–> Who:  Dana Frasz, Founder & Director of Food Shift
–> What:  Based in the Bay Area, Food Shift is working to reduce waste, create jobs, and alleviate hunger by developing sustainable community-based solutions that more effectively redistribute food.  
–> How: Read this interview, and learn more about Food Shift here.     

Interview by Adam Smiley Poswolsky

Nearly 40% of all food produced in the U.S. is wasted.  Meanwhile, 50 million Americans are food insecure.   At SOCAP, I interviewed Dana Frasz, the founder and director of Food Shift, a Bay Area organization that is dedicated to solving the problem of food waste.  Food Shift sees this waste as an opportunity to build something more positive for our communities. Ultimately, Food Shift envisions the creation of a food recovery service sector—creating jobs that reduce our waste, while feeding those in need.

As a freshman at Rochester Institute of Technology, I witnessed the dining hall staff dumping huge amounts of food in the trash.  The manager told me they couldn’t donate the extra food.  One night, with limited permission, I packed extra food in cardboard boxes, and took it down to the subway tunnels in Rochester to give to a group of homeless men.  I transferred to Sarah Lawrence College and studied hunger in America and sustainable food systems.  I approached local food businesses and began delivering excess food to a soup kitchen in the Bronx called Part of the Solution, which feeds 500 people a day.  I finally convinced the school dining hall to donate their extra food each day, by my senior year we had 10 businesses donating and 45 students involved.

How did you take this awareness of food waste from college and start to build an organization to address these issues?
I was a Youth Action Net Fellow in 2006, and then worked for Ashoka for three years, where I learned a lot about social entrepreneurship.  I saw the problems of hunger and food waste getting worse and saw very little being done about it.    The paradox is that we’re wasting all this food—some 40% of all food is wasted, yet there are so many hungry people out there—50 million Americans are food insecure.

I moved to San Francisco in 2011.  I was inspired by other start-ups and food justice organizations in the region, but also bothered by the extent to which food waste was left out of the conversation.  I knew it was time to launch Food Shift and turn up the volume on this issue.  I reached out to Dana Gunders, a food waste expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland, a book about food waste in America.  I focused on building a coalition of individuals who believed food waste reduction should be a priority.

I started linking food establishments with excess food to Food Runners, a non-profit that recovers food in San Francisco and delivers it to those in need.  I started hosting and attending events to increase awareness about food waste and I started picking up excess food from grocery stores, catering companies, and restaurants in the East Bay.
How did you launch Food Shift, and what are you working on now?
In early 2012 Food Shift became an Earth Island Institute sponsored project.  Next, we received some small grants from StopWaste.org and the Cliff Bar Family Foundation.  For the past year Food Shift has been focused on educational awareness, partnership development and community building.  We host events each month such as film screenings, panels, workshops, and we are looking for partners to launch a national food waste awareness campaign, and launching a bicycle food recovery program in Oakland.

What is the main obstacle around reducing food waste?
Very few examples of financially sustainable food waste reduction programs have emerged.  Most food recovery groups in the U.S. provide a free service, receive limited financial support, and depend on volunteer commitments to operate.  These restraints limit their ability to expand and increase impact.  Additionally, most food recovery groups use fossil fuel burning vehicles to transport food.  Food Shift minimizes environmental impact by transporting food by bicycle from donors to recipients.   Food safety is very important and liability is always a concern.  Food Shift is working to increase awareness about the Good Samaritan Food Act—a federal law that protects food donors from liability as long as they are donating to a non-profit.

What are some examples of other organizations doing this type of work?
Boulder Food Rescue is a nonprofit in Boulder, Colorado, that rescues and redistributes perishable food to charities that serve homeless and at-risk individuals. They transport their food on bicycles, thus minimizing their environmental impact while helping to alleviate hunger at the same time.  DC Central Kitchen is also another strong example— every day they turn 3,000 pounds of leftover food into 5,000 meals through their meal distribution program in Washington, DC.  In the UK, Rubies in the Rubble employs Londoners who are struggling to get back into the workplace, to make delicious chutneys out of discarded fruits and vegetables, thus creating employment opportunities and reducing waste at the same time.

What are you working on now, what’s next for Food Shift?
Food Shift is launching a bicycle food recovery program in Oakland that will save businesses money, create jobs, and alleviate hunger.  This service will reduce businesses’ waste disposal costs and provide added publicity to the donors.  Food Shift will charge small membership fees and will generate additional revenue from advertising on the bike trailers.  Food Shift will hire and train local, low-income women to coordinate and execute pick-up and drop-offs, thereby creating community-based employment opportunities.  Additionally, we’re launching a food waste reduction pledge via change.org, as part of our efforts to build a national food waste reduction movement.  We’re looking for educational partners, brands, and sponsors that can help amplify our message.

To learn more about the work Food Shift is doing, and to get involved in reducing food waste in your community, go to foodshift.net

This article is a part of a series produced at SOCAP12 by New Empire Builders. New Empire Builders is a SOCAP12 media partner.

