Today brings a close to the SOCAP10 Impact Challenge, a competition launched in July that will award one individual with a complementary pass to the upcoming SOCAP conference in October. Designed by SOCAP, Triple Pundit and Myoo Create, the competition encouraged 500-word posts that “explore what’s next in social enterprise.”
The competition specifically requested submissions to address the recent “Money for Good” report (PDF) released by Hope Consulting this summer. That report has several fascinating conclusions including one that identified a potential $120 billion market of individual investors interested in impact investments. A total of 51 posts were submitted by the September 7 deadline offering a range of ideas and opportunities.
The competition uses a voting system to identify the top ten entries that will be considered for the prize. That voting window ends tonight at midnight Pacific Daylight Time. There has been some change on the leader board since Charlie O’Malley of Mybo Create posted on the competition in late August.
Going into the final day of voting competition, the top five vote-getters encompass a range of interesting ideas:
- Daniel Kreps writes about the need to address the “insufficient supply of the human capital required to identify and manage individual investment needs in low income communities;”
- Kyle Westaway writes about directing individual investments into social enterprises by growing the size of the Social Innovation Fund and engaging L3C organizations to absorb some of the higher risks involved in social enterprises;
- Tevis Howard offers five guidelines for attracting and leveraging the resources of individuals investors in order to maximize impact;
- Esther Pearl notes that there are 45 million American who do not use traditional banks; many of them lack financial literacy skills. As such, she proposes that the social impact investing community address to this need in order to increase banking and impact investments; and
- Colleague Geri Stengel writes the importance os using subtle, well-aimed marketing to educate individuals in order to change their investment behaviors.
Even if you don’t plan to vote, I encourage reading the ideas.
The competition sponsors will evaluate the top ten vote recipients and select five submissions that will be featured by Triple Pundit. They will also select the winner of the overall competition and announce that decision on September 21.
Unfortunately, only one proposal will end up winning. So, in true SOCAP fashion, shouldn’t we be looking at setting up a secondary market to support the top five ideas so they can all attend the conference?
Disclaimer: This post is part of a series of posts on the SOCAP10 conference. As part of the blogging coverage for the conference, I was able to register to attend at a discounted rate. A version of this post appears on the SOCAP10 blog.
Tags: SOCAP10, Impact Challenge, Money for Good
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