The Impact World this Week: 31 October 2024
Your quick guide to the most interesting news snippets about social enterprise, impact investment and mission-driven business around the world from the Pioneers Post team. This week featuring Patagonia, AVPN, Catalyst 2030, Netflix, and more.
USA: “To save our planet from the climate and nature crisis, we have to elect leaders who share our sense of urgency” said Corley Kenna, Patagonia’s vice president of communications and public policy, as the outdoor apparel social enterprise gave all of its 2,000 US employees a paid day off on Tuesday to vote early in the presidential election. Staff were encouraged to use the rest of the day to volunteer, including with the League of Conservation Voters to knock on voters’ doors and write letters to voters with a history of not voting, as well as call and text voters to encourage them to vote, and provide voters with resources to learn where the candidates stand on environmental issues.
Asia: Hong Kong will welcome social investors and social entrepreneurs from across the world next September for AVPN’s global conference. This week AVPN, Asia’s social investors’ network, announced its annual conference will be hosted in partnership with the Hong Kong Jockey Club and will take place from 9-11 September 2025.
- Read more: Why the impact world must not ignore Asia: Ten takeaways from AVPN's Global Conference 2024
Scotland: £45m-worth of grants may end for social enterprises and charities supporting vulnerable people in Edinburgh. The body which oversees care services on behalf of the council and health board said it was considering the plans because its deficit was so large it would not be able to meet its statutory obligations unless it reduced “the scale of the services it provides”. The Scotsman reports that 64 organisations serving more than 50,000 residents would have their grants scrapped under the plans. Social enterprises which potentially face losing funding include the Broomhouse Centre, Changeworks and Sikh Sanjog. City officials will discuss the plan to cancel current grants and scrap its grants programme for 2025/26 on Friday 1 November. The Edinburgh Inquirer reports that councillors are drafting a cross-party response rejecting the proposed cuts, instead suggesting NHS Lothian or Edinburgh Council plug the funding gap until the end of the financial year, and delay a decision on what form the grants programme should take in 2025/26.
UK: Where to invest £1m of funding for local businesses in Camden, London, will be decided by people who live, work or study in the area as part of a new initiative. The Camden Community Wealth Fund’s Youth Panel is inviting applications from people aged 16-25 (or up to 30 if they meet specific criteria). Launching next year and led by Camden Council chief investment officer Mathu Jeyaloganathan (the Pioneers Post WISE100 social investment champion in 2022), the Camden Community Wealth Fund will provide repayable long-term finance to help people start or grow a business in Camden. Applications for the Youth Panel close on 17 November.
- Read Mathu Jeyaloganathan’s Opinion article: Racism in social investment is institutionalised – white allies must step up
Global: “Everybody wants to believe that the company they’re working for is not evil.” These are the words of one interviewee featured in Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy, a documentary from Netflix by filmmaker Nic Stacey which launches on 20 November. The film aims to expose the marketing tactics used by the world’s biggest brands which lock people into an endless cycle of consumerism in order to increase their profits with no regard to the environmental consequences. It includes interviews with former staff members of some of the global megabrands including Amazon, Adidas and Apple.
Global: Social entrepreneurship takes centre stage in the latest Global Innovation Index, published every year by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) that looks at the state of innovation around the world. Published last month, “Global Innovation Index 2024: Unlocking the Promise of Social Entrepreneurship”, produced by WIPO, the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Oxford’s Saïd Business School, recognises the innovative nature of social enterprises and offers recommendations to boost their potential. The report quotes the latest research which found that there are between 10m and 11m social enterprises and 30m social entrepreneurs globally, contributing around US$2tn to global GDP. But it finds that despite being innovative by design, they are facing deep challenges especially regarding access to finance and inappropriate institutional frameworks. The report recommends taking steps to develop financing solutions tailored to social enterprises (raising investor awareness, creating incentives for private investment and increasing public funding) as well as helping them to access existing innovation support frameworks.
Figure of the Week: AUS$80m has been committed to support social entrepreneurs by the new Queensland state government, elected last week. The new Social Entrepreneurs Fund will provide AUS$20m per year in loans and grants over four years. The new government’s election commitments for social enterprise also include creating an Office of Social Impact within the Treasury and working alongside impact investors, community, faith groups, philanthropists, corporates and social enterprises to co-design a roadmap for social enterprise and impact investing in Queensland.
In case you missed it
Global: What started as a Whatsapp group is now a global network of 5,200 social innovators across 140 countries, according to Catalyst 2030’s latest impact report. The report, titled Our Collective Journey, said 64% of the network’s members are from the Global South. The Sustainable Development Goals addressed by the highest number of network members are Diversity and Inclusion (1,446), Education (1,286) and Peace, Justice and Institutions (1,019). The organisation says “radical inclusivity” and accelerating progress towards systemic change are now its key objectives.