–> Who:  Samantha Duncan, Investment Officer for LeapFrog Investments
–> What: LeapFrog is the world’s first and largest investor in companies that insure underserved people in Africa and Asia.
–> How: Read this synopsis, and learn more about LeapFrog Investments here.

By Adam Smiley Poswolsky

Samantha Duncan was born and raised in Australia, and after getting a business degree from the University of Queensland, worked in the private sector with PricewaterhouseCoopers in operational consulting and with Goldman Sachs in investment banking in health care.  Duncan worked for two years at Goldman Sachs in Sydney, but wanted to find more socially impactful work, and after being inspired by Muhammad Yunus and others, she went to Peru and managed a microfinance credit program.

She found that people who were becoming successful with microcredit still faced with other problems such as inadequate housing, insecurity from being targeted for robberies, and the need for a safe place to deposit their savings.  She learned that while microcredit was immensely valuable to her borrowers, it was not the be all and end all of development, and that not everyone strives to be an entrepreneur. Just as important was providing simple financial and nonfinancial services, and supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that create jobs.  “You need to build out the entire ecosystem—supporting both the entrepreneurs, via their access to credit and other financial services, and supporting the greater customer and SME base—the community and commerce as a whole,” Duncan explained to me at SOCAP.

After Peru, Duncan studied international development at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, looking at access to finance for small and medium businesses in the developing world, and more broadly at sustainable financing models for development.  Working for the Grassroots Business Fund in India, she gained appreciation for the importance of mobilizing local capital.  “What I learned in India was that there is a lot of interest among Indians to fund Indian-led social businesses—there is great potential to mobilize a local base, and in doing so be involved in promoting sustainable, local-led development” says Duncan.

Duncan then joined LeapFrog Investments, working on LeapFrog’s investments in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Indonesia.  LeapFrog invests exclusively in businesses that provide financial safety nets to the world’s next billion emerging market consumers. Its investment portfolio aims to provide top quartile private equity returns while reaching 25 million low-income people underserved by insurance and other financial services beyond credit.  Since insurance is a trust-based product, LeapFrog thinks creatively about ways to best reach low income people, including through partnerships with microfinance institutions and other organizations like co-ops and civil society organizations that already have developed a close working relationship with their low-income clients.

“Microinsurance is distinct from mainstream insurance in that achieving efficiency in distribution and administration is critical to achieving affordable insurance products, so we need to continue to innovate to access and build efficient and effective mechanisms to reach large groups of people,” explains Duncan.  LeapFrog’s first fund raised $135 Million, demonstrating an institutional interest in microinsurance—and potential for financial return while providing insurance services to underserved communities in the developing world.  In just over 3 years, LeapFrog’s portfolio companies have reached over 8 million people, even while taking leaps in operational performance and value.  Says Duncan: “We are demonstrating that you really can have profit and purpose.”

To learn more about LeapFrog, check out leapfroginvest.com

This article is a part of a series produced at SOCAP12 by New Empire Builders. New Empire Builders is a SOCAP12 media partner.

–> Who:  Agora Partnerships and The Eleos Foundation
–> What: The Agora-Eleos LatAm Women’s Fund is a collaboration between Agora Partnerships and The Eleos Foundation to unleash the power of women in Latin America through entrepreneurship.
–> How: Read this synopsis, and learn more about Agora Partnerships, and The Eleos Foundation, and more about the LatAm Women’s Fund here.

By Adam Smiley Poswolsky

Agora Partnerships, an early pioneer of the impact-investing movement, supports ventures at the seed and early stages, and has helped drive approximately $5 million into more than 40 small businesses across Central America.  The Eleos Foundation provides opportunities for co-investors to invest in funds at the forefront of pioneering markets, and invests and partners with social entrepreneurs who effectively implement high-impact, early stage solutions to eradicate extreme poverty.

At SOCAP, Agora Partnerships and The Eleos Foundation, announced a new partnership specifically designed to invest in women in Latin America.  At the partnership launch, Jackie VanderBrug, from Gender Lens Investing Catalyst, discussed how investing in women can expand opportunity, increase impact, and drive financial returns.

This new partnership leverages Agora’s strength in identifying emerging social entrepreneurs, while Eleos will complete due diligence on the company, and then makes the investment available to members of the collaboration who can then co-invest at their discretion.

“This is an innovative strategic partnership for Agora,” explained Agora Partnerships Founder and CEO, Ben Powell.  “We find and accelerate high-potential women entrepreneurs in Latin America.  And Eleos makes it easier for investors to invest in these entrepreneurs.  Eleos connects investors, who want to connect impact with their investment, to entrepreneurs who are making an impact with their companies.”

Through its Impact Accelerator program, Agora is creating a pipeline of small-business entrepreneurs (with revenue in between $50,000 and $1 million), and helping these businesses solve local problems and create employment opportunities, providing them with mentorship, strategic consulting, and leadership development.  One Agora entrepreneur,Oscarito’s, which is a children’s clothing manufacturer in Nicaragua, was founded with a $100 microloan in 1996, and now employs more than 50 workers—mostly single mothers—and generates over $350,000 in annual revenue.

