Earlier this fall, I attended two conferences. The first, at the beginning of September, was Social Capital Markets 2009 in San Francisco - a gathering of over 800 entrepreneurs, investors and NGO representatives, organized by Kevin Jones, founder of the social enterprise-oriented venture capital firm Good Capital. There was terrific energy in the conference center, and over the course of two days, the conversation focused on the intersection of development and investment: how profit-seeking business models can generate positive social impacts, what are the best metrics or approaches for measuring social impact, and what constitutes successful models for reaching the base of the pyramid. However, despite the large gathering, it was clear that the world of social capital is still largely below the radar for large financial and international organizations and the amount of dollars actually invested in enterprise solutions is still small. This is why the IDB’s presence at SoCap09 and the Opportunities for the Majority initiative at the IDB are so relevant. In less than two years of operations, the Opportunities for the Majority initiative will have invested over $100K in market based solutions for the base of the pyramid in Latin America. The IDB is working to bring other investors to the table to encourage innovation and the real intersection of development and investment.
A month later, I headed to Arequipa, Peru for the 12th annual IDB Foromic conference, an event organized by the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank that has become one of the most important conferences in the field of microfinance – not only in Latin America, but worldwide. Today, microfinance is part of the vocabulary and the strategy of institutions from the World Bank to JP Morgan. I couldn’t help but think about what this event was like a decade ago. It would have been a lot like SoCap09, a meeting of visionaries and community representatives, with the IDB newly involved in fostering an emerging tool and asset class to help support development at the base of the pyramid.
I’m excited that through Opportunities for the Majority, the IDB is again involved in a new field early on, and is helping social enterprise grow beyond the theoretical and beyond small-scale and pilot projects.
