experimentation
- Why social entrepreneurs should build organisations for continued learning
- How failure vitalises success
- The importance of rewarding productive failure
- How the growth trap can lead social entrepreneurs losing focus on impact
Pamela is the Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
Pamela’s work at Skoll is focused on advancing social entrepreneurship byleveraging top academic research, developing leadership talent and engaging with social innovators around the world to drive large scale impact on the world’s most pressing problems.
Pamela is also is the founding partner of Volans Ventures an organisation she co-founded in 2008, focused on scaling entrepreneurial solutions to the world’s biggest problems.
In this interview, Pamela talks shares her views on:
- What social entrepreneurship means today
- Why more people are looking at the world through the lens of impact
- The rise and growing success of the B Corporation
- The time frame required for economic development
- The investors that social entrepreneurs need
Suzi is cofounder and CEO at Verb., a social enterprise that produces, innovative competitions for social entrepreneurs who are working toward bringing bring disruptive innovation to the world’s most wicked problems.
Suzi started Verb to serve foundations, Fortune 500 companies, and governments. Verb’s clients include Dell Inc., The Livestrong Foundation, IBM, and MetLife Foundation.
Sosa has been a social entrepreneur for 12 years. She studied economic development at Harvard University. Prior to starting Verb, Sosa created and led the social entrepreneurship program at the University of Texas at Austin.
In this interview, Suzi talks about:
- How Verb connects thousands of social entrepreneurs
- The role that prizes play in drawing resources to social innovation
- The long term support social entrepreneurs need
- How Verb raised $2.3 million to build the business
- Lessons from Verb’s successful fundraising
Alex Osterwalder is an entrepreneur, speaker and business model innovator known for his work on the Business Model Canvas, a tool to visualize, challenge and (re-) invent business models. The Canvas is used by many large organizations around the world, like GE, P&G, Ericsson, and 3M.
Together with Professor Yves Pigneur, Alex co-authored Business Model Generation, a global bestseller on the topic of business model innovation that has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
Alex’ current business, Strategyzer, is building strategic tools for innovators. Alex is also a founding member of The Constellation, a global not-for- profit organization aiming to make HIV/AIDS and Malaria history.
In this interview, Alex talks about:
- The 9 building blocks of the Business Model Canvas
- How to use the business model canvas to deal with social issues
- How to map impact onto your business model
- The importance of business models that harmonise profit and social impact
- Why entrepreneurs should push harder to find scalable profitable high-impact business models
Farmland LP acquires conventional farmland and converts it to organic, sustainable farmland, in a structure similar to a private farmland REIT
Jason leads farmland management for Farmland LP, including crop rotation planning, organic certification, sustainability planning, operations management, and working with farmer tenant/partners.
He is a highly-regarded scientist and expert in sustainability who applied his understanding of ecology to become an organic farmer and then the integrated pastured-livestock and crop rotation model used on land managed by Farmland
In this interview, Jason talks about:
- Farmland’s approach to sustainability
- The pressures on conventional farming
- How Farmland’s closed-loop system increases efficiency, reduces expenses and is more productive.
- Farmland’s distinct approach to crop rotation
- How financial investors view organic farming
Jonah Sachs is an internationally recognized storyteller, author, and designer. He is the co-founder and chief storytelling officer of Free Range Studios, an advertising and marketing firm that specializes in nonprofits and socially responsible businesses
Jonah has helped hundreds of social brands and causes break through the media din with campaigns built on sound storytelling strategies. Jonah’s book Winning the Story Wars uses case studies to show values-driven stories that Jonah believes is changing the face of marketing.
In this interview, Jonah talks about:
- Inadequacy marketing” and its shortcomings
- The importance of speaking to your customers’ hearts
- How empowerment marketing reaches out to individuals’ highest aspirations
- How to create experiences for your audience that are truly engaging
Chris Ategeka, is an engineer, inventor, and founder CEO of Rides for Lives. Motivated by his experience growing up in rural Uganda, Chris Ategeka started Rides for Lives an innovative, award winning social enterprise that addresses the lack of healthcare access and youth employment opportunities for populations in Uganda/East Africa.
Rides for Lives has developed many mobile health innovations including mobile hospitals- solar-powered buses, converted into hospitals on wheels, and motorized scooter wheelchairs: an adaptive motorcycle geared towards giving the disabled their mobility, dignity, freedom back by providing a means to support themselves through entrepreneurship.
