Posted in April 2012 …

Apr 29 2012
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Impact Investing, Reviews

Book Review – “Impact Investing”

Recently read:

Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making A Difference (Antony Bugg-Levine and Jed Emerson)

My grade (1 to 5): 3 – attempt to bring into one book the history, definition, implications, examples, controversies around and potential of impact investing to create a world where investors are more aligned to achieve “blended value” of both financial and social returns to their money; technical content insightful but evangelizing language and metaphors a bit overdrawn and slightly exaggerated

Key Ideas:

  • The first part of the book is dedicated to definitions of impact investing and spends some time with color around the many different areas that it encompasses, such as international development, microfinance and social enterprises. The second part of the book talks about the implications of impact investing in terms of how our systems, leadership style, measurement systems and attitudes must change to embrace the opportunities presented by blended value approaches, and why those approaches should become mainstream in the future.
  • The authors spend considerable time with case studies to illustrate the various instances of impact investing at work by various stakeholders, such as asset managers, investment bankers, private equity practitioners, development professionals and of course, social entrepreneurs. Throughout the book, the authors try to provide suggestions of how to overcome what they call a currently “bifurcated world” with investing for purely financial return on the one end, and giving money away through charity motives on the other.

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Apr 26 2012
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Career, Development, Good Profiles, Impact Investing, Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, Sustainability

Good Profile – Chelsea Katz (Kellogg Net Impact / Fresh Takes Kitchen)

Good Profiles feature members of our Good Generation who are either out there in the field doing interesting work or still in the trenches of schools and institutions waiting to make their mark on the world. Have your own story to tell? Know someone who would be great to be profiled? Please sign-up or leave a note here!

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What are you up to these days?

I am wrapping up my final quarter at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and will complete my MBA in less than two months!  While at Kellogg, I’ve focused on Social Enterprise (SEEK) and Entrepreneurship academic concentrations and have taken several great experiential or project-based courses including Sustainability Lab, Innovate for Impact, and Impact Investing (taught by David Chen of Equilibrium Capital Partners). I’ve also been heavily involved in the Net Impact Community.  This year I served as the VP of Careers for the Net Impact Club and chaired the Innovating Social Change Conference.  In my first year I led the Social Impact Career Trek to the Bay Area and the Global Health Initiative HIV/AIDS diagnostics market research trip to Kenya. 

What did you do prior to school?

I spent three years in Accenture’s Talent & Organization Performance practice where I provided consulting services to a variety of cross-industry clients with a focus on change management, organization design, and talent strategy. While at Accenture, I also provided extensive pro-bono consulting services to a number of nonprofit organizations including Accenture Development Partnerships, i.c.stars, and Junior Achievement.  I was also very involved in Corporate Citizenship efforts and developed a collaborative internal network of social impact enthusiasts dubbed the “Accenture Network for Social Impact” and managed Accenture’s sponsorship of the national Net Impact conference.  After a year as a pro-bono consultant, I transitioned to a full-time strategic project manager role with i.c.stars – an innovative Chicago nonprofit organization that uses project-based learning and full immersion teaching to provide opportunities for change-driven, inner-city community leaders to develop skills in business and technology. At i.c.stars I managed a portfolio of social enterprise consulting projects, fundraising events, and strategic initiatives, and led a cycle of interns through the first project in the training program.

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Apr 23 2012
11 Comments
Reflection, Social Enterprise, Weekly Ponder

The Importance of “Impact Offtakers” – Why Growth Is NOT The End Goal Of Social Enterprises

As a corporate strategy person, I totally get why traditional for-profit companies seek to grow: to make ever more money for their shareholders. Fine. But what I don’t get are social enterprises – however you define the term – when they talk about the “do-good equivalent” of the word “growth”, which is often referred to as “scale”. If the end goal of a for-profit corporation is to make as much money as possible (infinity + beyond $$$), what is the end goal of a nonprofit or for-profit social enterprise?

As a famous person once said: It’s the impact, stupid! And so the discussion becomes, in every single conference since the term “social enterprise” entered the mainstream a decade ago, about how we in fact can scale the impact of such organizations over time. A recent session during the 2012 Skoll World Forum, for example, was focused exclusively on the idea of how to envisage scaling beyond initial seed funding and “exit strategies” for social enterprises.

Although the panelists in this session touch on the subject, I feel not enough space in today’s literature is dedicated to a question that has somewhat plagued me for a long time – in fact, it has plagued me ever since I got interested in social enterprises.

The question is this: why the heck does everyone seem (so obsessively) to equate the scaling of impact with the scaling of the actual organization? In this post, allow me to make an argument for the importance of finding an “impact offtaker” as a critical scaling mechanism that supersedes that of organizational growth when it comes to social enterprises.

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Apr 21 2012
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CSR, Good & Gasp, Justice & Society, Philanthropy, Social Enterprise, Sustainability

Good & Gasp #4 – Scaling Social Enterprises, iPhone Guilt, Ethical Rankings, Philanthropy Limits

Good & Gasp #4

Scaling Social Enterprises, iPhone Guilt, Ethical Rankings, Philanthropy Time Limits

Themes that caught my attention, interest or made my eyes roll while roaming the web world of doing good:

  • Scaling Social Enterprises – how can social enterprises scale post seed-investment stage?
  • iPhone Guilt – is Apple or its loyal consumers (you) to be blamed for the Foxconn debacle?
  • Philanthropy Limits – should foundations consider spending their money quicker and winding down (dying) earlier?
  • Ethical Rankings – if weapons companies make the list of most ethical firms, what exactly do we mean by “ethical”?

