Social Capital Markets Conference

Event Social Capital Markets Conference
Date 13-15 October
Venue San Francisco, USA

The first Social Capital Markets Conference brought together more than 600 social entrepreneurs, non-profit leaders, social investors and foundation executives from several countries in San Francisco in mid-October. Enthusiasm for new ways to think about businesses with a social purpose, revenue-sustaining non-profits, and other hybrid approaches to markets and public benefit formed the big tent under which the oversold crowd gathered. Despite the recent economic upheaval, those in attendance at the conference seemed convinced that investments aimed at both social and financial benefit are still solid bets.

At the core of the conference were discussions about what an overall market of these opportunities would and should look like. Sessions ranged from business planning for social enterprise to new ways of measuring social impact to market-rate venture capital firms that invest in environmental solutions or health and wellness providers. Technology also plays a key role in these emerging markets and enterprises. Web companies such as socialmarkets.org and missionmarkets.com demonstrated their user-generated ROI (return on investment) tools. Experts in mission investing spoke to the various needs for metrics and intermediaries to expand that market, and B Corporations (a new type of corporation that uses the power of business to create public benefit) shared their progress in registering individual enterprises as well as their broader policy change aspirations.

There was a great deal of deal-making and the conference revealed its youthful countenance by being live-blogged across more than two dozen sites and covered on twitter, facebook, linkedin and fora.tv. Planning for a 2009 conference is already under way, but no one need wait a year to carry on the discussions as they continue on facebook, linkedin, googlegroups and Ning. Simply search for SoCap08 to find these ongoing conversations.

For more information
http://socialcapitalmarkets.net

Lucy Bernholz is President and Founder of Blueprint Research & Design. Email lucy@blueprintrd.com