Bottom line: Keep your ideas for SOCAP 2014 panel topics coming in!
Since our last SOCAP Open blog post, we have received new ideas ranging from how the social economy tackles what we hear in the news to how entrepreneurs move on from messy failures. Add your session ideas to the mix before the submission deadline coming up this Sunday, May 25th!
Here are a few of the many thoughtful submissions we have received:
GOING BEYOND THE HEADLINES
The following session ideas take an in-depth look on the impact of journalism on the social economy.
Making sense of the hype: toys, “pinkification”, and increasing diversity in STEM breaks down what it will take for girls to head into STEM education/careers.
Knowledge isn’t the problem…How do you stop-modern-slavery? This session explores how to move beyond being aware about the factory fires, child labor, or sex trafficking.
SOLVING ONE PROBLEM AT A TIME MIGHT NOT BE THE ANSWER.
Tackling one social problem is hard enough. These two ideas are not afraid to recognize that a single problem is often nestled in an interconnected system. They suggest that fragmenting into silos may not be the solution.
Trying to Solve a Big Problem? Make it Bigger is a conversation on how to see beyond one problem in order to create a solution for a bigger picture.
Multipurpose Prevention Technologies MPTs: Impact Investing for Global Reproductive Health addresses global health based on healthy women and their families. Instead of looking at a ‘one cause-one solution’ approach MPTs use multipurpose prevention technologies that change the social impact for funding and R&D.
REDEFINING BUSINESS
During an organization’s inception and growth periods, social impact is often a central consideration. Several ideas explore what questions social entrepreneurs should be asking during the start-up and maturation phases of an organization.
Be Well and Do Good proposes a framework on how to create a meaningful marketplace that balances company values with sustainable business models. While it is easy to divide charity and money-making interests, is it time to consider.
Why Shouldn’t Everyone Profit by Doing Good? Or perhaps your non-profit is ready to make a more sustainable impact as a for-profit using.
Hybrid Structures: Bridging the Divide between Nonprofit and For-Profit. For those who want to learn the difference between Benefit Corporation versus B Corp, cast your vote for the session on.
The Case for Being a Benefit Corporation. The social enterprise revolution in corporate law is helping social entrepreneurs looking for new structures to better embed their mission into their business venture.
Growing Great Governance in Social Entrepreneurship & Impact Investing – Evolving Role of Board Duties & Liabilities hopes to explore how board directors govern in the new social impact economy.
ALL THE WORKING PARTS
Social impact businesses at times need operational tune-ups.
Democracy democratized presents a new approach to group decision making.
When obstacles present impossible decisions,Strategy for Social Entrepreneurs-How to stay the right course is a case study on how a company decided to stay the course instead of making the mistake of changing too rapidly.
What other ideas do you have for best practices in social entrepreneurship?
MAKE IT INVESTMENT READY
Growth comes in stages, but after all the hard groundwork, do you feel ready? Several ideas focus on the readiness of your business.
Impact Investing - A Social Entrepreneur’s Perspective takes a look at what your business requires to be impact-investing ready.
SOCAP @ SOCAP presents Kiva Zip’s pilot program research and findings that better engage lenders to connect with the entrepreneurs they crowd finance.
Reject the System: Disruptive Giving explores several organizations’ unique methods to engage donors beyond the checkbook and disrupt the traditional giving model.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: HOW TO MEASURE IMPACT
Social enterprise has impact beyond just numbers and figures but it isn’t easy to measure the difference made without tangible numbers.
Measuring Indirect Impact presents how the peripheral benefits of investing matter to the innovative bottom line of impact investing.
After 10-years of impact investing, Tech for Impact: Systems in the Impact Investing Arena is a look into what’s new, what’s working and what is not working.
TAKING ON THE LEARNING CURVE
Social entrepreneurs enter a new model of business, imposing a very large learning curve. Several ideas present learning tools on impact investment.
Place Based Investing for Fiduciaries: the example of the SF Bay Area proposes a Bay Area impact portfolio across asset classes to invite new investor capital.
Open-Kimono: making the economics of impact investing stack up gives insight into best practices to build an impact investment portfolio.
For anyone with questions around term sheets or other legal concerns as an investor or entrepreneur, a session has been proposed to highlight 10 Things to Consider When Forming or Investing in Impact Funds.
TRIAL AND ERROR
We sometimes fail.
Though it’s tempting to shy away from talking about failure,Impact Investing get spicy! wants to bring it out in the open. The session idea brings together panelists from Mexico, a fast growing impact investing ecosystem, talking about the current environment and some of their failures. And as social impact companies move towards growth and sustainability there are lots of questions on how to get there.
Let’s Make a Deal: Negotiation for Impact Entrepreneurs is an interactive workshop of best practices of negotiation towards sustainability.
FILL IN THE BLANK: YOUR TURN
Keep the ideas coming - deadline for idea submission is Sunday, May 25th.
Vote up all your favorite ideas once per day until June 8th!
