Eventually I’ll post these talk announcements before the fact! The announcement for the panel discussion is below. Click on the “more” link for my notes on the discussion and speaker bios…
HARNESSING COMMUNITIES & MARKETS – NEW WAVE SOCIAL ICT IMPACT.
Please join us for a panel discussion on
‘Harnessing Communities & Markets- The New Wave of Social ICT.’
Jessica Flannery, co-founder of Kiva.org, Darian Rodriguez Heyman,
Executive Director of the Craisglist Foundation and Gerard Speksnijder
from McKinsey’s Technology office in Silicon Valley will discuss the
possibilities and limits of market-based models to alleviate poverty and
create social equity.
Date: Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Time: 12:30 to 2 pm
Place: School of Information, 101 South Hall
This talk is part of the iSchool seminar on ‘Social Entrepreneurship in
ICTD’ taught by Paul Braund and Anke Schwittay from the RiOS Institute.
Kiva.org
How it works:
Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) identify entrepreneurs and publicize them through Kiva’s website. Anyone can then loan a small (or large) amount to a particular entrepreneur, and groups can collectively fund these individuals.
Why this works:
What makes people come? It’s sustainable – the money come back. There are a lot of lenders – young tech-savvy individuals that want to participate, but might not be able to actually go. There’s an easy MFI user interface, and it actually costs less to raise money through Kiva.
One personal note I’ll make is that I started investing in Kiva projects in April 2006, making two loans of $25 each. It took about a year for them to be paid back and umm.. I just reloaned that money out during the talk, one to a retail shop owner in Kabul, and another that was just sufficient to finish covering the loan. They’ve changed a lot since my first loan – they have more information now on their MFI partners, and the entrepreneurs are easier to search through. I didn’t get a lot of feedback from my entrepreneurs – mostly notices that payments were being made on time, but it’s still nice to have a face and a story to loan to, instead of just an organization.
McKinsey
41% of transationcs are on interactiosns. Looking at the impact of ICT – in manufacturing it is limited, but in transactions there’s a larger role. If you are able leverage IT in interaction, you can increase productivity by 6x. Distributed co-creation is beneficial – for those that can harness it (e.g. Wikipedia, Lego).
How are these trends affecting how companies do business, and where is the greatest impact of these trend. Looking at the overall impact across industries, you can examine the size of particular sectors (with respect to GDP) and determine how much value will be at stake if these trends aren’t addressed.
Craigslist Foundation (+Bootcamp)
Happy Craigslist Day! Craigslist is still running out of a house, with 26 employees. What is a social entrepreneur? A for-profit or non-profit organization with an objective beyond making money and instead centered on providing a social good. The triple bottom line of the company of the future looks at money, social and environmental bottom lines, not just the financial bottom line.
Apparently 38% of Haas students chose Berkeley because of our focus on corporate social responsibility.
About Craigslist Foundation: Hosting events, and providing web-based resources. So CF is currently working on a craigslist for foundations. They don’t give away money. They are a publicly funded 501c, and deliberately chose to not give away money but to maintain an idea of not “playing favorites” and instead focusing on projects that are of general benefit to organizations rather than on particular organizations.
Plug for Echoing Green, who just published a (free?) book on what makes a successful social entrepreneur: Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.
Peter Drucker on non-profits: Non-profits have a bottom line as well. The difference between a for-profit and non-profit is that for a non-profit the bottom line changes a lot. At the end of a day the for-profit is judged based on whether they made a profit, whereas a non-profit is judged on whether they changed lives.
Hybrid foundations: new foundations (e.g. Omidyar Network, Google Fdn) that may choose to invest in either for-profits or non-profits, and look for a social return, but they have a particular goal/objective. As an interesting new model, ON was given money for which the community collectively decides where it goes…
Engaged philanthropy: e.g. Full Circle Fund, which gives money (grants) and also service grants, like building websites, consulting services, etc.
Facilitate a sense of movement with capital. Rise of the concept of the encore career, where people are championing this idea of continuing to be engaged in retirement, as a volunteer or as a career. It’s importan that these people are thery because they have experience, not just to “lick envelopes”.
More websites: kiva.org, prosper.com, changing the present, poverty’s demise (connecting individuals), change.org, paul hawkin – wiserearth.org, idealist.org, craigslist foundation – a website that serves as a conduit and not a destination, in jan 2008.
Questions
Q: How does the change in the bottom line change things?
Darian: Eventurally the bottom will be integrated into the company identity and will not be in conflict with the financial bottom line
Jessica: It’s a false dichotomy…
Gerard:… i couldn’t hear him over the lawnmower…
Q: On Microfinance: kiva is paving the way for corporations. Will it eventually be cheaper and easier for MFIs to take low-cost loans from Morgan Stanley, etc.
Jessica: A lot of the cost is startup – learning the system, etc. And it is currently about 2%. So it is extremely cheap. And if things changed such that we were not needed, that would be great. We know what our work is about – we know what is happening out there and just trying to do the best we can do with what we know in our niche.
Darian: This is not a saturated market. Competition only serves to legitimize the market. And the height of a success of a non-profit is the elimination of the need for the work they do.
Jessica: Profit vs. Non-profit is basically a tax structure – it doesn’t define who we are or what we do.
Q: Peer-to-peer lending (e.g. prosper.com, and zopa). How is kiva different?
Jessica: Prosper and Zopa are a platform for borrowers and lenders to talk to each other. And ideally kiva would being the borrower and lender as close as possible to each other. Incidentally – these platforms are problematic and targeted by people with bad finance practices (paraphrase, not quoted). With kiva the MFI absorb some of the problems with risk, etc.
About Jessica Flannery
Jessica Jackley Flannery is a co-founder of Kiva.org with her husband
Matt, and the spirit behind the organization. Jessica first saw the
power and beauty of micro finance while working in rural Kenya,
Tanzania, and Uganda with Village Enterprise Fund and Project Baobab on
impact evaluation and program development. Jessica has worked in a
variety of organizations in the public, nonprofit, and private sector,
and serves on numerous boards in the Bay Area. Jessica has spoken widely
on microfinance and social entrepreneurship, and has shared the vision
for Kiva.org in more than 30 countries worldwide. Jessica holds an MBA
from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in Philosophy and
Political Science from Bucknell University.
About Darian Rodriguez Heyman
Darian Rodriguez Heyman’s mission in life is maximizing his sphere of
positive influence. To this end, he strives to contribute towards
significant and sustainable social progress on many fronts. In his role
as Executive Director of Craigslist Foundation, he supports not only one
nonprofit sector or interest area, but rather he leverages the power of
the craigslist brand to create a high tide that is raising all boats and
creating a true movement.
About Gerard Speksnijder
Gerard Speksnijder is an Associate Principal in McKinsey & Company’s
Business Technology Office in Palo Alto, California. He has 10+ years
of consulting and management experience. During his career he developed
expertise in the areas of IT transformation (combining business
strategy, IT competence with change management skills), offshoring &
outsourcing, IT architecture and post merger management within a wide
variety of sectors: high tech, financial services, consumer packaged
goods, transport and logistics, energy and government sectors.
Gerard holds an M.S. in Applied Physics from the Delft University of
Technology, the Netherlands, with majors in transport phenomena,
software engineering, data communications structures and algorithms and
computer architecture.
