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AVPN has been hosting the “AVPN TOKYO Visionaries’ Gathering” since early 2024, a closed gathering among AVPN members for discussion, learning, and collaboration on high-quality funding towards impacts by sharing best practices and knowledge in strategic philanthropy and impact investing. In March 2024, it was held with Mr. Jung Jungduk, Senior Researcher of the Social Progress Credit team at the Center for Social value Enhancement Studies (CSES) in South Korea, as a guest speaker.
The CSES has been running a project called the Social Progress Credit (SPC) since 2015 to advance solving social issues by measuring the performance of social enterprises and providing cash incentives for those results.This SPC has the two features: (1) monetization of the social value created by social enterprises in four categories: products and services, employment, value chain, and environment, and (2) paying unrestricted cash incentives based on measured social value. The diverse 368 social enterprises have created a cumulative total of USD 294 million in social performance and received USD 45 million in cash incentives in proportion to their social performance.
This funding scheme aims to encourage social enterprises for better and more performance, but also further resolution of social issues by utilizing the incentives for new business development and employment. For example, a social enterprise called MAND.RO, manufactures prosthetic hands that are half the weight and one-twentieth the price of typical products, with 3D printing technology. So far, the enterprise has generated 890 million won (equivalent to USD 0.6 million) in social value and received 180 million won (equivalent to USD 0.1 million) in incentives, which it is using to develop new products.
CSES is not only expanding this initiative in collaboration with local governments such as Seoul Metropolitan Government, but also overseas. From May 2023, CSES is also implementing the “Outcome-based Funding for IMM” in collaboration with the Japan Fundraising Association, the AVPN’s representative partner in Japan. This project supports social enterprises to practice Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) and accelerate the creation of impact by providing unrestricted incentives calculated based on outcomes created by the enterprises.
The AVPN TOKYO Visionaries’ Gathering is a place to exchange knowledge through discussions with guest speakers and learn best practices in Japan and Asia. If you are interested in registering as an AVPN member to access these opportunities, please contact [email protected]. For the Japanese version, please head to https://note.com/avpn_japan/.
