06.04.08

Brazil’s Social & Environmental Stock Exchange (BVS&A) Celebrates Five Years

Posted in exchanges, transparency at 10:48 pm by Andrea McGrath

Newsweek magazine recently wrote a story on Celso Grecco, founder of the “first” social stock exchange (Brazil’s Social and Environmental Stock Exchange (BVS&A)). The article is a good one - and while it does include under one umbrella term of “exchange” ones in Brazil and South Africa - which are really online donor platforms - and some of the newer exchanges in development which aspire to include not just grants but patient and equity-like capital - it also makes the very appropriate comparison between BVS&A and their suitable peers such as Kiva.org and Donorschoose.org. In fact, although BVS&A is noted as the ‘first’ social stock exchange - given that it allows investor/donors to donate funds to a varierty of pre-screened opportunities - it is in a way one of the first online marketplaces…

Grecco notes how BVS&A - and like exchanges - are helping to meet the deep needs of investor/donors for “order and transparency”. Due to the strong vetting process, the BVS&A provides a true “seal of quality” for listed nonprofits. The online platform for donating and reporting greatly increases the transparency of process and results for donors. As we are increasingly hearing these same needs for ”order and transparency” articulated in many of the initiatives focused on developing a social capital marketplace - the BVS&A does demonstrate the power of meeting these needs effectively. In fact, two examples from the article demonstrate well the value in linking donor capital with organizations in need. One story shows how initial seed funds acquired through the exchange helped a local solution (Viva Rio) grow to actually become part of public policy and replicate in 14 states in Brazil. Another discusses a new project on solar lamps that will both cut energy costs and reduce the carbon footprints of shrimp farmers.. Innovative ideas getting important accces to capital through a trusted source providing order and transparency - good news!

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12.15.07

User generated currency

Posted in exchanges, producers, transparency, usergeneratedcurrency, attentioneconomy at 12:20 am by kevindjones

The power equations will be rewritten in the new version of social stock exchanges. It’s a merger of social value in a medium where the individual has asserted a new level of power. the intermediary’s role in an online exchange that treats people and the planet as of some intrinsic value will be different. Technology itself is one reason that new power dynamic will accompany transactions across these exchanges. User generated content becomes user generated value. This is an exchange that will attract a lot of liquidity from those most familiar with the web, and who want to play in this inherently liberating medium (TCP/IP matters; it sends power to the edge of the network).
Technology’s impact on this comes from the fact that the modern computer is an interactive device. The speed of communication inbound determines the pace of your response, if you are paying the attention (attention in kind and attention in quantity) that full productive use of the device demands. The tool demands, it doesn’t just give; the tool makes the user an extension of the tool, rather than a tool being an extension of our will or force, as previous, non interactive tools were.

The tool demands a certain kind of attention. You don’t give it attention. It snares you subtly into loops of attention, communication and response, like a tar baby who can dance.

I wonder if you can measure the level of attention demand a particular media has? It’s AIK and its AIQ. Of course there are probably consumption metrics to map against the attention matrix; dollar spend, against time, against durable vs. electronic vs. other goods, etc. how do you spend your depending on the kind of attention you pay when connected to an interactive device? Why would you want to give that information to any old vendor, though. Isn’t there a higher value you could place on it if you computed your attention index? Would that be the coin that would cause John Hegel’s original attention economy to trickle into being?

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12.05.07

More on Social Market Infrastructure: B Lab and Fast Company

Posted in exchanges, rating agencies, transparency at 12:54 am by Andrea McGrath

Fast Company magazine has just announced this year’s winners (45) of its annual FAST COMPANY/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards. OF NOTE this year is the inclusion of 10 for-profit social capitalists, and the introductory article presents a good opening/overview of the thoughts behind the addition of the for-profit category and emerging developments in this ‘social capital markets’ (recommend a quick read-through all the articles in this edition)
There’s much to discuss from the articles in this edition, but one comment that caught my eye was a quick quote from Andrew Kassoy from B Lab, who notes that “Traditional capital markets have a massive amount of infrastructure built up over the years. Capital, laws, tax codes, research, ratings. This sector needs that sort of infrastructure.”

