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Thursday, Apr. 4, 2013
SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 4, 2013 —When pressing social problems and innovative entrepreneurs collide, dramatic change in the humanitarian landscape is possible. That’s exactly what is happening at Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society (CSTS), which today announces the latest group of 15 social enterprises chosen to receive training through its signature Global Social Benefit Incubator or GSBI™.
The newly named GSBI Accelerator program has been revamped to focus on investment-ready social enterprises that have the potential to vastly increase their impact on the lives of the poor—as CSTS strives to improve the lives of 1 billion by 2020. This year’s cohort of 14 was selected through a competitive process that began last November.
"As the GSBI enters its eleventh year, we have intensified our focus on helping successful social enterprises scale,” said Thane Kreiner, Ph.D., executive director of the CSTS. “The 2013 GSBI Accelerator will develop, train, and guide investment-ready social enterprises to rapidly expand their reach."
"As a long-time GSBI mentor, I have worked with hundreds of social enterprises over the last decade. This is unequivocally the most accomplished cohort I have ever seen,” said Paul Meissner, Ph.D., senior director of the GSBI. “Their momentum reflects how quickly social entrepreneurship is expanding, and how many millions of lives can be impacted by their work."
Leaders from 14 enterprises have been selected to take part in the eight-month GSBI Accelerator program, beginning in April and ending in December 2013. Participants will receive mentoring from top-level Silicon Valley executive experts, highly specialized instruction, and intense on-campus education. For the first time this year, the social enterprises are being directly monitored by an elite group of interested funders, the GSBI Impact Investing Partners. While not necessarily committing to funding the ventures, the partners will help participants evaluate their organizations from a funding perspective.
The in-residence portion of the program will take place August 15–23 at Santa Clara University, culminating in a networking event with the impact investors. The GSBI Impact Investing Partners include: Accion, Acumen Fund, Bamboo Finance, Beyond Capital Fund, The Eleos Foundation, Emcor Securities, Grassroots Business Fund, Halloran Philanthropies, Hub Ventures, Invested Development, Khosla Impact Fund, KL Felicitas, Skoll Foundation, Toniic, and Village Capital.
This year’s GSBI class members are building businesses including “biodigester systems” that help small farmers treat animal waste and convert it into powerful organic fertilizer and methane-rich biogas for cooking and heating; “100-percent biomass waste gasification” to generate electricity and distribute power to rural households; water pumps that run on solar power; two-way, on-demand mobile platforms that teach reading and writing skills to poor families; low-cost, pre-paid electricity meters that enable the extension of renewable energy to global communities living off-the-grid, and many more.
In addition to launching this year’s GSBI Accelerator, the CSTS joined with longtime GSBI sponsor Applied Materials last year to make a Clinton Global Initiative commitment to support 18 clean energy social enterprises over the next three years. Including this year’s GSBI Accelerator class and the related online program, GSBI Online, the partners have already reached 15 clean energy enterprises.
For more details about the program and the 2013 GSBI class, visit the Center for Science, Technology, and Society’s website at www.scu.edu/socialbenefit/.
About the GSBI
The GSBI is the signature program of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University. The mission of the Center is to accelerate global, innovation-based entrepreneurship in service to humanity. The GSBI empowers socially-minded entrepreneurs to build sustainable, scalable organizations and solve problems for people living in poverty around the world. For over a decade, the GSBI has helped mission-driven enterprises build, sustain, and increase the reach and impact of their businesses. The GSBI is currently funded in part by a grant from the Skoll Foundation, corporate gifts from Applied Materials, and generous support from individual donors.
About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
Media Contacts:
Beverly Nuako | Marketing Manager | 408-551-6048 | bnuako@scu.edu
Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Relations | 408-554-5121 | dlohse@scu.edu
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Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 1, 2012— Applications are now open for Santa Clara University’s Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™), an 11-year-old program that helps social entrepreneurs create greater impact in their poverty-alleviating missions.
This year, the program has been renamed GSBI Silicon Valley and revamped to focus on later-stage, investment-ready organizations with potential to reach significant scale. Up to 15 accepted enterprises will receive eight months of mentoring from Silicon Valley veterans, 10 days of intensive, on-campus education, and — for the first time this year — will be paired with at least one interested funding partner.
GSBI Silicon Valley 2013 is seeking applications from proven social enterprises — those that have been able to reach large numbers of beneficiaries. Those selected will utilize their eight months in GSBI to develop skills and martial resources to achieve operational excellence and attract financing that enables rapid, effective expansion of impact. Qualifying criteria for applicants can be found on the GSBI website.
GSBI Silicon Valley 2013 applications must be completed fully by Jan. 11, 2013. Ten to 15 successful applicants will be awarded scholarships valued at $25,000 each; the in-residence portion at Santa Clara University is scheduled for Aug. 15 to 23, 2013.
The intensified focus reflects the GSBI’s goal of positively impacting one billion people living in poverty by 2020. The program’s new curriculum focuses on achieving significant scale, so alumni of GSBI are also encouraged to apply.
“Last year, we launched GSBI Online in collaboration with the World Bank Development Marketplace to provide earlier-stage social enterprises the core training we’ve always provided through GSBI — establishing a business model, identifying a target market, and crafting distribution plans,” said Eric Carlson, Ph.D., director of the GSBI. “Now, to maximize the impact of our intensive GSBI mentoring and structured curriculum, we’re focusing on social enterprises with the greatest potential to lift vast numbers of people from poverty, and attract impact investors in the process.”
Connecting Impact Investors to Build Stronger Enterprises
Each participating enterprise in the 2013 cohort will be matched with one of the GSBI’s Impact Investment Partners. GSBI’s impact investor partners include Accion, Acumen Fund, Beyond Capital Fund,The Eleos Foundation, Invested Development, and Hub Ventures, among others.