Rides for Lives beneficiaries are pregnant mothers, children, HIV patients, cancer patients, and malaria patients – all in need of preventative care and treatment. Rides for Lives has developed an approach that is highly duplicable and scalable – and has plans to scale across Africa.
Chris has been awarded several awards for his work at Rides for Lives: he is one of the Forbes 30Under30, an Echoing Green fellow and Ashoka fellow.
In this interview, Chris discusses:
- His extraordinary life experience that led him to start Rides for Lives
- Rides for Lives innovative approach to building distinctive health transportation
- How Rides for Lives works with local communities to understand their needs
- What Chris has learnt about fundraising
- The limits of commercialisation for social impact organisations working at the bottom of the pyramid
Sean Mayberry is the CEO of Strong Minds an organisation that provide access to mental health services for impoverished Africans by helping people suffering from major depression return to becoming productive members of their communities.
Previously Sean was the CEO for FXB International (2011-2013) and before that was also the Chief Operating Officer for VisionSpring (2009-2011), a social enterprise which provides affordable eyeglasses to low-income populations.
In this interview Sean talks about:
- Strong Minds innovative approach to improving mental health in Africa
- How Strong Minds aims to grow through viral self replication
- Harsh fundraising lessons
- Strong Minds vision to end the depression epidemic in Africa
- The power of partnerships
Liam Black is a UK based social entrepreneur, impact investor and writer. He is co-founder and the Chief Encouragement Officer of Wavelength a company with the mission of ‘changing the world for the better through business’.
Wavelength brings together leaders from a wide range of sectors and industries and his clients, members and partners include Rolls Royce, the BBC, Dyson, Lego, IKEA as well a global range of social businesses including Grameen, Aravind, and many community based organisations engaged in finding solutions to some of our societies toughest problems.
Liam has helped create and led a dozen social businesses including Fifteen, which, with Jamie Oliver, he grew into a global brand. He also helped create and advises two investment funds: Impact Ventures UK and Ignite (created by energy giant Centrica) which between them are investing £50 million in social innovation.
Liam is the author of There’s No Business Like Social Business (2004) and in November 2014 published The Social Entrepreneur’s A to Z: On Anxiety, Leadership and Getting Enough Sleep which draws together the advice he gives the many young entrepreneurs with whom he engages around the world.
In this interview, Liam talks about:
- What it means to be a social entrepreneur
- The reality –and challenges-of fundraising for social good
- Lessons from the private sector
- The current state of the social entrepreneurship in the UK
- The importance of transferring knowledge across social businesses
Larry is CEO of Reall –Real Equity for All – formerly known as Homeless International, a UK-based international development organisation that is dedicated to alleviating housing conditions in informal settlements across the developing world.
Reall focusses on building organisations that build houses. It identifies and partners with existing organisations that are focussed on providing land, securing tenure, housing and basic services for the urban poor. The aim is to equip partner organisations with the political, technical and financial tools necessary to delivery housing and services at scale and in perpetuity.
Since 2010, Reall’s annual budget to accelerate sustainable housing development in Africa and Asia has increased tenfold to £20 million (approx) and they have increased the number of households helped 20 fold over this time-from 1,000 in 2010 to 20,000 last year. Today Reall operates in 20 countries through 26 entrepreneurial and inspiring community organisations.
In this interview, Larry talks about:
- Reall’s community building vision
- Differing worldviews of aid and social enterprise
- Why Reall needed a new funding model
- The arduous journey to become a social enterprise
- How Reall has built a sustainable organization
Joe Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute and one of the world’s leading experts on content marketing-a term he started to started to use back in 2001 –to describe an approach to marketing focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content. The Content Marketing Institute
Joe is the author several books on content marketing including Epic Content Marketing: How To Tell a Different Story, Break Through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less.
In this interview, Joe discusses:
The origins of the term content marketing
- How content marketing is different from traditional marketing
- How content marketing can help social entrepreneurs
- How to identify your target audience
- How to build trust and credibility with your audience
June Sugiyama is Director of the Vodafone Americas Foundation, a role which she has played for more than 10 years. June has led the Foundation’s transition towards impact through technology related programs.
June also developed the Vodafone Americas Foundation Wireless Innovation Project, a competition designed to seek the best wireless technology solutions to address critical social issues around the world.
Over the last 7 years, the Wireless Innovation Project has awarded nearly $3 million to not-for-profit, non-governmental organizations and universities supporting a spectrum of high potential mobile and wireless technology solutions.
