In case you missed it, this year SOCAP is opening up. In a new experiment of collective community intelligence and democratization, we’re asking our community to publicly submit session ideas for SOCAP13, and/or vote up the ideas you want to see happen at Fort Mason this Fall.
Our question to you: what important trends, developments, and innovations are accelerating the good economy? We just started accepting submissions a little over a week ago, and we’re already seeing some interesting trends emerge.
Radial Collaboration
The growing trend towards bigger and better collaboration in the name of impact continues. Our very first submission explores a Brazilian case-study of a fund / accelerator partnership with a Village Capital twist. Another post looks at the collective impact model that has had wild success with traditional philanthropy, and explores opportunities to create collaborative funds with impact investors. A third explores the concept of a truly three sided market.
Crowdfunding, Community, and Government
Many sessions address civic life and the role of government in both supporting and hindering opportunities to accelerate the good economy. From the aptly titled, ‘It’s the Deficit Dummy‘, a session looking to reframe the social impact bonds discussion, to a discussion on innovations in pay for success models. A few other sessions on this theme:
- Crowdfunding for community good
- What role should the state play in the democratization of capital?
- Urban Innovation, a discussion of how urban prototyping and bottom up innovation are changing how people experience and interact in cities.
Innovations in Funding
Speaking of innovation, our community is always pushing the boundaries and looking for innovations in funding social impact. A few sessions help us get back to the basics on this topic, exploring how innovation happens, and imploring us not to forget the importance of due diligence in pushing the sector forward. Another explores growing trends in impact investing, and specifically how regional hubs are shaping the landscape.
Specific innovations that folks are looking to discuss include building a credit market for nonprofits, thinking beyond traditional exit strategies towards more novel methods of impact investing. Our very own SOCAP convener, Kevin Jones, has joined the fray and is proposing a new gender lens approach to impact investing.
Tools to Support Smarter Investing and Greater Impact:
Three different sessions propose new tools to help us make smarter investments or grow our impact as entrepreneurs:
- Making it easier for planet focused investors to co-invest with people focused investors
- Real ecosystem tools platforms: How technology can make the magic happen
- Reshaping education with live student data
Building Better Start-Ups
And of course, the ever important: how do we continue to build better start-ups doing this work? From innovations with B-corporations, to strategies for Investing in People. GEO submitted a session on Tools for grant makers to create pathways to grown impact. Some great proposals in this topic include:
- Lean start-up for the social sector
- 5 key considerations in designing a social enterprise
- A startup approach and VC equity for good
Taking a Deep Dive
There are also some areas in which people are ready to take a deep dive and exchange on specific areas of opportunity. Those include:
- Climate adaptation
- Effective last mile distribution to the base of the pyramid
- What’s happening in organics
As you can see, the contributions already are rich. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Submissions close June 15th, and we’re eager to get all your thoughts. How do these ideas resonate with you? What content do you want to see? Let us know over at SOCAP Open.
