The open impact bond has finally arrived. What’s next?
Tel Aviv has a scoop with the world’s first ever crowdfunded social impact bond. Here’s why it matters for social innovators.
Categorie: English
Saying goodbye to 2020
Even though it’s been a demanding year in many respects, I’m gratefully looking back at 2020. Covid-19 couldn’t stop the enthusiastic impact-driven creative/social entrepreneurs and innovators that I met during my courses, masterclasses, projects, advisory work.
Like Stijn van Kreij of Butterfly Effect NL, Cristina Pojoga and colleagues at Consolid8 Crowdfunding in Romania, Joeri van de RietBuurtgids, ‘Happy Soups’ students at CityLab Haarlem, Hogeschool Inholland / Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Jeanita Berkhout, Ephrem Tesfay and all the other pioneers in the Life Long Living program, Nikolett Madai, the team of Resortecs, Alina Bassi of Kleiderly and the other semi-finalists of the European Social Innovation Competition, Frank Wolff and Josje SchonagenStichting Drop-Inn, Okrah Donkor at TripleThreat, Astrid Clemens and Helen Couwenberg, Het Stadsparadijs, and the innovative students at 3ID LABS, Arteveldehogeschool.
And all the others, colleagues, partners, clients like Peggy van Schijndel, Janneke Vervloed, Ben Kaelen, Joris van Ballegooijen, Ronald Kleverlaan, Niels Bosma and Utrecht University team, Karel Vanderpoorten, Wolfgang Spiess-Knafl, Myrna Wiggers, Didi Spieksma, Sander Limonard and my former colleagues at Kennisland. I could go on…
Thanks for all the inspiring moments! Let’s keep up the Spirit in 2021!
Workshop Challenges of Community Entrepreneurship – Social Enterprise Day 2020
On November, 19, I’ll host an online workshop on community enterprises, together with Ronald Kleverlaan (CrowdfundingHub, Utrecht University) as part of Social Enterprise Day 2020.
Community Funding at ImpactFest 2020
On the 28th and 29th of October, I will be hosting a new series of Community Funding roundabouts at ImpactFest. Celebrating its 5th anniversary, ImpactFest invites social entrepreneurs, impact investors and venture philanthropists to the biggest online impact meetup.
End of Summer update
Even though COVID-19 is still around very prominently, I am cautiously re-starting group activities and courses:
- Early next month, I’ll guide a group of local social initiatives from the greater Amsterdam area through their options for promising funding strategies.
- I’ll also give a masterclass on next level sponsoring for local NGOs and social enterprises.
- I’m starting up a new project in the southern Dutch province of Brabant, aimed at the development of some sort of standardized funding toolkit for social and community enterprises.
- And I have good hopes that I’ll be able to deliver the postponed masterclass on participatory grantmaking in October.
Meanwhile, I’ve been doing a lot of online sessions with many great social enterprises from all over Europe within the frameworks of the EaSI TA Program and the European Social Innovation Competition. It was not just great fun to do, but also deeply necessary. Even though there is an abundance of funding opportunities, getting early-stage social enterprises properly financed is still a challenge throughout Europe.
Social economy in the fight against corona. Crowdfunding is finally going online
On 15 April, I gave a brief introduction to alternative finance issues (crowdfunding, in particular) in the fight against corona, for the Social Economy Community of the European Commission.
Four key takeaways from reversed pitching by impact investors
What happens when you let eleven impact investors pitch their investment offers in front of an audience of social start-ups for a change?
Open up finance. To communities
Edited keynote for the ‘European Open Societies 2030 – Challenges and Institutional Responses’ conference, Institutions for Open Societies, Utrecht University, 16 September 2019
