Consultancy Clinic 1

Consultancy Clinics were added to the Forum this year. They were advertised as "vigorous and fast moving Consultancy Clinics where select delegates "pitch" new ideas, business plans for sticky challenges to an esteemed panel of experts, innovators and thought leaders who will listen ask questions and provide valuable advice." Each delegate had a total of 20 minutes in front of these master panels - 5 minutes to pitch and 15 minutes for questioning and input. It was an opportunity for shared learning and 'out loud' thinking as panellist, many of whom were speakers at the forum.

My pitch was "assessing the fit between social entrepreneurs and financial supporters" and the panel of expert thought leaders were:

David Bornstein: Specialises in writing about social innovation. We have all come across his book How to Change the World:Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas at SIIG and NZSEF. His first book, The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank, traces the history of the the Nobel Peace Prize winning Grameen Bank during its first 20 years and describes the global emergence of micro-finance. He has received awards for his writing from various universities in the USA.






Mark Campanale: Has over 19 years experience in sustainable financial markets; his area of knowledge is the finance of clean tech companies; sustainable asset management and social capital markets; and the role of capital markets in ecosystems management, principally forests. He is a founder director of the UK Social Investment Forum.

Roger L. Martin: Served as Dean of Rotman School of Management since 1998. His research work is in integrative thinking, business design. corporate social responsibility and country competitiveness. He had written several Harvard Business Review articles and published 2 books: The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leader win through IntergrativeThinking and The Responsibility Virus: How Control Freaks, Shrinking Violets - And the Rest of Us - Can Harness the Power of the True Partnership. He was named a Business Week 'B-School all Star' for being one of the 10 most influential business professors in the world.

Sophi Tranchell: Is the managing Director of Divine Chocolate Ltd, the pioneering Fairtrade company co-owned by farmers. Over the last 8 years she has built the company and brand from an idea to a dynamic business, turning over 10 million UK pounds and a profit of 500k UK pound profits. She has led the company's mission to improve the lives of small holder cocoa farmers in West Africa through a fairer trading relationship. she has won many awards and is also the chair of the steering committee to make London a Fairtrade City.



I started my pitch with a short summary of SIIG and NZSEF. I said that our entrepreneurs represented a diverse group representing youth, housing, gambling addiction, social and prisoners welfare issues. I said that we were a learning community that had only been going for over a year and one of our challenges was looking for resources for deepening and widening the work of our social entrepreneurs. One of the panel members suggested that perhaps our group was too diverse.

Mark Campanale suggested that we find out what a European Bank called Triodos had to offer and also a organisation called Prometheus who is based in New Zealand. The contact there is Glen Saunders. Bendigo Bank in Australia was also doing some interesting things.

The other pitches were about a 30M Venture fund to support financial services to lower income consumers in the US, micro financing poor people and helping them transition to self employment, developing a venture fund for micro financing organisations and incubating early stage social entrepreneurs in India.

When one of the panel suggested that the the poor should pay the going interest rate for any loans, a lively debate ensued. Sophi Tranchell was in doubt that this was an exploitation of vulnerable people in society!

Resources

- Social Edge blog Consultancy Clinic - Invaluable Expert Advice for social entrepreneurial challenges

- The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank by David Bornstein (book published by Oxford University Press 2005)

- How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein (book published by Oxford University Press 2007)

-The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking by Robin Martin (book published by Harvard Business School Press 2007)

-The Responsibility Virus: How Control Freaks, Shrinking Violets-And the Rest of Us-Can Harness the Power of True Partnership by Robin Martin (book published by Harvard Business School Press 2007)