Wolfgang Spiess-Knafl

Disentangling Gut Feeling: Assessing the Integrity of Social Entrepreneurs

This paper analyzes how social investors evaluate the integrity of social entrepreneurs. Based on an experiment with 40 professionals and 40 students, we investigate how five attributes of the entrepreneur contribute to the assessment of integrity. These attributes are the entrepreneurs personal experience, professional background, voluntary accountability efforts, reputation and awards/fellowships granted to the entrepreneur. We find that social investors focus largely on voluntary accountability efforts of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurs reputation when judging integrity. For an overall positive judgment of integrity, it was sufficient if either reputation or voluntary accountability efforts of the entrepreneur were high. By comparing professionals with students, we show that experience leads to a simpler decision model focusing on key attributes.

Unlocking the Mystery: An Introduction to Social Investment

Traditional sources of funding, such as charitable donations, foundation grants, and government subsidies, are not keeping pace with the innovations social entrepreneurs are creating to address the world’s most intractable problems. As social enterprises have gained scale and credibility, new funding sources have emerged that aim to provide both financial and social returns to the investor. Social investment or impact investment, as this form of financing is often called, provides an important complement to grants and government subsidies. Social investors typically invest in organizations that have a strong mission of social change and generate an income but are not yet considered commercially attractive. Paradoxically, while successful social entrepreneurs with proven track records face a chronic lack of capital, social investors say the opportunities to invest are limited. However, it is more than a simple market inefficiency that must be solved. When social investors and social enterprises do not transact, it is often because the skills and expertise needed to achieve a particular objective are not understood. The best of intentions on both sides cannot prevent such deals from failing.

Finanzierung von Social Enterprises – Neue Herausforderungen für die Finanzmärkte

Sozialunternehmen [ebenso wie social enterprises im Sinne von social entrepreneurship organization im Folgenden uberwiegend mit SEO bezeichnet] stellen im Gegensatz zu profitorientierten Unternehmen die Verfolgung eines sozialen Ziels in den Vordergrund ihres unternehmerischen Handelns. Dies hat weitreichende Auswirkungen auf die Moglichkeiten ihrer Finanzierung.

Sozialunternehmen und ihre Kapitalgeber

Sozialunternehmen werden in der wissenschaftlichen Debatte unterschiedliche Rollen zugeschrieben. Wahrend die „Social Innovation School“ den Fokus auf die Innovationskraft eines Sozialunternehmens legt, spielt bei der „Social Enterprise School“ der Grad der Einkommensgenerierung eine wesentliche Rolle (Dees & Anderson, 2006). Es scheint eine Ubereinstimmung dahingehend zu geben, dass Sozialunternehmen die Bereitstellung offentlicher Guter bzw.

Financing Instruments and Transactions

This chapter discusses the financing instruments and transactions in the space for impact investments. This chapter will discuss the various financing instruments available to fund social sector organizations. Equity capital and debt capital are well-known examples. However, in this field there are also transactions based on mezzanine capital, recoverable grants, forgivable loans, convertible grants, revenue share agreements or grants.

Historical Development and Investment Rationale

This chapter covers the phenomenon of impact investing. It will introduce the topic and discuss the rationales of investors to allocate part of their resources to impact investing. Those rationales vary for the different groups of investors who are contributing to the capital in the impact investing market.

The Impact Investing Market

This chapter covers the market for impact investing which is made up of various actors: networks, social investment advisors, social venture capital funds, ethical banks, social stock exchanges and crowdfunding platforms. Each actor will be described and its role analyzed.

Assessment Tools and Methodologies

The chapter on assessment tools and methodologies offers support for choosing an adequate evaluation method. Furthermore, a summary of the most widely used social impact assessment methods is given as well as an introduction into data-collection methods and indicators. The chapter concludes with an outlook on emerging approaches in terms of efficient data collection and the use of mobile technology in impact assessment.

Social Impact Assessment

Social impact assessment is an inherent part of impact investing, the intentional social change an investment is seeking being a prerequisite for every transaction. The chapter thus introduces the concept of social impact by illustrating the most important terms. Furthermore, the purposes as well as advantages when aiming for determining social impact are being discussed.