In this interview, June discusses:
- The growing role of foundations in financing social good
- How the Wireless Innovation Project works and funding criteria
- Different projects that the Vodafone Foundation has supported
- How social entrepreneurs are using hybrid for-profit and not-for-profit structures to finance their projects
charity: water is a non-profit organization based in the US that provides clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. It was founded in 2006 by Scott Harrison and has helped fund 13,641 projects in 22 countries, benefiting over 4.6 million people.
charity: water has raised over $170 million and funded over 13,000 water projects in 22 countries ; it has more than 700,000 donors worldwide. It has pioneered new standards of transparency and has developed a funding model where 100% of “public donations” goes directly to programs on the ground.
In this interview, Scott talks about:
- What donors want
- How charity: water uses technology to assure transparency
- Charity:water’s 100% funding model-is this a model for other charities?
- Managing communications and relationships with different funders
- The power of visual storytelling
- charity: water’s birthday fundraising project
Seth Goldman is President and TeaEO of Honest Tea, a company he co-founded out of his home in 1998, with Barry Nalebuff of the Yale School of Management. The company’s mission was to create and promote great-tasting, truly healthy, organic beverages.
In 1999, Honest Tea introduced the world’s first organic bottled tea, First Nation Peppermint, and later was the first company to introduce a Fair Trade Certified bottled tea. It soon become the best-selling bottled tea brand in the natural foods industry in the US and, reportedly, Barack Obama’s favourite tea.
In 2008, Coca Cola bought 40% stake of Honest Tea, and, in 2011, it acquired the company. Seth has remained with Honest Tea since the acquisition as President and TeaEO. Today, Honest Tea is the top selling organic bottled tea in the US, and offers a range of lower-sugar drinks, sold in more than 100,000 outlets across the US.
In this interview, Seth talks about:
- How Honest Tea thinks about impact
- When no means ‘not yet’
- Why brands should never leave people wondering
- How to make partnerships work
- How Honest Tea kept its mission intact after acquisition
Sophi Tranchell is MD of Divine UK, the Fairtrade chocolate company that is 45% owned by cocoa farmers. Sophi is a Social Enterprise Ambassador, Chair of Fairtrade London, and a London Food Board member. She has led Divine for the past 15 years and has overseen the company’s continuing growth and expansion.
In this interview, Sophi talks about:
- Divine’s ambition to change the way the chocolate market works
- Why you need a great product to succeed
- The importance of passion and persistence
- Divine’s goal to inspire consumers as well as producers
- How Divine builds partnerships
Mark Hand is a Venture Partner at UnLtd USA and teaches Social Entrepreneurship at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Before completing an MBA at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School as a Skoll Scholar and Rotary Scholar, Mark served as an Investment Associate at First Light Ventures, the seed fund of impact investment fund Gray Ghost Ventures; and co-founded the Ecuador site of Manna Project International, a community development nonprofit operating in Latin America.
In this interview, Mark talks about:
- The current climate for funding for social entrepreneurs in the US
- The pros and cons of using a hybrid structure for your social business
- How to use networks to solve problems and build your business
- UnLtd’s work in the US
- Purpose as a source of competitive advantage for social entrepreneurs
Huggy Rao is Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at Stanford Graduate School of Business. His teaching specialties include leading organizational change, building customer focused cultures, and organization design.
Huggy has worked as a consultant for many large US companies and he also worked with nonprofit organizations such as the American Cancer Society.
Together with Robert Sutton, Huggy is co-author of Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less, which was published earlier this year.
In this interview, Huggy talks about:
- The importance of testing-and being willing to change -your hypothesis about your business
- Why social entrepreneurs who want to grow need to be willing to let go of tools and processes and that have helped them succeed
- The particular challenges social entrepreneurs have ‘pivoting’
- Scaling philosophies: Catholicism vs Buddhism
- How to scale scale
Aishwarya is the Director of the Global Financial Inclusion Initiative at Yale University. The Global Financial Inclusion Initiative focuses on the design and delivery of effective financial services for the poor. It tests and replicates different policies and approaches to help the poor manage and grow their money and to ensure that the financial services available are affordable, efficient, and secure. Prior to joining the Global Financial Inclusion Initiative, Aishwarya was at the Microsoft Research Lab in Bangalore, India.