“Impact investors seek a more investment-ready pipeline of social enterprises,” said John Kohler, director of impact capital at the Center. “GSBI Silicon Valley will help social enterprises prepare for and find capital to support scaling of their enterprises.”
GSBI Silicon Valley 2013
Over the past 10 years, the GSBI has built an impressive network ofalumni, mentors, and other resources, all of which will be available to GSBI Silicon Valley 2013 participants. As in past years, the program will comprise four processes, which will be more advanced and customized: Application, pre-work, in-residence, and implementation.
“GSBI has traditionally and successfully focused on fundamental business-model development,” said GSBI Program Manager Cassandra Thomassin. “GSBI Silicon Valley intensifies the focus on operational excellence to attract investments that expand already-proven business models.”
Applicants must provide a recorded elevator pitch; a business plan; a one-year operating plan; and financial statements. Applicants will be evaluated based on a scoring matrix that includes: strength of mission, financial sustainability, potential for scale, potential for social impact, management capacity, and business model efficacy.
Social enterprises focused on off-grid clean energy, health, and mobile applications for any sector are especially encouraged to apply.
Top applicants will be interviewed in March 2013 and participants announced by early April. Each social enterprise will then be partnered online with two or three GSBI mentors to complete tailored pre-work exercises.
About the GSBI
The GSBI is the signature program of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University. The mission of the Center is to accelerate global, innovation-based entrepreneurship in service to humanity. For a decade, the GSBI has helped mission-driven enterprises build, sustain, and increase the reach and impact of their businesses. Collectively, alumni of the program have provided essential products and services to an estimated 74 million underserved people worldwide. More than 90 percent of the organizations are still operating. It is currently funded in part by a grant from the Skoll Foundation, corporate gifts from Applied Materials, and individual donors. For more information, visitwww.scu.edu/socialbenefit.
About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
Media Contacts
Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Relations | dlohse@scu.edu | 408-554-5121
Erin Berkenmeier | GSBI Marketing Manager | eberkenmeier@scu.edu | 408-551-6048
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Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012
Team of SCU Students and Silicon Valley industry veterans among five winners of the Argidius-ANDE Finance Challenge
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 17, 2012 – A team of Silicon Valley industry veterans and students at Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society (CSTS) has been selected to design and implement a new investment tool with the potential to aid thousands of small and growing businesses in emerging economies.
This two-year project is one of five winners of the Argidius-ANDE Finance Challenge, a highly competitive international competition administered by the Aspen Institute Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE). The Santa Clara team will receive a €200,000 grant to support the design, analysis, and field-testing of the new investment vehicle.
The Problem: Angels but not Investors
Financing for small and growing businesses in developing economies is constrained by the low level of return from investments already made to date. Most “impact investors” have seen their investment holding period lengthen from 3-5 years to 7-10 years. Without more understanding and confidence in the ability of social enterprises to provide return, equity investors are hesitant or unable to commit new funds.
Achieving reliable and repeated returns would make not only existing dollars available to new investments, but it would also improve investor confidence to commit new capital to what are now seen as difficult or ‘frontier’ markets. So far, debt and equity mechanisms have failed to offset the risks inherent in developing markets with enough reward to encourage new investors.
For small enterprises promising moderate (7% - 14%) returns from moderate ($25K - $250K) investment amounts, a new solution is needed. CSTS believes a risk-capital investment vehicle that is a hybrid between low-return debt and high-return equity is needed – and could encourage significant funding currently sitting on the sidelines to jump into emerging markets.
The Solution: Demand-Dividend Investment Vehicle
Responding to interest in a new model, CSTS Impact Capitalprogram director John Kohler has begun work on a financing concept. The Demand-Dividend project work will include final financing model design, a regression analysis on existing enterprises, and the creation of flexible term sheets. The Argidius grant will fund the field-oriented phase - preparing to test the new financing model with between four and six enterprises beginning in early 2013. Planning and initial diligence visits will occur in the autumn of this year.
CSTS is uniquely positioned to receive this grant. They launched a dedicated Impact Capital initiative in 2010 with the aim of preparing social enterprises to move beyond philanthropic grants to attract private investment capital. Early work culminated with the release of a white paper, Coordinating Impact Capital in the summer of 2011.
John Kohler recently presented on the Demand Dividend concept at SOCAP12 in San Francisco on October 3, 2012. Visit John's SOCAP12profile for more information.
Taking the VC out of the Valley
Successful demonstration of a Demand Dividend investment vehicle will create ‘economic pull’ by delivering what impact investors do not readily achieve today: moderate to high return with a more-rapid capital cycle.
CSTS has received expressions of interest from 11 impact funding sources and, with demonstrated success, will encourage these funds, as well as its many fund contacts through ANDE, Toniic, Oxfam and its Silicon Valley network, to use the Demand Dividend. The Center also will be co-leading an examination on alternative investment being conducted at the University of Michigan Law School, which will be instructive to the Argidius-ANDE Finance Challenge results.
About the Center for Science, Technology, and Society
The mission of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society is to accelerate global, innovation-based entrepreneurship in service to humanity. Through an array of programs including its signature Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™), the Center engages an international network of business, investment capital, and technical resources to build the capacity of social enterprises around the world. As a Center of Distinction at Santa Clara University, the Center leverages its programs to inspire faculty and students with real-world case studies, distinctive curricula, and unique research opportunities, advancing the University's vision of creating a more just, humane, and sustainable world. More information atwww.scu.edu/socialbenefit
Media Contacts
Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Relations | dlohse@scu.edu | 408-554-5121
Erin Berkenmeier | CSTS | eberkenmeier@scu.edu | 408-551-6048
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