WayBack When, November 2000

Dare I say it was the first article?  “Group donates money and time.” A (slightly crooked) reprint from the Calgary Herald, November 20, 2000 – introducing the concept of Social Venture Partners to Calgary.  (Click on article to enlarge.)

Courtesy of the WayBack machine, take a look at SVP Calgary’s website through the years!

Canada Helps asks “Did you Know?”

Following on the success of similar ‘edutainment’ videos, Canada Helps spices up the world of donors and giving in their short 4 minute video.  Great job presenting statistics on donors & donations – so I don’t fall asleep!

Have your cake? If you like cake.

Among the many topics at the Skoll World Forum, the question that has swirled around my head is “can you have your cake and eat it too?” posed in relation to social good with market returns.  The most interesting answer to this question came as “Well, it depends on if you like cake.”

Filled with a panel of financial and foundation experts, the conversation got to the heart of the debate – what kind of returns can you/should you expect from social good organizations?  Is there a number you can attach?  Is 7%, over time, an accurate amount?  How much “time” are we talking?

The opinion from a leading investment bank representative was “if you aspire to create a positive externality, it’ll cost you.”  For many of us of interested in creating social good, that is a fair trade off.  After all, how do you price the externality of alleviating poverty, improving education, or reversing climate change?  Certainly they would be worth a smaller financial return?

My favorite analogy made was in relation to baseball owners.   It is financially certain that you will lose money by owning a baseball team.  Yet, we continue to have teams – and folks continue to own teams.  In this sense, there is more than just making a financial return.  It’s more than just the most rational choice, its about personal interest – possibly, personal legacy.

Going forward, we need to create financial products that allow us to explore the area between social and commercial investment.  In the future, balancing this duality will be a core competency of any investor.  (At least that is my hope.)  But to get to this place we’ll need two things: 1) we’ll need to understand what the risk/reward is for social ventures and 2) we need to encourage long term thinking – just building, scaling, and selling will not be enough.

This isn’t an easy task, but it plenty exciting.  Or, it just depends on if you like cake.

I Can Change the World!

What can you do to change the world?

I Gotta Feelin’

Look what can happen when 20,000 strangers come together.

Oprah didn’t know that a director arrived before her.  Teaching the audience how to dance together.

What will we do together?

Find SVP Calgary in your favorite networks!

Be in the know!   Join SVP Calgary on Twitter , Facebook, and LinkedIn.

The Power of Timing

Seth Godin posted a wonderful blog, Guy #3 and You Tube video (below) displaying the power of timing.  It’s a fascinating display of what can happen to an idea who’s time has come.