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Apr 18 2012
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Announcements, Impact Investing

Update – International Impact Investing Challenge 2012 – Winners Announced!

UPDATE – I3C is finished now and winners have been announced, along with all the finalists’ presentations!

Congratulations to Stanford School of International Policy Studies (1st), Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management (2nd) and University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy (3rd)!

Too bad I couldn’t be in San Francisco for the  final judging rounds but very interesting to see 2 policy schools and only 1 MBA program in the final selection bracket – now how many impact investors nowadays have public policy school graduates in their teams? Would be interesting to hear for sure.

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Apr 09 2012
4 Comments
Reflection, Social Entrepreneurship

Envy = Unhappiness or: The Importance of Generosity of Spirit among Social Innovators

We intuitively understand that we live in a society today where, more than ever before, everyone has the opportunity to be an innovator and a changemaker thanks to the marvels of technology and the interconnectedness it has brought us. That’s beautiful indeed. But this has come at a price, I would argue. Not all is well that seems well on the surface.

Consider that in the same world, in a given community, for every single person that takes the initiative to write a book, start a company, or build anything else of meaning and value, there are hundreds if not thousands of others who stand by, observe, nod in public approval… and then, upon returning home, lay privately tormented and desperate.

Tormented by what?

Before we get there, consider this scenario: one day, any day, you read the news and blogs of whatever domain you happen to be a passionate follower of and you find the headlines about someone’s amazing invention, discovery, accomplishment or celebrated success. On top of this, imagine that this person is just around your age, even from the same country, had the same major in college and worked in the same industry.

What is your very first reaction? Are you:

A) Excited about the invention?

B) Happy that things are going well with the world, after all?

C) Hoping you could meet this person one day?

Likely, my guess is you would circle D) None of the Above. What else then? No matter how accomplished, rich, successful and pedigreed you are, it is likely possible that you experience to some degree a feeling that we commonly refer to as “envy”. This, if not admitted honestly, can then lead to further feelings of frustration, inadequacy, and even anger. The complete package, in the worst case, results in torment and despair.

Today, I would like to think about why this is, what’s at stake for changing this, and why the key to this may be the little discussed but essential notion of “generosity of spirit”.

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Apr 05 2012
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Good Profiles, Social Entrepreneurship

Good Profile – Zack Matere (Leo pamoja)

Good Profiles feature members of our Good Generation who are either out there in the field doing interesting work or still in the trenches of schools and institutions waiting to make their mark on the world. Have your own story to tell? Know someone who would be great to be profiled? Please sign-up or leave a note here!

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What do you do for a living nowadays?

I would describe myself as an evangelist for my innovation of village noticeboards as an alternative/addition to the internet (*Editor’s Note: Official website still under construction) for rural communities in the developing world. I have run a mini supermarket and am currently a small scale farmer.

Is “doing good” a key reason why you chose this job? 

I developed the leo pamoja (“together today”) communicating villages because of the frustration of knowing that there was valuable knowledge in the air that the community in my village could not access. Doing good to me is providing a place for people who have been unable to access knowledge and connect with each to finally be able to do that. Access to information is life-transforming in a rural village. Hence, with my innovation I hope to bring change in the community and that’s exciting.

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Apr 03 2012
4 Comments
Reflection, Weekly Ponder

Weekly Ponder #8 – Rage Against the Ordinary: How To Save The World If I Have to Do Dishes?

Weekly Ponder #8

Rage Against the Ordinary: How To Save The World If I Have to Do Dishes?

Take this scenario: You are inspired. You want to change the world. Perhaps you already have an idea. Perhaps you are just waiting for something (you know that “signal”) until you can get ready to go. You are on the internet every day, reading news stories, learning about the success and daring leadership of other social innovators. That will be YOU one day, following your calling, maybe even becoming famous!

But then you realize it’s Sunday and your house is a mess. You haven’t cleaned up in a while, you haven’t taken out the trash, you haven’t cleaned the bathroom, you haven’t done much of anything actually, come to think of it. Why would you? Every moment counts! Every moment that you spend mopping or doing boring chores is a moment you cannot indulge in reading, e-mailing, and doing all those things that extraordinary people tend to do, right?

Did I forget to mention that you also have a day-job that starts tomorrow on that dreadful Monday and that means you have to wait every day for nightfall before you can come home and hit the internet again? Subtract the time in commute, the time you have to spend with the wife/husband and kids, maybe time for working out, eating dinner, washing clothes, etc. Before you know it’s very late already and you need to go to bed so you can wake up on time tomorrow to be on time for the office or class. But before you do this, you notice you are completely out of clean dishes and unless you do something now you won’t have a cereal bowl to eat out of tomorrow (and neither will your spouse and family).

For some of you, it sounds like Sophie’s Choice: wasting precious time with boring, ordinary work, that could otherwise be spent with EXTRA-ordinary work (to the betterment of humanity, etc.)… or not having dishes and go hungry tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Monday is edging ever closer and closer, while your despair grows.

Is this you? Do you suffer from “rage against the ordinary”? Today, I am pondering how to deal with this quite common condition among ambitious people like you.

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