Monthly Archives: March 2007

Danone plans to launch a 100mnEuro microfinance fund

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According to the FT(March 30th) Danone plans to launch next month with the help of Credit Agricole a novel mutual fund to invest in microfinancing projects in the world’s poorest countries. The idea is to raise initially 100mn Euro and it will be named Danone Communities Fund. This move follows the pioneering social business, Grameen Danone Foods Social Business Enterprise, a 50-50 joint venture established last year between the Grameen Group and Groupe Danone. This is probably the first private sector corporation (not a financial institution nor a foundation)that is launching a microfinance investment fund.

Skoll World Forum 2007

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The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship starting tomorrow(March 27-29) is a leading gathering for changemakers around the globe attracting over 700 people from over 40 countries.
This forum is organized by The Skoll Centre of Social Entrepreneurship at Said Business School, University of Oxford in partnership with the Skoll Foundation. The Forum attracts an international community of outstanding practitioners and thought leaders in social entrepreneurship to set the future agenda for visionaries who want to transform society.
Speakers featured this year include: Jeff Skoll, the founder of Skoll Foundation, Muhammad Yunus founder of Grameen Bank, Peter Gabriel, musician, activist and cofounder of Witness, Larry Brillant, Executive Director of Google.org Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, Fazle Abed, founder of BRAC,and Ashok Khosla.
The Skoll Foundation invests in social entrepreneurs through the Skoll Awards; it connects them through their online community Social Edge. It also celebrates social entrepreneurs by enabling filmmakers and journalists to produce works that tell the stories of individual social entrepreneurs to promote large-scale public awareness on social entrepreneurship.
The theme this year is enabling social innovation. The 10 leading social entrepreneurs which will be receiving the Skoll Award this year are Escuela Nueva Foundation, Friends-International, Global Footprint Network, Gram Vikas, Kashf Foundation, Free The Children, Manchester Bidwell Corporation, Marine Stewardship Council, Verité, and YouthBuild USA.
You can follow the forum or see the latest newsletter of Skoll for more detailed information on the 2007 Awards.

The Converging Worlds: Social and Business

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The business (corporate sector) and the social worlds are converging. We could call this a megatrend and it continues to gain momentum. One has seen this through microfinance where an effective development tool initially created in the social/NGO/NPO world have given birth to numerous microfinance institutions that have become sustainable and profitable. Microfinance now attracts funding/investment from both capital markets (commercial banks, asset managers, private investors) and foundations. Social entrepreneurs are also another major force behind this and no doubt that Microfranchising also links these two worlds.
One can also see it through the new partnerships between players of these two worlds especially as the multinational corporations and their executives team up with social activists and NGOs to market products to the 4 billion people at the base of the pyramid (BOP). C.K. Prahald, one of the leading advocates of BOP opportunities, has recently co-authored with Jeb Brugmann, a very interesting article in the February Harvard Business Review titled Cocreating Business’s New Social Compact. It is an excellent read (even if you have to pay for the copy to download) for those who are interested in these new partnerships. Many examples are cited including British Petroleum, Healthstore Foundation, and ICICI.