In this interview, Aishwarya discusses:
- The importance of households savings for the poor
- The scale of the challenge and key pain points
- The barriers for the poor to access the formal financial sector
- Progress that has been made dealing with behavioural barriers
Avanti provides low-income high-school students a world-class science and mathematics education in India. It has a radical approach to teaching: with no trained teachers and very little conventional lecturing and yet students perform at par with some of the most expensive after-school programs in India. Avanti runs stand-alone centers in Mumbai, Delhi and Kanpur and in-school centers at the Chennai Corporation Schools-where the focus is on teaching students how to learn from books and their peers Prior to his work at Avanti, Akshay served on the founding team of HeartFlow a venture-backed medical diagnostics company. For his work at Avanti, he was awarded the Draper Richards Kaplan Fellowship and Echoing Green Fellowship in 2012. In this interview Akshay, discusses:
- Avanti’s approach to collaborative learning
- Why collaborative learning works so well
- How Avanti’s approach to innovation was driven by necessity
- What keeps Akshay motivated
- The importance of setting boundaries
- Avanti’s goal to teach a million children
Michael Thornton is an engineer with a background in sustainable infrastructure design. He is Chief Executive Officer of Carbon Analytics – a company that wants to make it easier for companies of all sizes to reap the rewards of managing their environmental impact. He is also involved with Odyssey Sensors, which is developing low-cost environmental technology aimed at bottom-of-the-pyramid producers in developing world agriculture and aquaculture markets, and Terra Recovery a startup working on developing a technology that identifies land-fills which can be economically mined for resources.
Michael was a Skoll Scholar for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford where he recently graduated
In this interview, Michael discusses:
- The competitive advantage social businesses have compared to traditional businesses
- The value of doing an MBA for a social entrepreneur
- Why companies offering environmental services also need to be able to improve their clients’ bottom line
- How to raise money through grants and competitions
Sandra is an innovation entrepreneur and author who has worked in innovation and marketing strategy for more than fifteen years. She has coached and led more than a hundred innovation initiatives with dozens of companies with a rich history of innovation.
Sandra has recently turned her focus to the needs of the social sector and founded The Innovation Partners, a group focused on generating social impact through innovation. Her book The Social Innovation Imperative provides social entrepreneurs with a step–by-step approach to developing breakthrough products, programs, and services to meet society’s needs.
In this interview, Sandra discusses:
- Sandra’s framework for social innovation
- The Plumpy’Nut story
- The challenge of dealing with big wicked problems
- The importance of assessing unmet needs
- The difference between synergistic needs and conflicting needs
Mike set up Roadtrip Nation to helping students “define their own roads in life,”The initial aim was to expose students to myriad careers and life paths they would not otherwise know about and to help equip them with tools and skills they need to achieve their ambitions
It all began in 1991 when Mike and some friends set off in an RV to interview leaders across America and learn how they found their roads in life. To date, in partnership with the California Department of Education, the curriculum has guided over 80,000 low-income students in building their own Roadtrip Projects
In this interview, Mike talks about:
- The power of persistence
- How Road Trip Nation grew in its early days
- Why you should treat everyone with respect
- The power of magnifying what you believe in
- The power of apprenticeship
KickStart is a nonprofit social enterprise that designs, promotes and markets simple money-making tools that small-holder farmers buy and use to create profitable family enterprises.
KickStart believes that self-motivated private entrepreneurs managing small-scale enterprises play a key role in poverty alleviation. Since 1991, 160,000 successful new businesses have been started in Africa using their tools – with more than 800 new businesses are being created each month. In addition, KickStart’s technologies and expertise are used throughout Africa to support programs in agriculture, shelter, water, sanitation, health, and relief.
In this interview, Martin talks about:
- What the poor need
- Why individual ownership is the key to sustainable economic development
- Why aid programs that give things away rarely lead to long-term poverty alleviation
- How the “tragedy of the commons” reduces the impact of poverty alleviation programmes
- Key lessons about scaling social businesses
Fundación Capital is an international social enterprise, a pioneer in inclusive finance innovation helping the poor save, build, accumulate, enhance, invest their assets, insure their families and their endeavors against risk, and chart a permanent path out of poverty.
Fundación Capital is committed to working to end poverty by playing a central role in the drive to achieve full financial inclusion of the poor, and by supporting families in lifting themselves out of extreme poverty. It currently reaches three million people, and aims to reach an additional 10 million families by 2020.