To that end, the B Lab team has been actively working on developing that infrastructure through its innovative efforts in developing the survey, methodology and tools to identify “B corporations” - companies who demonstrate transparent, comprehensive reporting on social and environmental performance and also restate their articles of incorporation to reflect nonfinancial stakeholders’ interests. The co-founders - Jay Coen Gilbert, Bart Houlahan, and Andrew Kassoy - and some partners are now thinking through how to possibly create a dedicated stock exchange for B companies and lobbying for changes in state laws that would make it easier for hybrid for-profits to incorporate. (if you haven’t yet - check out www.bcorporation.net)
 

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11.24.07

Secondary benefits of markets

Posted in exchanges, transparency at 9:57 pm by Lucy Bernholz

The development of social stock exchanges is important for several reasons - only one of which has to do with buying and selling equity in social benefit enterprises. Here are a few others worth considering:

• Exchanges require transparency - buyers, sellers and analysts need access to consistent, comparable data. The quest for increased transparency will be helped by the creation of exchanges;
• Revenue streams would become more visible and clear - right now there are multiple “counts” of in-kind donations and embedded giving. Exchanges might not eliminate these multiples, but they’d probably assist in raising their profiles, helping stimulate more public and complete methodologies, and eventually producing some standards;
• There would be competition for industry indices - and thus incentives for them to improve. Think about the Dow Jones Index or the Russell 2000 - sometimes it seems these indices were handed down from above and have ever been with us. Of course, that’s not the case - they were designed, marketed, and published - and have been tweaked, revamped and new ones created over time. Perhaps we’ll get a Blueprint Index of Embedded Giving (the BIeG?), the NFG online giving index, or trend projections about giving that draw from market leaders in gift management platforms.

Social Stock Exchanges might not be the only way to develop these kinds of indices, but they would be an efficient way. These indices would help improve philanthropy in many ways. After all, philanthropy is many things - an act of love, a basic part of human behavior, and a cultural standard, AND almost all of its forms include a transactional component. We should demand, expect, and create the clearest, most visible, and most accurate public counts of these transactions - to grow the practice, protect it, defy fraud, and consider it in context of public and private sector changes.

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10.27.07

xchangexchange seeks thought partners

Posted in exchanges, information hubs, transparency at 8:36 am by Samantha Beinhacker

Lucy Bernholz, blogger extraordinaire on all aspects of “giving”, “capital markets”, and the blending of these worlds, has joined our team to consider the issues we’re posing in this dialogue of xchangexchange.

Lucy has recently posted about xchangexchange in her own blog and encourages others to join in the conversation. She writes:

“So, if we’re really asking questions about the role of philanthropic funds within a social capital stream, we had best at least start with a sense of what dollars go where, what dollars come from where, and how we value, access, count, and use these dollars. In other words, we’re back to my previous question about what mix of revenue (philanthropic, social investment, commercial investment, fair trade, social venture funds, etc) is actually funding public goods/services.

This is, I believe, still the key question, and one which is being taken up by some very thoughtful folks running the xchangexchange - which has the intellectual horsepower to become a hub of thinking about the changing capital markets. I’m going to move my conversation, questions, and the insights I received about the value of various elements of the blended value map over to the xchangexchange conversation - join me over there.”

We cannot do this alone: please join us on the exploration conversation!

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10.18.07

Blogs: Adding value to social capital conversations

Posted in information hubs, transparency at 6:44 pm by Andrea McGrath

Sean Stannard Stockton - principal of the blog Tactical Philanthropy and a new member of the blog team at SSIR (see the full team here) - posted an interesting note on his recent conversation with Paul Brest of the Hewlett Foundation and why Paul should start a blog (Sean builds on Paul’s argument for an information marketplace on social impact data). The common thread among both of these authors is discussing the value of “marketplaces” for information. As Sean states: “marketplaces are not just a collection of transactions but a “swarm” of interpersonal interaction between people (see xigi). Financial markets are virtual - but no less human… this transition (to virtual markets) does not JUST require data but conversations”.  He argues that conversations are the key to growth in philanthropy, and we feel conversations are just as important to the growth in many types of social capital - as well as to the development of social capital market infrastructure (story behind the xchangexchange). He also makes the point that it essential for funders to join in the dialogue - and we agree (see the full post here)    

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10.17.07

Kenyan exchange brings transparency

Posted in transparency, safety at 7:01 pm by kevindjones

This link from my fellow researcher Andrea McGrath shows how even a traditional stock exchange is becoming a force for political and societal and economic transparency in Kenya. One overheard anecdote from the fellow from the Kenyan Social Stock Exchange delivered at the recent Belagio conference goes like this: “What is a socially responsible business in your context?” The response from the Kenyan SSE “A business that does not shoot its employees.” A powerful and good tool in a local context, the existing exchange and the prospect of a social stock exchange bring new possibilities.

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