We’ve been involved in discussions lately to bring representatives from the Grameen Foundation onboard and confirmed their involvement today. The Grameen Foundation network serves fifty-three micro-finance institution partners in twenty-seven countries. Jill Chen, Senior Program Advisor on Capital Markets, will present a case study on their “Growth Guarantees Program,” which entails donor guarantors using their credit, not their money. The fund is 100% for the on lending of micro-loans. In addition, a representative from the Grameen Technology Center will be participating on our ICT panel to highlight their new sub-saharan Africa based initiative “Village Phone,” replicating the Grameen Phone program, and the “Mifos Initiative,” bringing microfinance software to MFIs.

Those are two of the latest groups that will be presenting at Socap08. The group at the UN is the Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative, and they have a report recently published with over 50 case studies of inclusive business models of core business activities that directly impact the poor and we will be publishing another 30 case studies in the next year or so focusing on core business activities that have both direct environmental and poverty benefits. They have also developed a number of useful tools for companies to use when evaluating opportunities  so we would be happy to do a presentation at the conference. Living Cities, a coalition of foundations at the CEO level that includes Gates, Rockefeller, Annie E. Casey, MacArthur and other foundations of that size and clout, will be talking about their new Catalyst Fund, which will offer a mix of grant an debts to cities and has just closed its first $14 million.

As a quick introduction, I recently came onboard as the Associate Producer of SoCap08. It’s been a whirlwind as thought leaders from every sector of the social capital space have been reaching out hoping to jump onboard. Busy in the best sense of the word! I wanted to highlight the unique opportunity that SoCap08 is providing: Sponsoring a Social Entrepreneur to attend the conference. Charly and Lisa Kleissner of the KL Felicitas Foundation have generously signed up as our first sponsors of not one, but two Social Entrepreneurs who hail from India. We are so pleased to welcome Parthasarathy Mukundan of Servals Automation Pvt. Ltd, which specializes in socially relevant products motivated by the Rural Innovation Network, an NGO specializing in incubating and networking rural innovators. We will also be welcoming Neelam Chhiber of IndusTree Crafts Pvt. Ltd, which promotes livelihoods for the rural poor through training groups at the village level to produce products made of natural fibers such as banana and palm leaves. These products are sold under the brand IndusTree at more than 30 locations in India and worldwide. 

If you would like to sponsor a Social Entrepreneur to attend the conference, please contact info@xigimedia.net for more information. With the addition of partners such as Acumen, HIP Investor, and OPIC, we are hearing stories of amazing work being done by Social Entrepreneurs worldwide. Take this opportunity to allow one of these men and women to attend SoCap08.

Acumen Fund and its amazing blog Next Billion.net is helping us get the word out about Socap08 and may even do some live coverage during the event.

David Erickson, at the Federal Reserve Bank office in SF emailed to suggest a topic his group would like to talk about at Socap08. “We have a small group at the Federal Reserve called the Center for Community Development Investments .  “We’re basically interested in almost any public policy, product, or practice that increases the flow of capital into low-income communities.  Among other things, we publish a journal.  The issue after next will be dedicated to the idea of blurring the lines between market and philanthropy/charity.  For that issue, we want to find authors who are writing social enterprises, socially-responsible investing, and any other strategy that tries to blend market returns with social/environmental goals. … It would be great background for our audience — mostly banks and other financial institutions, foundations, and government — to get a better sense of what is the cutting edge on this topic.

“It is particularly interesting to us to find ways to partner with multiple groups so they can take a more comprehensive approach to revitalizing poor neighborhoods–e.g., banks making loans for affordable housing, local or state governments using bond authority for charter schools, and community development venture capital firms making equity investments in promising new businesses.

“Your conference seems like a great chance to bring some of our people to meet some of your people.  We’d like to explore how we can use our mailing list and contacts to try to build more understanding and maybe some partnerships”

And of course, I said yes we’re greatly intersted and we’re meeting to talk further. The theme at the heart of Socap08 is making connections and finding new partners across boundaries you never thought of crossing before who, like you, want to accelerate the flow of capital to good. It’s amazing the commonality across an amazingly diverse number of groups, like this cutting portion of the Fed, who are responding to a new wave of investing and funding that’s going on, and who want to be bring a new message to a wider group of people than they regularly talk to, who are signing up to come to the conference October 13-15th.

Since we sent out the registration email for Socap08 a few days ago, I’ve been in email dialogue with institutional social investors, people from new and leading funds in those countries.

This email exchange with S. Dev Appanah from TRN Institute in Bangkok is typical of the kind of people who are coming: “As a brief introduction, we help mobilise the right kinds of financing and provide business development support to social enterprises in South and East Asia. The regional fund I manage, Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI), supports to young social entrepreneurs (20-35yrs old) in South and East Asia. The program is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). We’re currently supporting 7 ventures and intend to work with another 10 this year. We’ve also developed a range of complementary products which include tools, a guidebook, and an online community for young social entrepreneurs.

Got a call from my friend Rob Katz, who leads Next Billion.net, which is now part of Acumen,  and they and the folks behind their new initiatives will have a strong presence at the conference, possibly including some live bloggers during the conference.

My friend Paul Herman of HIP Investor will be one of the speakers at the conference, drawing on his background in technology, investing and metrics and helping us with marketing through the newsletter and events he and his team do.

More than 20 designers from Ideo worked with us for an hour and it looks like they might sign up to help us do the dating service at the conference.