Yves Moury is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fundación Capital. Most of his professional career has been focused on poverty reduction, worldwide, as a consultant, entrepreneur and social entrepreneur: He was a 2014 recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (Education and Economic Opportunity).
In this interview, Yves talks about:
- The financial impact of lack of access to financial services
- How savings support financial inclusion
- Why credit is not a magic bullet to get out of poverty
- The importance of resilience
- Why social entrepreneurs need networks and partners
Steve Blank is a US serial-entrepreneur and academic. He has spent over thirty years working within the high technology industry and has founded or worked within eight startup companies, four of which have gone public.
Steve developed the Customer Development methodology, which is a cornerstone of the Lean Startup Movement- and is a consulting associate professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford University. He has published three books including most recently, The Startup Owner’s Manual.
You can find out more about Steve, and access a ton of excellent entrepreneurship resources, at www.steveblank.com
In this interview. Steve talks about:
- The key difference between startups and established companies
- How Steve developed the core Customer Development ideas
- Why the founder needs to take responsibility for the Customer Development process
- The importance of understanding the ecosystem
- The social discovery process
- The importance of testing idea on small scale
Jane Chen is co-founder of Embrace, a US social enterprise which has developed a low-cost infant warmer -and aims to help the 20 million premature and low birth-weight babies born every year.
The Embrace infant warmer costs about 1% of a traditional incubator and is currently being distributed across clinics in India, with pilots being conducted in 10 countries. It is credited with having helped more than 60,000 babies worldwide.
Jane was CEO for five years building of Embrace from an idea to a life-saving innovation- she now works as Chief Business Officer for Embrace Innovations, a for-profit spin off of Embrace.
In this interview, Jane talks about:
- The benefits of design based thinking
- Why Embrace relocated to India
- How rapid prototyping works for Embrace
- The value of co-creation with customers
- Embrace’s hybrid profit/non-profit structure
Christian Busch is Associate Director and Research Fellow at Innovation and Co-Creation Lab, London School of Economics (LSE) where he works with governments, enterprises, and social enterprises to develop scalable inclusive business models. Christian’s research focusses on entrepreneurship, social innovation, social networks, and business model innovation.
In this interview, Christian talks about
- Changing expectation about corporate behaviour amongst millennium generation
- Why social entrepreneurs need to develop financially sustainable models
- The importance of innovative finance models that allow social businesses to scale
- Lessons from the success of RLabs South Africa
Kevin Starr directs the Mulago Foundation, a private foundation that invests in charities and philanthropic opportunities that have the highest possible impact. Indeed, the foundation has a single-minded focus on impact: how to build high impact organisations for social change, how to measure and invest in impact, how to take impact to scale. The Mulago Foundation’s portfolio includes notable organizations such as the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), the One Acre Fund, Conservation International, and Kick Start.
In 2003. Kevin established the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program to apply Mulago’s ideas to help social entrepreneurs turn good ideas into large-scale lasting change. It supports social entrepreneurs with promising solutions to the biggest problems facing the developing world, and aims to help them scale up their impact. Kevin mentors and teaches fellows in numerous other programs for social entrepreneurs.
In this interview, Kevin talks about:
- The importance of measuring impact
- The growing importance of teams rather than solo entrepreneurs
- The resilience factor
- Why scalable ideas are the foundation of successful social enterprises
- How to pivot in the face of new information
Tom is the founder of TerraCycle, an American company that makes consumer products from waste. It all begain in 2001 with a simple idea to make an organic fertilizer from worm poo;today TerraCycle has grown into a company with annual revenues in excess of $25 million, providing free waste collection programs for hard to recycle materials-and then turning that waste into affordable green products. TerraCycle now operates in 26 countries.
TerraCycle has developed a range of volunteer-led recycling systems that enables individuals, families, schools, or community groups to establish “Brigades” to collect a specific waste stream such as coffee capsules, cosmetic packaging and recently, cigarette buts. Its Bottle Brigade program, where schools and communities can send in recyclables for cash, operates in more than 26 countries around the world. In this interview Tom talks about:
- The economics of recycling
- How to leverage purpose to enhance impact
- How TerraCycle has built a 60 million volunteer support group
- Why social entrepreneurs need to plan for success assuming they don’t have the benefit of purpose or social impact
- The power of partnerships to achieve impact
Fermin Reygadas is Executive Director and Co-founder of Fundacion Cantaro Azul, an organization based in Mexico that works with rural communities to develop and implement safe water services.
