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Session Highlights:
- This session focused on the best ways to overcome the common mismatch between investors’ and social entrepreneurs’ expectations, particularly highlighting AVPN’s Social Enterprise Development Toolkit as a helpful tool for navigating this process.
- Speakers highlighted the importance of SE’s knowing what they need and identifying investors that align with this, whether that be the right type of financing or leveraging other technical assistance that funders can provide. On the flip side, investors need to think whether they are providing the right type of capital for their goals
- When engaging investors, SE’s should be prepared to address a credible scaling plan, diversification of products and services, identifying partnerships and opportunities, and business traction. The AVPN toolkit was highlighted as a resource to identify what investors are looking for and to find resources that help prepare an SE for investment.
Session Description:
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Through the Social Enterprise Development Toolkit Pilot Programme, it was established that founders and funders usually have differing opinions of the organisation’s level of investment readiness. Recognising this difference is a first step towards closing the gap in understanding and communicating demand and supply.
While we continue to engage more SEs to utilise the Toolkit, it will be important for us to engage with funders and resource providers to be acquainted with the toolkit in order to re-frame how a common language framework around investment readiness might look like. What we would like to develop further is to understand how funders can better articulate their funding criteria and to outline what are the non-financial capital required to help investees be sustainable or scalable.
Key Takeaways:
- Highlight Funders’ perspectives on the need for a Common Language Framework in bridging the gap between investors and investees
- Demonstrate how the funders have leveraged on the SE Development Toolkit in their various journeys
- Spotlight opportunities for collaboration towards defining what a common language framework around investment readiness might look like
