We’re working on a paper prototype of an investor education piece. At this point it’s kind of like a set of tarot cards that help you talk about who you want to be in the world, what you want your impact to be. They open up some amazing conversations, that, once the whole kit […]

Talked on the xigi.net conference call with Jill Chen who has done billion dollar deals with multinational banks and was excited about the Digital Village Fund and offered to create a fund source segmentation template; the messages that the IFC would like to hear constrasted with the messages that the venture arms of tech companies […]

I’ve been meeting recently with Inveneo, which is a really innovative pc and communications platform designed to work in the developing world, places that are hot, humid, dusty and where electric power is unreliable. Unlike Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop, they will take orders in the size that people can pay for, rather than in one […]

Talked a few days ago with Robert Rubenstein, who runs the Triple Bottom Line conferences in Europe about doing an event over here, and about how we might work with him if he does. An expat American, he’s been thinking about it for a while, and has finally decided to stop “waiting till some […]

The proposed Global Citizen Center is back to the drawing board after negotiations fell through for the building at 1035 Market St. in SF. Here’s a snippet from their email newsletter: We are sad to report that, after four months of negotiations, the owners of the “blue building” at 1035 Market Street decided to […]

Markets mature through predictable, repeatable stages and microfinance has just reached one of those milestones. Gray Ghost an equity fund founded by Bob Patillo with $75 million of his own money, has completed the first transaction to create a secondary market for founding equity investors in microfinance funds. That means people who put their money […]

Talking last week to Owen Brown, CFO of fair trade certifier Transfair it seems that their addition of vanilla to the roster of fair trade products is exceeding their initial expectaions. The bulk of what Transfair certifies is coffee, with chocolate and bananas and other products growing. Certification gives consumers the comfort that people in […]

In May 2006 Brody Weiser and Burns, a non-profit consulting firm and social enterprise catalyst, hosted a Convening of investors and interested parties interested in the economic development of the Appalachia area. The convening discussed a white paper that among other objectives outlined six key success factors for a non-profit social enterprise.

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The paper that is in reader draft right now, “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Addressing Critical Gaps in Risk Capital for Social Enterprises,” has a section up on solutions. In particular it posits the following for non-profit social enterprises regarding their structuring risk capital vehicles for investors:

Zero Coupon Bond model: Though technically a liability, this structure […]

As we at GoodCap start to work with prospects for our social enterprise fund, we are running into a dynamic that me and my partners have not seen before in years of doing blended value deals. Potential investees are introducing us to their other investors and prospect investors. As one entrepreneur said in an email […]