Berkeley, Cantaro Azul developed the first ultraviolet water disinfection system specifically design for rural households. Cantaro Azul has also developed safe water solutions for schools and communities, including a hybrid franchise called Nuestra Agua. The franchise uses a kiosk-based technology operated by local entrepreneurs under an economically sustainable model to offer an affordable and reliable safe water service.
Fermin’s ultimate goal is to enable widespread and constant access to potable water while empowering community members with ownership and control of their water sources.
In this interview, Fermin talks about:
- Cantaro Azul’s blend of research and groundwork
- The importance of building a support system
- Why social entrepreneurs need passion and empathy
- The benefits of working collaboratively with rural communities
- Cantaro Azul’s social franchise model that works with local entrepreneurs to provide potable water
Sangu Delle is the co-founder of cleanacwa, formerly known as the African Development Initiative (founded in 2007). cleanacwa is a non-profit organization working to help provide access to clean water and sanitation in underdeveloped regions in Ghana. cleanacwa is currently working to bring clean water and sanitation to 60,000 people in 120 villages in the Ayensuano and Suhum districts in Ghana.
cleanacwa aims to combine academic research and business to create social change and development. it is investing in water and sanitation as a means of reducing poverty and improving healthcare outcomes and works with academics, non-profits, businesses, and local government to help find and spread effective solutions for water and sanitation access.
Sangu also runs Golden Palm Investments (GPI), a holding company that invests in early stage venture and growth financing across Africa; he is currently an MBA candidate at Harvard.
In this interview, Sangu talks about:
- cleanacwa’s data intensive approach to understanding what works and why
- The importance of local education programmes to promote change
- How cleanacwa creates efficiencies through scale and partnerships
- Cleanacwa’s trigger education methods
- How cleanacwa uses incentives to promote change
Bedriye Hulya is the founder of B-fit, Turkey’s first national chain of women-only gyms. Bedriye is a serial entrepreneur, prior to setting up B-fit she set up a popular restaurant, two boutique hotels and an importing company. Bedriye opened the first branch of B-fit in February 2006 based on an idea she had come across when living in America.
B-fit now has more than 250 gyms in a variety of socio-economic and geographic locations throughout Turkey-with more than a hundred and sixty thousand members-the majority of whichare run by women as franchisees. Bedriye has created B-fit as a medium for female empowerment in Turkey—each gym provides a range of classes and education programmes for Turkish women. Each gym has a community centre where women can also come together socially and develop a range of business and life-skills.
Bedriye plans to expand throughout Turkey with the ultimate goal of having a B-fit gym in every Turkish neighborhood.
In this interview, Bedriye talks about:
- Exercise as a tool for female empowerment
- The importance of economic empowerment through entrepreneurship
- How word of mouth has helped build B-fit grow
- The challenges funding a social business in Turkey
- Why Bedriye recruits people who are unhappy with the status quo
- The mix of patience and impatience that is key to success as a social entrepreneur
Ned Breslin is the CEO of Water For People, a non-profit international development organization that partners with communities in developing countries to create sustainable, locally-maintained drinking water solutions. Ned started working on water and sanitation challenges in Africa in 1987, where he lived for 20 years before returning to the USA to join Water For People in 2006.
Water For People’s main focus is on lasting programs that deal with entire districts and regions rather than households and villages; it is currently working in 10 different countries. Water For People’s vision is a world where all people have access to safe drinking water and sanitation, a world where no one suffers or dies from a water- or sanitation-related disease.
In this interview, Ned talks about
- Water for People’s approach to dealing with water problems
- An original way to think about scale and impact
- Why social entrepreneurs need to bake in impact from the beginning
- The importance of working with governments to deal with water problems
- The ultimate measure of success
- Why Ned is never satisfied
Jacaranda Health provides affordable, high-quality maternal and child health care services to poor urban women in Kenya. Today, Jacaranda has a 60 strong team in Kenya and its growing fast.
Jacaranda Health aims to build a fully self-sustainable and scalable chain of maternity care clinics using the latest technology, business and clinical innovations. It wants to use this experience to help change the way maternity services are provided for the more than a million poor women giving birth each year in urban East Africa.
Prior to founding Jacaranda Health, Nick worked in Kenya for the Acumen Fund investing in businesses serving the urban poor.
