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Philanthropy Meets Impact Investing at SOCAP10

Rishi Malhotra August 27, 2010

This post was written by Kevin Jones, Co-Founder of SOCAP and Founder of Good Capital.
There are multiple vertical tracks at SOCAP this year including mobile, food systems, and innovative development. But one of the tracks is more like a meeting of two marketplaces. Philanthropy will show up in a major way, as capital that feels like a gift learns to work with capital that acts like an investment. To accomplish that, there needed to be a translator, someone who can make sense of both investor speak and donor speak and help them recognize the mutual benefit they have to bring to each other.
With that kind of market niche in our sights, explaing giving to investors and investing to givers, Sean Stannard-Stockton was the obvious person who came to mind.
“There is a big segment of philanthropy that believes it has to correct for the problems of the market economy, that the market economy is fundamentally flawed and philanthropy fills in those gaps. If you believe that then you hate mission being linked with a market solution. You represent the forces of justice fighting the market.”
New impact investors who come from a market perspective might not know how to talk to someone who thinks like that without their blood pressure rising. And without the philanthropist’s blood boiling over every time impact investors mention a preference for a market driven solution. That’s where having a translator curate the content comes in. “When you talk to people you do not agree with and honestly state where you are, it’s the first step toward bridging the gap,” Stockton said.
The complete tactical philanthropy track is here.

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