On No poverty which is UNSDG #1, Laina shared how she believes poverty is the root cause of all evils. Take, for example, environmental degradation: it is often the poor who are forced  to cut down the trees and participate in other unsustainable practices as their only means of income and livelihood. 

Laina also implored the audience to think about how are we perpetuating poverty? A shirt that the worker was paid 60 cents to make can be bought at $50. She encouraged the audience to be conscious and ask where the items they bought really came from. She then shared about Angels of Impact’s specially curated online marketplace of sustainable and ethical products which aims to bring forward the stories of the social enterprises we work with and encourage conscious consumerism.

Next, Laina touched on women and sustainable impact. Data has shown that women are good investments. If we only have one dollar in the world give it to women who will solve the problem! Laina discussed that although we have achieved the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty in the world, there is still a phenomenon called the feminisation of poverty - where women represent a disproportionate proportion of the poor. This is because they are often the invisible infrastructure of society - they are the ones who have to walk for miles to find water, tend to the children and chores and carry out subsistence farming. As a result, they often get left behind when economic opportunities come. 

However, research shows that women are key to ending poverty. Income in the hands of the mother has a tremendous impact on healthcare and nutrition,far greater than the in the hands of the father. Thus there is a need to see women as the solution to ending poverty.

Laina then touched on the need to move beyond charity such as through social entrepreneurship. For example, Angels of Impact works with social enterprises which have transparent and ethical supply chains like Krakakoa, Javara, Toraja Melo and Siam Organic to lift communities out of poverty. 

Laina then closed her speech by reaffirming Angel’s of Impact’s massive transformative purpose of creating a world without poverty in unity with women and bringing social enterprises to the market. She encouraged the audience to live out the 3 UNSDGs of #1 No Poverty; #5 Gender Equality and #12 Responsible Consumption and Production. Just starting with those have the potential to make huge impact.

Later in the evening, our Co-Founder and CEO Audrey Tan shared about the what, whys and hows on investing in women social impact enterprises. 

​This award is especially meaningful to us as Angels of Impact strives to serve the ASEAN community by working together with women to alleviate poverty in the region. The meaningful connections and insights gained throughout these past week will certainly go a long way in achieving the UNSDGs of No Poverty; Gender Equality and Responsible Consumption and Production.  We were also honoured to have had the opportunity to contribute to the ASEAN Joint Youth Statement where our Co-Founder and CEO Audrey, raise a greater emphasis of UNSDG #5, gender equality in ASEAN, to impact more girls and young people in the proliferation of social entrepreneurship. 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our community of Angels for your neverending support and love. This award would not have been possible without you!

​As the event draws to a close, we remain ever-committed to our mission and we will continue working hard to create a world without poverty in unity with women.
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Want to know more about how you can contribute to the alleviation of poverty? Follow us on facebook and come to our next event!
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With the Singapore contingent, Silat stars, Shakir Senior and Shaykir Junior, team from NYC and MCCY

​On the 11th of July, we were invited to BlackRock to share more about our work. In her speech, our Co-Founder, Laina Raveendran Greene, posed three overarching questions: why are we targeting poverty, why are we targeting women, and why social entrepreneurship?
 
To answer the first question, Laina explained that poverty is often the root cause of many other problems, such as corruption or gender inequality. She also discussed how many businesses, such as fast fashion or fast food, often exploit the poor—when we purchase a new scarf at a great deal, how often do we stop and wonder how exactly that low price came about? The best way to combat that problem, then, is to spend your dollars on sustainable businesses instead, and A.I. has made it easy by bringing sustainable, responsible products directly to your doorstep.
 
As for the second question—why target women—Laina urged the audience to close their eyes and think about poverty. The image that often pops up in your mind is that of a woman sitting at the side of a street, holding in a child in her arms and begging. Although we have achieved the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty, the majority of people still living in poverty today are women. This is because women are often the “invisible infrastructure” of the community: they are the ones who carry water, look after children, take care of subsistence farming, and so on. As a result, women are often left behind when new opportunities arrive.