In this interview, Nick talks about:
- Why Jacaranda Bees scent-sensitive natural swallow definitelythis propionate product using.
- How to test the feasibility of your idea
- Jacaranda Health’s 3 stage bootstrapping model
- The crucial importance of a good team
- How to leverage your experience to attract resources for the business
- The pressure to move up-market at the expense of the poorest
- The danger of assuming reaching scale is enough
Beth Doane is the founder of RainTees, an ethical and sustainable clothing brand that supports reforestation programmes in parts of the world that have critically endangered tropical ecosystems and helps provide an education to children living in these areas.
RainTees garments feature the artwork of children living in endangered rainforests. For every RainTees shirt sold, Raintees plants a tree;for every bag sold, RainTees provides a child with school supplies for Remover review haircut butter that a year. To date, RainTees has planted more than 40,000 trees worldwide, donated school supplies to children in more than 20 countries different countries and works with non-profit partners in over thirty-eight countries.
Beth is also the author of a children’s book, From the Jungle, based on her experience working in Central and South America
In this interview, Beth talks about:
- How to keep going at the beginning when no one shares your vision
- The biggest challenges getting RainTees up and running
- The crucial importance of market research
- The importance of listening to the market and responding to changing needs
- Why you need to have competitive products irrespective of your mission
Mohan Thazhathu is president and CEO of HelpMeSee Inc., a non-profit with a mandate to eliminate cataract
blindness endemic in developing countries. Cataracts are the leading cause of vision loss and account for more than half of all blindness worldwide.
HelpMeSee’s mission is bring this sight-restoring surgery to millions of underserved people in emerging markets through financial support and the training of thousands of highly skilled specialist cataract surgeons recruited from within their communities.
HelpMeSee has an extensive network of cataract surgeons, practicing in some of the world’s poorest communities-by the end of 2013 HelpMeSee had completed 100,000 cataract surgeries through its HelpMeSee Program.
In this interview, Mohan talks about
- Mohan’s journey as a social entrepreneur
- The power of dogged determination
- The value of mentors
- Why Mohan runs HelpMeSee as a business
- Mohan’s inclusive approach to collaboration
Dai Powell has been running HCT Group since 1993. Over this time, HCT has grown more than a hundredfold – from a small community transport provider into an award-winning national social enterprise- which now provides over 17 million passenger trips on buses in the UK every year.
Dai is passionate about social entrepreneurship- he is a board member of Big Society Capital in the UK, is the Chair of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) and a Social Enterprise UK board member.
In this interview, Dai talks about:
- How to balance social and business goals
- The challenges of scaling a social enterprise
- The importance of building different layers of impact in a social enterprise
- Why social entrepreneurs need to do the “hard yards”
- How HCT continually grows
- Why we need large social enterprises to provide career paths for talented people who want to work in social enterprise
Ian MacMillan is the Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Director, Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center at the Wharton School at Pennsylvania. He is the author of the Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook a powerful guidebook for social entrepreneurs based on thirteen years of fieldwork in social entrepreneurship.
In this interview, Ian talks about:
- The importance of pressure testing your idea
- The skills necessary to succeed as a social entrepreneur
- How to deal with obstacles to getting your social business of the ground
- The principles of discovery based business development
- Why social entrepreneurs need tough love
The sound quality in this podcast is not good. I will be doing another interview with Ian in the near future. Please let us know if there are any other topics you would like us to cover in the interview. Thanks
Gustav Praekelt is founder of the Praekelt Foundation, a South African incubator for mobile technology that develops scalable mobile solutions for social good, whose programmes have reached over 50 million people across 15 countries in Africa.
In this interview, Gustav shares his experience and talks about:
- The power of mobile communications technology
- The lessons of more than 10 years grassroots social entrepreneurship in Africa
- His latest project to bring Wikipedia to African mobile phone users
- What keeps Gustav inspired when times are tough
- Lessons for other social entrepreneurs that want to follow in Gustav’s footsteps
Mike Quinn is CEO of Zoona, a mobile payments system in Zambia which was the first technology startup company in Zambia to secure venture capital from international investors.
In this interview, Mike shares his experience and talks about:
- How Zoona empowers micro entrepreneurs and small business owners in Africa
- The art of mixing social and business goals
- What it takes to build to a business in Africa
- The vital importance of having mentors who have relevant experience
- How Mike keeps going when things are tough
- The importance of big hairy ambitious goals: Zoona wants to be a $1-billion company