Far out.
That was the broader theme at the third annual Social Capital Markets (SOCAP10) congregation that took place October 4-6 at Fort Mason in San Francisco. The conference, part trade show, part summit, has been called the Woodstock for social entrepreneurs. Far out isn't always a good thing, though. Sometimes it just means far (as in far off) and out (as in out of reach).
It also reverberated as a call to action to technology and investment infrastructures that heretofore have glossed over the practice of impact investing. It's no wonder that sector has been avoided. A common question surrounding social impact investing is, "What's the bottom line?" At SOCAP10, the bottom line represented a surface we've only just begun to scratch. Perhaps because to an investor, it looks more like the starting line, with scrappy and thrilling social entrepreneurs positioned behind it with eyes forward and running shoes tightly laced.
Said Mission Markets CEO Mike Van Patten during a panel discussion called "Mapping the Space":
“Given that social and environmental capital markets are still in their infancy, there is a lack of supportive investment infrastructure available to scale these markets."
Attendees from 40 countries attended this year's conference, and keynotes came courtesy of Matt Flannery, co-founder of Kiva, Julie Sunderland of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Slow Money's Woody Tasch, among others.
The pervading sense over the course of the three days was that this ever-evolving and churning sector - which spans the for-profit and non-profit worlds - is still very much a work in progress.
During group Q&A sessions, tremendous poignance and insight was gleaned from the questions as well as from the answers (sometimes more so, in fact). What was apparent after a while was not that there are so many social entrepreneurs with wisdom to bestow and ideas to actualize (and there are), but rather that the community of them is just that - a community. Attendees are more than unique innovators with unique visions - they're peers, potential collaborators, focus groups.
(Read: Listen, and talk, to each other.)
"The exchange between myself and my fellow panelists both before and after the event was positive and engaged, and provided a high level of knowledge sharing," said journalist and futurist and Resilient People cofounder Sanjay Khanna, who spoke on a panel called "Exploring the Future: Innovation in 21st Century International Development."
Ideas of all shapes and sizes dangled like ornaments from panel discussions and impromptu meetings over the three-day event, but what remains missing is a framework on which to hang them. At a time when the rules of business are being re-written, businesses (both non-profits and for-profits) across the board are creating new models for doing well by doing good. The role of innovation and entrepreneurship in the social change realm is needed now more than ever, but how do the myriad voices and ideas get heard and seen? How do the partnerships and collaborations form a dialogue, a concert of thoughts and actions? That's the hard part, and we're open to suggestions.
Ashoka Changemakers believes in an everyone a changemaker world. But that's a concept in search of solutions. SOCAP10 presented many solutions in search of unified spaces. When asked about those three Aquarian days in 1969, Max Yasgur, whose farm hosted the festival, said that by forming that space, "We can turn adversities that are the problems...into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future..."
Woodstock was bankrolled by investors and served as a platform for social gamechangers. So was SOCAP10. How will those connections be made? We're inviting all attendees, and all social entrepreneurs who weren't in San Francisco during it, to reach out to us and discuss their passions, their frustrations, their ideas, in a free-form panel that should extend beyond the walls and format of a conference. Write us a comment below, tweet, connect. Because that would really and truly be Far. Out.
Photos courtesy Jayson Carpenter, SOCAP10
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