A profusion of crowd-funding platforms has emerged in the last few years, from the peer-to-peer lending site Zopa to microfinance giants Kiva. Theresa Burton and Michael Norton have stepped into the fray by setting up Buzzbnk – a crowd-funding platform for start-up social entrepreneurs.
So will crowd-funding platforms be the panacea for start-up funding? Matt Black of Social Enterprise Live caught up with Theresa to find out more.
How are social enterprises and non-profits financed? How do impact investors perceive the risks and benefits of financing social enterprises and non-profits? Funded by Export Development Canada, the EDC Chair in Environmental Finance at the University of Waterloo is conducting a survey to answer these two important questions.
One of the Trico Charitable Foundation's many programs is the Social EnterPrize. This program awards funding and education to Canadian leaders and non-profit organizations that are effectively using social enterprise to deepen their community impact and using innovation to benefit society. Up to four awards can be granted to organizations and individuals. Announced recently at the Enterprising Spirit: Creating Value and Social Good Conference, here are the 2011 winners of the Social EnterPrize.
Since I have the privilege of working daily in the SiG@MaRS advisory practice with clients who are social entrepreneurs, it’s exciting for me to join a team of pitch doctors to advise participants in the Good Deals: Pitch Clinic, which takes place at the Social Finance Forum on December 14th.
Being a social entrepreneur and trying to find the sweet spot between profit and social benefit is hard. On the one hand, you are consumed by the passion that drives the social mission, but you also need to have the business essentials: both the resources and a robust business model that outlines how to drive revenue growth from selling your product or service.
Social finance largely concerns itself with finding capital for social enterprise - the supply side. However, the demand side of the equation – in the form of demand for goods and services produced by various social enterprises – is equally important. A major challenge for social enterprises is to figure out how to bolster interest in and purchase of their products.
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Your Guide helps social entrepreneurs learn how to attract financing for their social ventures.
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Your Guide to Social Finance
SocialFinance.ca hosts an online guide that helps social entrepreneurs learn how to attract financing for their social ventures.
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