​While women been left behind in the fight to eradicate poverty, data has now shown that women also make good investments. When you help a woman, you don’t just help a single individual; you also help her family and her community. Furthermore, according to Forbes, women entrepreneurs bring in 20% more revenue with 50% less money invested. In other words, investing in women is not just the right thing to do—it’s also the smart thing to do. However, there also exists an unconscious bias that women can only receive micro-finance. Although women have graduated from micro-finance, investors for the most part, have not seen how they are now ready for larger funds. As such, A.I. works to educate people, helping them to move beyond micro-finance and to support social enterprises to grow and scale.
 
This brings us to our third question: why social entrepreneurship? Prof Yunus  in his book "Creating a world without poverty" has clearly shown that we need to move beyond charity. Meanwhile, Richard Branson, states that the brands that will thrive in the years to come are the ones that have purpose beyond profit. These companies are not only more sustainable, but also help to create a more just society.

​A.I. recognises that the most sustainable way of to make an impact is through social entrepreneurship, and not charity or donations. However, the problem with many social enterprises is that they are too big for small loans, yet also too small for impacted investors at the same time. As a result, they end up stuck in a chasm that the Monitor Group in their report "From Blueprint to Scale" calls the “pioneer gap”.

A.I. has a pool of women social enterprises that they support that are at the cutting edge of this new kind of business. Laina raised the example of Krakakoa, which works directly with smallholder farmers in Indonesia for bean-to-bar chocolates. This allows farmers to move up the value chain, thereby getting out of poverty. A.I. has been working with them to help flow funding and open doors for sales to help them cross this chasm.
 
Laina then urged the audience to donate their most precious resource of time and: their business-related skills. As a corporate, these skills are invaluable in helping social enterprises to succeed. Apart from volunteering skills, we can also directly fund these enterprises through investments and to support them by simply buying their products, be it as a personal or corporate gift.
 
Laina ended the speech by recalling the words of Prof Muhammed Yunus: that poverty can be ended. If we all do our part, we can put poverty in the museums. Together in unity, we can, in fact, end poverty.
 

 
4 May 2017, Singapore – “Money in the hands of the women can do a lot more good for nutrition, health and education of the child and the family…when you take a woman out of poverty, you take the family and the community out of poverty.” Laina Raveendran Greene, Co-founder of Angels of Impact posed these thoughts to the audience as she ended her talk at TEDxSingaporeWomen on October 2016.
 
This year, Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) is celebrating its 50th anniversary and a Singaporean social enterprise, Angels of Impact (AI), is making contributions to the ASEAN community by supporting women social enterprises in the region to help alleviate poverty. This is a timely contribution to ASEAN, given that Singapore will chair ASEAN next year, in 2018.
 
Inaugural Book Launch
 
On 17 May 2017, Angels of Impact (AI) will be launching their first ever book, titled “Sustainable Impact: How Women Are Key To Ending Poverty” to honour Mother’s Day. This book was founded on AI’s massive transformative purpose of “creating a world without poverty in unity with women”. AI intends to do so by impacting 3 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – #1 No Poverty, #5 Gender Equality and #12 Responsible Consumption and Production. How can this be achieved? AI passionately believes that if the community invests in and consumes responsibly produced goods made by women living in poverty themselves, the community can achieve 3 goals in one or as some would say “kill all three birds with one stone”.
 
The book launch, happening at Bloomberg Singapore, will be a night of insightful discussions, showcasing examples and meaningful conversations. Vint Cerf, global Internet pioneer widely known as one of "The Fathers of the Internet" and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, will be in attendance as the Guest of Honour, together with panellists from the Bloomberg Women’s Community, Singapore Committee for UN Women, Siam Organic and Color Silk to celebrate and discuss around the topic of “Women are Good Investments”.
 
Coming together to make a difference
 
So who is AI exactly? They are a social enterprise founded by Laina Raveendran Greene and Audrey Tan – two Singaporean women from two different backgrounds and generations, who share the same vision and strongly believe that they can make a difference in the community. They focus on women as good investments, and aim to maximize the social impact of money by working with enterprises, which in turn work with many women producing responsibly and getting the most effective use of resources. ​
  
Sustainable Impact: How women are key to ending poverty
 
The book, “Sustainable Impact: How Women Are Key To Ending Poverty”, will be available for purchase online via the AI website, www.angelsofimpact.com or via Amazon from 18 May 2017 onwards. All proceeds for the book will go towards the cause and help propel the mission and vision of AI and accelerate towards ending world poverty.
 
