Home Library Translate
A A A
Share »
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on LinkedIn
Connect »

Blog: Social Enterprise

Menu

  • This Blog's Home
  • Guest Writer Submissions
  • Policies
  • To Subscribe to a Blog
  • About
  • Feedback

Social Capital Markets

By Rolfe Larson on October 2, 2010

If there’s one challenge many social enterprises have in common, it’s finding capital.  Insufficient capitalization is a primary reason that small businesses fail or fail to grow, and that’s also the case for social enterprises.

The good news: that seems to be changing.  A new field is emerging, so young that it still goes by many names (social capital markets, social stock market, impact investing), but the overall goal is the same: create structures to connect socially focused investors with socially focused ventures.

We’re not talking small potatoes here.  According to some sources, there is a $120 billion untapped market of individual investors who are willing to invest resources into social enterprises that produce positive social and environmental impacts. But as yet we do not have the structures (such as social stock markets) to attract those investments.

So the race is on.  Next week, the third annual Social Capital Markets Conference (SOCAP10) will convene in San Francisco on just this topic. The conference web site notes “a proliferation of (social) investment funds of $100 million each, and a new index to help investors better target their financing.”  Social capital is already flowing.

Since capital flows with little regard to national boundaries, so does the work in this field.  The notion of a social stock market seems to have sparked (or had its latest spark) abroad, in the United Kingdom.  A recent article about that effort (and connections with the US as well) can be found in a recent article published by Foundation Center, Bring on the Social Stock Exchange.

You can keep in touch with this emerging field by keeping your browser pointed at Social Edge, where this has been a lively discussion topic lately.

Finally, a major challenge for the emergence of this field is figuring out how to measure social performance in a manner that will be meaningful and transparent to social investors.  This is often called social return on investment (SROI).  Check out the Performance Review discussion on Social Edge about this topic.

We’ll come back to SROI in a future blog.  In the meantime, do some thinking about what it would take to make your social enterprise venture (or idea) attractive to that $120 billion opportunity.

Will your venture be ready?

« Previous Next »

Search Our Site

Meet the Blog’s Host

Rolfe Larson provides consulting and training in areas such as strategic planning, market research, feasibility analysis, business planning, marketing and implementation strategies. [Read more ...]

Recent Blog Posts

  • Tear Down This Wall: What are “True” Social Enterprises?
  • Top 5 Traits of Successful Social Enterprises
  • Do Competitions Help or Hinder Social Enterprises?
  • Admission Fees for Small Museums?
  • State of Social Enterprise 2016 (Crowd-sourced!)
  • Data: SEs improve self-sufficiency, stability
  • Does Success Require Profitability?
  • SE and the Privilege Economy
  • “Best” Books on Impact Investing
  • 14 Insightful Social Entrepreneur Ideas

Categories of Posts

  • Basics and Overviews
  • Communications
  • Competitions
  • Earned-Income Generation
  • Financing
  • General Resources
  • Impact Economy
  • impact investing
  • Life cycle financing
  • small museum
  • Social Capital
  • Social enterprise directory
  • social enterprise marketplace
  • Social Purpose
  • Taking your social enterprise to scale
  • Uncategorized
  • Venture Philanthropy

Related Library Topics

  • Advertising
  • Business Planning
  • Capacity Building
  • Creativity and Innovation
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • Customer Service
  • Finances (Nonprofit)
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Organizational Performance
  • Product Development
  • Program Planning
  • Quality Management
  • Social Enterprise
  • Starting Nonprofit
  • Strategic Planning
  • E-Commerce

Library's Blogs

  • Boards of Directors
  • Building a Business
  • Business Communications
  • Business Ethics, Culture and Performance
  • Business Planning
  • Career Management
  • Coaching and Action Learning
  • Consulting and Organizational Development
  • Crisis Management
  • Customer Service
  • Facilitation
  • Free Management Library Blogs
  • Fundraising for Nonprofits
  • Human Resources
  • Leadership
  • Marketing and Social Media
  • Nonprofit Capacity Building
  • Project Management
  • Quality Management
  • Social Enterprise
  • Spirituality
  • Strategic Planning
  • Supervision
  • Team Building and Performance
  • Training and Development
About Feedback Legal Privacy Policy Contact Us
Free Management Library, © Copyright Authenticity Consulting, LLC ®; All rights reserved.
  • Graphics by Wylde Hare LLC
  • Website maintained by Caitlin Cahill

By continuing to use this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy.X