Eye Candy

2007 Skoll World Forum Notes

2007 Skoll World Forum Notes

Said Business School, Oxford

What did I learn?

·       If social enterprise/economy organisations want to approach the private sector, it is important to speak the language of business.  Business people typically don't want to learn the language of the 3rd sector.  The private sector has power in terms of resources and influence and it is the responsibility of social entrepreneurs to make it worth the business community's while to channel resources into the 3rd sector.

·       Having seen Al Gore deliver his "An Inconvenient Truth" presentation in Cambridge on Monday and Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, on discuss micro credit on Tuesday, I got that their message is simply to take action because no challenge is too great.  Muhammad Yunus said that if you can help one person out of poverty, you could do it for everyone…you just have to do the same thing over and over again.  Both Gore and Yunus took on massive-scale problems, global warming and poverty, and broke them down into manageable pieces.  They are in action, focused and get the same message out again and again.  Yunus said he doesn't try to convince anyone of what he's trying to accomplish – the listener already wants to help, he just delivers the message that opens their eyes. 

The notes below are my personal notes and not necessarily accurate or complete.  Where there is a lack of content, I was probably engaged in the conversation, checking email or not paying attention.

Wednesday 28 March 2007

Session with Peter Gabriel, co-founder, and Gillian Caldwell, Executive Director, of human rights organisation, Witness

The have a new service called The Hub.  Idea: with videos and photos, it is difficult to bury human rights abuses.  PG saw the Rodney King video and noticed its impact on society.

Witness plans to train people how to use cameras; it is not enough to just get the camera out there.  They are finding they have to be a production facility and library. Fortunately cost of cameras has gone down.  Before their work could only reach a small number of groups and touch a small number of people.  But now with the internet, they are creating a "YouTube" for human rights that can allow people to upload and have their footage seen.  Most importantly, they can influence people that can change the situation. 

The Hub plan:

1. Core partnerships with human rights groups. Call it video advocacy. Work with the media where they can. Measure with concrete evidence over 3 years. 
2. Seeding program – training program
3. The hub – wiki for human rights.  The central point for multimedia for human rights violations
1. Goal: Deter, reduce and address human rights violations
2. Empower people so they can articulate their vision for solutions
3. 4 tier process for distributing content

1st tier: filter (for pornography and other inappropriate content)

2nd tier: un-reviewed (for relevance or quality)

3rd tier: reviewed (by community of constituents)

4th tier: featured content

PG mentioned that this service is not meant to compete with any other human rights groups but to support.

Session: partnering with business

·       Sophia Tickell, Chair, SustainAbility (moderator)

·       Blaise Judja-Sato, Founder & Chairman, VillageReach

·       Duncan, GlaxoSmithKline

·       John Schaetzl, GE Asset Management

·       Hannah Kettler,  Gates Foundation

·       Christopher J Elias

·       Maggie, SustainAbility

Blaise: VillageReach (VR) based in Seattle and founded in 2000.  Studied value chain to see where he could contribute in Mozambique.  He started with vaccines but realised they needed transportation, communications and to build capacity. VR worked with government and communities to fill gaps and setup social enterprises to work along the value chain.

·       Challenge: Government was reluctant to engage. Private sector groups unwilling to go where market untested. Issues with funding – donors didn't understand model. NGOs reluctant to engage.

·       Hybrid model: charitable work, commercial operations (set up social ventures to add value to the value chain). Eventually set up partnership with large corporate but could have benefited from partnerships with energy company and DHL or Coca-cola who are experts in supply chain management.

Chris Strutt, PATH: Partnering re: technology work with 60 commercial companies. Their business sector partners are essential to reach scale. They played a brokering role with United Nations and companies. One needs to understand perspective of business – their context and culture.  PATH became an importance player in brokering but had a challenge around financing.  Chris suggested organisations need innovation capital to explore new areas.  Industry can help by influencing their peers – can get them on side faster and demonstrate value that can be created by working with the social sector. Chris encourages social entrepreneurs to be more open to disruptive approaches – give up the status quo and think of new ways to come up with solutions.

