Unlocking the power of impact investing in Asia and the Pacific
At Synergy we have long recognized that there is much more potential for social entrepreneurs to contribute to impact and development in the Asia Pacific region than is being tapped into. This realization, in fact, was the inspiration behind the founding of Synergy Social Ventures and our mission to help to unleash this potential. In the past year we have seen increasing dialogue on this topic in the social sector including among organizations such as the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. UNESCAP recently released a new publication titled From corporate responsibility to ...
GSVC South East Asia & Social Enterprise Symposium 2012
[caption id="attachment_1192" align="alignright" width="350"] Dr. Ed Rubesch & GSVC participants during a mentoring session[/caption] This March I was excited to be invited back as a judge to the South East Asian round of the Global Social Venture Competition. The competition is held annually in Bangkok and organized by Thammasat University, whose MBA program is a leader in the region in incorporating sustainability and social entrepreneurship into its curriculum. ...
Financing Social Returns in Southeast Asia: Synergy Social Ventures
[Re-posted from SocialFinance.ca. See the original post from 15 February 2012 here.] Part 1 of this blog post highlighted some difficulties faced by social entrepreneurs in Asia; Part 2 profiles Synergy Social Ventures, which supports social enterprise, and ties in lessons for the broader world of social finance. Synergy Social Ventures is a not-for-profit organization that was created in response to the challenges we saw preventing social enterprises from accelerating in Southeast Asia and China. In our work with entrepreneurs throughout the region, we identified a number of commonalities. Firstly, the vast majority of ventures are in ...
Financing Social Returns in Southeast Asia: Barriers
[Re-posted from SocialFinance.ca. See the original post from 14 February 2012 here.] The concepts of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship are newer to Southeast Asia and China than to other parts of the world. If someone was asked to name the most successful social enterprises globally, it is unlikely that an individual or organization from Southeast Asia or China would be the first to come to mind. But a closer look at the region reveals many entrepreneurial individuals and teams creating impact in innovative ways and striving to develop business models that will financially sustain and ...