More info about the book and Greene’s TEDxSingaporeWomen talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuepOWFAszo

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About Angels of Impact
 
Angels of Impact is the brainchild of the founders of GetIT, Inc, a strategic business consultancy based in Silicon Valley since 2000 and PlayMoolah, a successful social enterprise based in Singapore since 2008. Both founders were very inspired by Prof Yunus book "Creating a World Without Poverty" and the Monitor Group Report "from Blueprint to Scale", and these became some of the foundational thinking behind Angels of Impact.
 
Angels of Impact believes passionately that these 3 key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – #1 No Poverty, #5 Gender Equality and #12 Responsible Consumption and Production – can be achieved all at once by investing in and consuming responsibly produced goods made by women living in poverty.
 
They also believe that the community can end poverty and give the impoverished control of their lives by supporting social enterprises working on poverty alleviation, to grow into sustainable businesses.

They focus on women as good investments and aim to maximize the social impact of money by working with enterprises, which work with many women producing responsibly, to get a better scale of impact and getting the most effective use of resources. They also focus on the long-term success of the impact businesses that A.I. supports and helps to market their products and services by directing the flow resources to the entrepreneurs who are too big for micro-finance but too small for more traditional impact investors.
 
AI currently supports 8 women-led social enterprises from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and has brought together 11 investors from the region to support and mentor these enterprises. It has also managed to help them sell their products into companies with regional headquarters in Singapore. For more info, head to http://www.angelsofimpact.com
 
 
 
About the founders
 
Laina Raveendran Greene is the Founder of GETIT Inc., a strategic marketing consultancy based in Silicon Valley and co-founder of Angels of Impact (www.angelsofimpact.com), an impact network focussed on women social entrepreneurs helping to alleviate poverty. 
 
She is also Senior Adjunct Lecturer at the Strategy and Policy Department, NUS Business School; Associate Director of the Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship andPhilanthropy; Goodwill Ambassador of UnLtd Indonesia; and, Advisory Board member of Acumen+Singapore.  She has 25 years’ experience in the telecom industry with a focus on Green ICT and bridging the digital divide in developing countries, and most recently worked in Indonesia where she helped raise several million dollars for a public-listed telecom tower company. An alumna of National University of Singapore, the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and Harvard University, Laina was one of the very first female techpreneurs in Singapore, when she started an e-learning company in 1997. Check her out at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laina
 
 
Audrey Tan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Angels of Impact. 
Audrey's experience in technology began ten years ago with online commerce. As part of her stint in Silicon Valley, she rallied product marketing and business development for Qik.com, which was later acquired by Skype for USD$150M. Audrey subsequently set up PlayMoolah, an award-winning social enterprise which educates children, parents and young adults about building a positive relationship with money. Audrey had the privilege of studying technology entrepreneurship at Stanford University as part of the NUS Overseas College Programme. She also published her thesis titled Persuasive Technology and Games for Savings and Money Management at NUS. Find out more about Audrey at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/audreytan
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Our co-founder Laina and Vanntha, founder of Color Silk first met at an ASEAN Social Enterprise seminar, where Vanntha surprised Laina with her determination and focus to make Color Silk an established enterprise that brings positive impact to underprivileged communities in Cambodia. Vanntha first pitched the idea of Color Silk at a McKinsey Business Case Competition, and she has not looked back since. Working with farmers and weavers in the Takeo province, Vanntha provides farmers with the technical assistance to become more productive, and to provide them with market access. 80% of Color Silk’s products are made for export, and they currently have customers from various European countries, Australia and United States as well. By providing training and membership programmes for the weavers in Takeo, Color Silk enables them to become financially independent by selling their  products, become market literate and have their own home-based enterprise. Today, Color Silk has 450 member weavers  and works with over 350 farmers in the region.     ​