Duncan, GSK: Start with: What are the company's objectives?

3 ways to provide access of vaccines:

1) Research & development – look for partnerships for funding (keep in mind they need to make a profit) and expertise

2) Licensing

3) Community investment program – global programs

Hannah, Gates Foundation (GF): They paid out around $8bn in less than 10 years.  They do lots of learning by doing. Philosophy: All lives are equal regardless of where people live. This philosophy helps with making decisions and grants. GF focus on diseases that have significant global burden but focused on poorest of poor. Advantage able to take longer-term risks and investment. Hannah made it clear that they are a funder and not a doer. Some grants go to academic institutions. Private sector can't realize global health goals on their own and need the social sector. They've been growing up and down the value chain. GF have changed from focus on outputs to outcomes. How do you go the last mile and scale up? Hannah suggests social sector needs to systematically leverage the power of the private sector.

John, GE: Represents the private sector at the session.  The purpose of business is to make a financial return. They put capital at risk, which is at the heart of what investors do, in order to get a reward.  Social sector needs to understand private sector perspective if they want their help. 

Moving capital session

John Elkington: Most SEs believe they don't have access to finance. How SEs get support:

·       Personal fundraising

·       Public fundraising

·       In-kind help

·       Foundations

Penny Newman, Cafédirect: Runs a £22M company that pioneered fair trade as a business model. They work with 37 producing organizations and 1 million growers and help them achieve a better life. Wanted to make fair trade into a business model to connect growers with people that drank the coffee or tea.  They did a public share issue and became a PLC, which she strongly supports.  Penny asked: Can we have a different stock market?  We should look at different ways of trading our shares.

Session: research – scale

Francesco Perrini, Bocconi University: venture philanthropy

·       Narrow view: SE concept as the most recent innovation in the nonprofit sector

·       Extended view: SE concept as a new, independent and inter-sectorial field of inquiry. The ability to actively contribute to social change with creativeness…

·       Venture Philanthropy – a high-risk financial capital provision, combined with technical and managerial expertise transfer, which offer the potential for financial returns, as well as contributing to foster social change through entrepreneurship

Greg Dees, CASE Fuqua School of Business

·       Scaling impact with ecosystem thinking

·       Ecosystem = interdependence of players

·       Impact is not proportional to organizational size

·       Efforts to grow should be driven by a compelling impact strategy

·       It takes an "ecosystem" to scale and sustain social impact (!)

·       Players and roles: resource providers, competitors, allies & complementors, predators & opponents, beneficiaries & customers, relevant bystanders

·       Environmental conditions: politics & administration, economics and markets, culture and social trends, geography and infrastructure

·       Ecosystem change – lasting alteration of player behaviour created by: changing one or more environmental conditions, widespread diffusion of innovation

·       Common elements of ecosystem change – coalition building, communications effectiveness, credible alternative, contingency planning

·       Benefits – improved understanding of opportunities for ecosystem change, environmental needs for replication, potential for new alliances, alternative resource strategies, testing different operating models. Ultimate goal have disproportionate level of impact.

Roberto Gutierrez, Social Enterprise Knowledge Network

·       Different paths for scaling social entrepreneurship

·       Integrative drivers: leadership, culture, strategy

·       Implementing mechanisms: HR, governance, finance…

·       Leadership – social conglomerate: coordinates ventures, builds strategic alliances, promotes visibility of enterprise

·       Skills: coordination, political, negotiation; style: political

·       Corporate social entrepreneurship: uses both internal and external resources, creates social and economic value

·       Social investment – strategic philanthropy

·       As innovations progress on the continuum, the degree of central coordination and resources needed increases

·       Dissemination—affiliation—branching

·       Public sector: showing impact is key to maintain a program when governments change – influence on legislative process is notable

·       Consultancy—program development

·       Combination of social entrepreneurship with social service provision and social activism is common

·       Convergence among social enterprises from different sectors: value creation, stakeholder management, organizational structure, capital mobilization.

·       Partnerships and organizational ecosystems that create social and economic value are increasingly common