To find out more about this new collaboration, which makes it easier for women entrepreneurs to access capital, and creates a transparent investment opportunity for those seeking to empower women and girls in Latin American, check out agorapartnerships.org.

This article is a part of a series produced at SOCAP12 by New Empire Builders. New Empire Builders is a SOCAP12 media partner.

–> Who:  Andrea Lo, Founder & CEO of Piggybackr
–> What: Piggybackr is an online fundraising platform specifically designed for youth.
–> How: Read this synopsis and visit Piggybackr to learn more.

By Adam Smiley Poswolsky

Andrea Lo was born and raised in Silicon Valley, where she grew up surrounded by engineers. She went to UC-Berkeley for undergrad, and graduated without knowing what her career path would be. Lo believed businesses have a real power to make impact in a positive way, and she ended up joining a consulting firm following school.

While consulting, she spent a lot of time thinking about how her skill set could best serve the world. She quit her consulting job at the age of 24, and stumbled into the tech start-up world, working at Caring.com, and then began working on Piggybackr in late 2011. Lo realized the potential for growth in online fundraising and crowdfunding from talking to her younger sister. “I talked to my 11 year-old sister, who cared about the environment but didn’t know what to do about it. The average young person just doesn’t know where to start,” she explains.

Piggybackr is a platform intended for pre-teens and teens that seeks to empower youth by maximizing their potential through online fundraising, providing tangible goals and actions, resources and encouragement for youth efforts; moving beyond the traditional youth fundraising model of bake sales and car washes.

Lo and her team worked with over 100 youth to understand their user experience with the site, and see what motivated them to fundraise and what didn’t. “Fundraising is usually the first experience a kid has with finance. We found that young people need instant gratification.   So we designed a platform that encourages effort,” she explains, “The more effort a young person makes towards reaching their fundraising goal by performing various tasks, the more money they can raise.”

Piggybackr is currently in beta mode, and is looking to bring large youth organizations and businesses on-board as sponsors and partners, and potentially develop a matching program for fundraising initiatives with corporations and foundations.  “If we can crack teaching youth how to fundraise, we can teach anyone to fundraise,” says Lo. Piggybackr is also exploring how best to integrate mobile on their platform, since young people are so dependent on their phones, while adult donors may not be.

While a lot of research remains to be done, Piggybackr is on the forefront of developing an innovative 21^st-century model for how fundraising can be both fun and empowering for young people and their communities.

This article is a part of a series produced at SOCAP12 by New Empire Builders. New Empire Builders is a SOCAP12 media partner.

–> Who:  Ryan Wagner, Co-Founder of Penyo Pal
–> What: Penyo Pal is a digital game designed to teach 4-7 year-olds foreign language skills, teaching language through play.
–> How: Read this synopsis, learn more about Penyo Pal here, and check out this pitch video by Penyo Pal at Microsoft’s LAUNCH Education conference.

By Adam Smiley Poswolsky

Ryan Wagner grew up in Ontario, Canada, and studied nanoengineering in college, and then researched nanoverticals at Harvard Medical School. This year, he was part of a program in Canada called Next 36, which helps launch the careers of Canada’s most promising and innovative undergraduates. The program gives 36 people from all across Canada CEO-level mentorship, placing them in teams of four to start a tech business.

In May 2012, Wagner and his business partners moved in together, and started working on Penyo Pal. They launched their first product in June at the Microsoft LAUNCH Education conference in Silicon Valley, alongside 30 other companies, and were awarded the best overall 1.0 start-up. The Penyo Pal game is available to download for free for the iPhone and iPad. The game teaches 4-7 year-olds language skills through audio and vocabulary lessons. Wagner explains that this is the best age for children to soak in language skills; when they are most open to trying things and failing. Penyo Pal is currently available in Chinese and French, but plans for additional languages like Spanish are in development.

At SOCAP, Wagner was one of 100 scholarship entrepreneurs selected to participate in the Impact Accelerator@SOCAP program the weekend before the conference, where he met social entrepreneurs from all over the world.  “The coolest thing was meting all of the other entrepreneurs, everyone at SOCAP was really smart and doing something truly impactful,” noted Wagner.

Wagner mentioned to me that the inspiration behind Penyo Pal was to make learning fun. “Education is too rigid, we need more creativity in education, more technology, more games,” he explained, “Many children in the U.S. grow up learning English, but don’t know their parents’ first language. We’re marketing to that audience, for children looking to regain their parents’ language, as well as making learning foreign languages more accessible for other children,” he said.

Moving forward, Penyo Pal is working on enhancing character and story development in their platform, and working to foster online learning communities so that kids can interact with other users much like they would using a typical video game.

Penyo Pal Team

This article is a part of a series produced at SOCAP12 by New Empire Builders. New Empire Builders is a SOCAP12 media partner.