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AVPN Thus Far: 222 Members, Expanding Across Asia, Growing the Social Investing Eco-System

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Kang Fei Wong

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feat-1AVPN has been fast expanding our portfolio of resources and services to serve our members and the social investing community in Asia in the past 3 years since our inception and we are happy to announce some of our achievements over the past year and others that you can look forward to in the coming months. What have we been up to the past year? We recently passed the 220 members mark and as of end July, we have 222 members from 28 different countries across the wide spectrum of social investing. We would love to introduce our members to each other for increased collaboration between silos, more partnerships and co-investment, so drop us a line should you want to know who else is working within your sector of interest, the countries that you are entering, or if you need help in a certain area of expertise.

Take a look at our full member list, which is now easily searchable via different categories: through their beneficiary type, investee type, countries that they are active or countries that they are based.

 

New member onboarding call

  • feat-3Not sure what our full suite of services are, where our next event will be or how to tap into the network? Our membership services team will happily bring you through our website functions, how we can customize events for you in your city, and introduce you to our knowledge centre resources through a call or meeting in person if we are in the same city. Have you met us? Stacey, Patti and Clive should always be your first point of contact to our community and services. We will be able to match you to your needs in venture philanthropy. Even if you have been with us for a while and would like to refresh what you know about our services, just drop us a line and we will bring you up to date!

The improved search functions and navigations on the AVPN website means that visitors can easily navigate through for resources on:

  • Publications: So far, AVPN has published 6 reports on Social Investing in Asia, including 2 in Mandarin and 1 in Japanese. We will have more toolkits on Setting Up Giving Circles and localized Asian content by year end, but our website also carries publications gathered from the wider community.
  • Webinars: To date, we have conducted 18 webinars on a wide range of topics from impact assessment to country analysis on Asian countries like Myanmar, to Social Impact Bonds. Our webinars are now held on a monthly basis and are a popular resource for training and knowledge sharing.
  • Events: Participate in our upcoming events like our monthly Friday sessions in Singapore or our regional roundtables, seminars or road shows that could be at your city. For our past 8 Friday sessions, we have organized casual lunches on Financial Inclusions, Happy Hour with JFDI introducing digital start-ups, site visit to an early childhood education. Next month, we are going on a community trail to discover underlying social issues in Singapore.Till now, we have organized 30 roundtables, 12 seminars, 20 workshops, co-organised more than 10 conferences and 2 site visits across 10 countries. We organized 2 European study tours, first one in 2012 to Turin and London for some of our founding members and the second one in November last year to Berlin, Brussels and London for 18 Asian government officials to learn more on multi-sector collaboration. Of course not forgetting our 3 annual conferences, which have gotten bigger and more exciting year on year. Here are some statistics from this year’s conference:

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  • Videos: We also have videos on our events, on venture philanthropy and other interesting videos from the network
  • Investment Showcase: Our first version of the Investment Showcase started on our earlier website and slowly gathered cases from our members. We then brought it live to you at our 2nd Annual Conference and this year it grew to 20 different social organisations from 8 countries. The current database now has 78 cases and is still growing, all reflecting successful interesting projects of venture philanthropy from our membership base. We are looking at giving more visibility to those featured on our showcase, through webinars, live events and case studies!
  • Capacity Development Model (CDM) case studies: Since the launch of the CDM, the knowledge centre has been collating case studies of best practices in the 5 areas of Pre-Engagement, Capacity Building, Impact Assessment, Portfolio Management and Multi-Sector Collaboration to share with the community. Members can also take the self-assessment test to better understand how they allocate their resources and focus amongst these practice areas and to benchmark against others.
  • Member Login! If you’ve gotten your new login for our website, we have new functions that will allow you to engage in discussions on topics on our website, or to start your own group with other members via the Dialogue function. Our first pilot moderated group will be on Gender Lens – watch out for that! Non-members can also create their own account to engage with the community. Other features that link to the community include our wide listing of career options,
  • 2015-07-30--1438247367_1920x1080_scrotAVPN Connector: The log-in will also provide access to the Connector which presents the people connected to our member organisations, so you know who you are connecting to, and even to the wider community, including the delegates to our conference.

Developing other markets in Asia!
Besides the array of services and resources that we have been busy with, our team has also been working on expanding the market in specific countries.

AVPN India was set up earlier this year and has already co-organised a conference with law firm Nishith Desai in March and 3 other round tables on social investing. With many industry stalwarts on its board, including Tata Industies, YES Bank, Deshpande Foundation, Dasra and many more, the Indian branch is set to develop the social investing eco-system in India in leaps and bounds.

In China, we have formed a strategic partnership with the China Social Enterprise & Social Investing Alliance, which is formed by a core group of the most progressive foundations and successful social enterprises in China. With this local partnership, we can aid the local market to progress more effectively as it tries to leapfrog western models by providing direct access to sector experts, resources, training and successful models. AVPN has also forged many other partnerships, including with China Initiative for Social Finance, China Charity Fair and with our members to carry out localized programmes that will create greater impact on the ground.

In other Asian markets, Ken Ito, who is based in Tokyo, has launched the Japan Venture Philanthropy Fund with Social Investment Partners, and Han Sunkyung and Park Ahyoung also joined our team earlier this year from Korea.

More VP funds in the road ahead?
Besides the fund in Japan, we were happy to welcome to the AVPN family, Social Impact Partners from Hong Kong, which was also catalyzed by AVPN. In this year, we are working with many partners and members in the region to develop more venture philanthropy funds according to the local needs and demands. We definitely recognize the gap in Asia and welcome you to approach us if you require support, resources and advice for your journey in social investing – we are here to help! Contact any of us or drop us a line at [email protected]

If you look forward to more information on the market in Asia – remember to actively participate in our landscape and member surveys!

From all of us at AVPN,
Here’s to more great things for the rest of the year!

References

A. Environmental Stewardship
To protect the environment, we organize programmes like mangrove nursery and Reforestation, Coastal and River Clean-Up, Community Based Environmental Solid Waste Management, Environmental IEC Campaign and Eco-Academy

B. Food Security and Sustainable Livelihood
To ensure a sustainable livelihood for the community, eco-tourism include Buhatan River Cruise Visitor Center Buhatan River Mangrove Boardwalk are run by the community. Others include Organic Vegetable and Root crops Farming, Vegetable and Root crops Chips and by-products Processing and establishing a Zero waste store.

C. Empowered Communities
To empower the community, we provide product and Agri-Enterprise Development Training, Immersion and Learnings Exchange Program, Earth Warrior Training and Community Based Social Entrepreneurship Training

Author

Kang Fei Wong

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