“If (SOCAP’s) objective is to change the world, as opposed to the United States, how do we get more inclusivity and participation from people around the world to ensure that we are co-creating solutions?”
-Audience member at the final panel of SOCAP16
The Closing Panelists of SOCAP16 Looked to the Future
Conference producers are always considering questions like the one above posed by an audience member at the final panel of SOCAP16. We often look to you for your thoughts on how SOCAP can do more to facilitate change and serve our community better. During the closing panel of SOCAP16, moderator Penelope Douglas asked panelists and community members to look to the future and suggest “big questions” they would like for conference organizers to ponder in planning SOCAP17, which will be our 10th annual convening.
It has become a tradition that the closing SOCAP conference panel is selected on the last day. SOCAP Producer and Curator Lindsay Smalling explained in her introduction to the final panel of SOCAP16 that she and others asked “bright spots, great minds, interesting folks” who stood out as conversation leaders throughout the week to join for an impromptu discussion moderated by (long time friend of SOCAP and former Mission Hub Chair) Penelope Douglas.
Big Questions for SOCAP17
Here are a few of the great questions suggested by the selected closing panel speakers and members of the SOCAP community who were in the audience.
Amanda Joy Ravenhill, Center for Carbon Removal (currently the Executive Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute)
“How can we move from this extractive economy to a truly generous economy that is inspired by nature, mutualism, reciprocity, and regeneration?”
David Bank, Editor of ImpactAlpha
“There is a quote…First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win. I think this movement that we are all part of, we are definitely past ‘ignore you’ and I think we might even be past ‘laugh at you’, so I think we are somewhere between fighting and winning.
The question is, what does it look like to win? What happens when…the economy, the culture, the society we are living in actually values inclusivity, values nature, values humanity? What does it look like to win?”
Mandela Schumacher-Hodge, Portfolio Services Director, Kapor Capital
“My frustration is that in conferences and spaces like this, when you look around the room there is a decent amount of diversity, we could improve on it, but so often when we leave these spaces and we go back into our communities and our homes and our churches…it doesn’t look like this. People aren’t invited to brunches, people aren’t invited to babyshowers…etc.
My question is, how can SOCAP actually inspire you to go out into your respective communities and ensure that the sentiments you are talking about here actually bleed into your actions in who you are talking to, who you are working with, who you are uplifting and empowering in your workplaces?”
Konda Mason, Co-Founder and CEO of Impact Hub Oakland
“My (question) is, can we take (it) as an assumption that equity is the best growth strategy? And can we put that out there to everyone who comes (to SOCAP17) that that is the burning question…How does that look: equity as the best growth strategy?”
Audience Suggestions
- SOCAP, ask yourself very hard, and ask us to tell you, who is not here who needs to be here next year to answer (Konda Mason’s) question about equity?
- Deborah Cullinan, CEO of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, suggests that change begins with culture. If she is right, how do we move out of networking and sessions to creativity? What would SOCAP create? (Watch Deborah Cullinan discuss the critical need to shift culture in the SOCAP16 session Shifting Culture Toward Equity)
- How do we move beyond the myth that incremental change is what’s going to change a very broken system?
- We talk a lot at SOCAP about how to measure impact and deliver more impact into the community. How can we better measure and deliver the experience of impact back into the investor community to bring more people into it?
What Are Your Big Questions? Tell us!
We want to hear from you too. What would you bring to SOCAP17? Here are few ways to contact us and get involved:
- Follow Social Capital Markets on Facebook or @SOCAPmarkets on Twitter to engage with us through our social media channels and with our online community.
- Submit your own your content ideas through our SOCAP Open platform when it goes live this spring. Sign up for our newsletter to learn the latest news on SOCAP17 Open dates.
- Register for SOCAP17 now to join our 10th gathering of our community of impact investors, entrepreneurs, foundation leaders, and others who are building the market the intersection of money and meaning. Join us at SOCAP17.
The world is changing, and October 10-13, 2017 the SOCAP community will come together for critical, challenging, action-inspiring conversations. Don’t miss your opportunity to shape those conversations now and to join them in October.
