socially marketing

We made many friends at SoCap (see previous post) but the most significant are those who are partnering with us under the Mission Markets banner.

We actually started talking to the Mission Markets guys in the weeks leading up to SoCap.  We clicked with them instantly both personally and professionally, and have been working closely ever since.

From a business perspective, Mission Markets is the perfect complement to socialmarkets.  We are both working towards generating maximal social impact, just from opposite sides of the for- and non-profit fence.

The mission of Mission Markets (website here) is ambitious on several levels.  First, they want to create the preeminent marketplace for the large and growing social investment sector.  In other words, they want to be the place where social entrepreneurs (e.g. solar energy, microfinanciers, …) and social investors (e.g. SRI funds, foundations, …) come to find each other.

At least as significantly, they want to help create the ecosystem that will support that market.  Today’s stock markets could not function without the supporting players within their own ecosystems - including ratings agencies like Moody’s, regulatory bodies like the SEC, and information providers like Bloomberg.

Along those lines, Mission Markets has brought together these organizations, which are impressive enough individually - but collectively, they can be the foundation for a thriving social marketplace:

• Ethical Markets: http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/
• B-Corp: http://www.bcorporation.net/
• 10 percent solution: http://www.10percentsolution.com/
• Mission Markets: https://www.missionmarkets.com/
• socialmarkets: (’nuf said

We are excited about both the journey to the new social capital marketplace, and the new partners along for the ride… more on this adventure as it unfolds!

Well, both Interesting NY and SoCap08 are behind us now, and I am happy to report that both conferences were phenomenal successes - in general, and especially for socialmarkets!

The Interesting NY conference definitely lived up to its name.  The topics were all over the place, and the speakers had all kinds of backgrounds, but the end product was a full day of genuinely interesting presentations.  Since this was a general audience, our presentation was socialmarkets 101 - including a primer defining the “social capital markets”.

This was not necessary at the later conference with that exact name: “Social Capital Markets - 2008″.  Naturally, this crowd was already up the social capital learning curve, so we were able to get much deeper into the belly of the socialmarkets beast.

We had the luxury of a full hour of conference time to ourselves, and made the most of it.  The SoCap peeps were pushing hard to make this conference an interactive experience instead of just a lecture, so we left plenty of time for audience participation.

Here’s a pic of me speaking at SoCap… Allan is behind the camera:

Me addressing my fellow social capitalists

We spent about half the time explaining the whys, whats and hows of socialmarkets, and then opened up the floor for Q&A.  I was actually a little nervous about this part, since you never know if people are going to be interested enough to join the conversation (especially since we were the last talk before the lunch break…)

Turns out there was nothing to worry about.  The Q&A turned into an energetic discussion of social markets and the metrics which drive it (e.g. SROI) and for most of the time we did little more than referee!

That conversation spilled over into lunch, dinner, the rest of the conference, and in fact are still going on now - over one week and 3,000 miles later.  We learned a lot in these discussions, and perhaps even more importantly, made a lot of critical contacts with others in the social capital space.

I’ll save the details on the long-term impacts of SoCap08 for another post.  For now, I’ll just say that socialmarkets made not just new friends, but new strategic partners there.  I think these relationships will help see not just our venture succeed, but also the complementary ventures that will form the ecosystem to support the entire social capital marketplace.

Among the many social networks that have sprung up on the web, xigi.net is one of our faves.  Xigi’s target audience is social capitalists, and its mission is to strengthen the connections (especially investments) between the capital market and social service sectors… or as xigi puts it:  “to increase the flow of capital to good.”

Xigi is taking its mission to the next level by coordinating the first-ever Social Capital Markets Conference (SoCap08) in San Francisco later this year.  SoCap08 explains itself like this:

“‘Doing well by doing good’ is becoming the mantra of a new generation of social entrepreneurs and investors. (SoCap08) will bring together these catalytic changemakers - the entrepreneurs who want to change the world and the capital that wants to make it happen.”

I’m excited about this conference, for many reasons.  For starters, it will be great to talk face-to-face with others working in social capital, both to see what they’re up to and to spread the socialmarkets gospel.

On a deeper level, I’m excited about what this conference means for the social capital market space as a whole.  It’s further confirmation of the momentum behind new models of both capitalism and philanthropy - and for what is possible at their intersection.

The idea of directing even a marginally larger slice of the market’s vast resources into the social sector is a mighty powerful one.   I’d love to not just see it happen - I’d love to help make it happen.

I have no doubt ‘08 is just the beginning of a long run of SoCaps.  We will be there to see for ourselves, and it would be great to see you there if you will too.  If not, you can at least follow the action from the SoCap08 site or any of its live (and semi-live) coverage - perhaps even from right here at the socialmarkets blog!