Started by ex-McKinsey consultant Ms Sabrina Mustopo in 2013, Krakakoa has grown exponentially in its business operations and productivity. Based in Lampung, Indonesia, Sabrina is working with chocolate farmers to increase their farming capacities and to ensure higher  adoption of sustainable farming practices. After the involvement of Krakakoa, the output of these cacao farms increased 400%, from 200 kg/hectare to 400 kg/hectare. Krakakoa has also successfully increased the incomes of these farmers by 20-30%, by the merit of  improvement in productivity levels. ​

On International Women’s Day, we had the opportunity to head down to PayPal and participate in their IWD celebrations. Our co-founder, Laina, took the stage and presented about poverty alleviation through women empowerment. She started off with asking us a question - what are we doing, or consuming, that perpetuates poverty? Using the example of fast fashion and fast food, Laina made us stop to think - are we doing more harm than good by consuming the way we do? ​

Laina also introduced Torajamelo, a fashion/textile social enterprise started by Ms. Dinny Jusuf to rejuvenate the weaving culture of Indonesia. Torajamelo aims to offer livelihood to young girls who otherwise would be working overseas as sex workers or migrant workers. Her efforts have helped to restore the weaving culture of Toraja, Indonesia, and the fashion pieces of Torajamelo have been featured on international platforms. More people are getting to know the weaving techniques unique to Toraja, and Torajamelo has succeeded in bringing local culture to the global market. ​

Both Krakakoa and Torajamelo are examples of women-driven social enterprises that are creating change and making impact in their communities. These social enterprises are among the many other social enterprises that Angels of Impact has connected with, and are helping to create an ecosystem of empowerment and enrichment, where we amplify the impact that women can bring to society. Together, we aim to contribute towards the 3 UN Sustainable Development Goals of #5 Gender Equality, #1 No Poverty and #12 Responsible Consumption and Production. ​

• Philanthropy - After awhile you realize that you can’t just keep giving and giving, therefore making this approach unsustainable.

• Corporate Social Responsibility - Sometimes CSR acts as form of responsibility rather than a willingness, so it is done out compliance rather than drive. It is often a series of one-off projects that do not necessarily make the best use of available resources, therefore making this approach unsustainable and/or unable to make significant impact​.

 

• Creating Shared Value - This approach embraces social good as part of a company’s core business strategies; the products they create inherently do good as they have clear economic, societal and/or environmental benefits.

​​Audrey then discussed the 3 levels of CSV:

• ​Re-conceiving products and markets in ways that meet customer needs while also contributing to society - She gave the example of Krakakoa, an Indonesian-based bean-to-bar chocolate initiative (curated by Angels of Impact and the runner up at last year’s NUS Crossing the Chasm Challenge). Not only are Krakakoa’s products delicious and highly popular among customers, but the company also practices responsible consumption and production methods, trains its farmers and pays them more than the fair trade minimum.

 

• ​Redefining productivity in your value chain through social or environmental innovation - Companies can begin to procure goods and services from social enterprises in a more sustainable way (e.g. for corporate gifts or  pantries). This is more effective than donating time and/or money. For example NUS Overseas College  ordered customized coin pouches from a Social Enterprise – Torajamelo – to gift to their alumni and staff instead of a standard corporate gift.

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• ​Cluster development – This involves supporting the well-being of industries related to your own in ways that improve overall societal conditions; for example, in the context of agriculture, this means training local farmers, working with and investing in them. Again using Krakakoa as an example, the team educates farmers on how to grow cocoa beans in a sustainable and effective way, moving from just buying fair trade to actually training the people in the supply chain to put in place long-term sustainability plans.

Eugene Ho explained that the world is interlinked and the prosperity of people affects businesses. SAP has businesses in 110 countries and services in more than 325,000 companies globally. Their belief is that as they take, they must give back, so SAP adopted a number of sustainability practices, such as sustainable sourcing from green label products, providing humanitarian aid to Typhoon Haiyan, the Fukushima Tsunami and so on.
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Eugene shared candidly that when he joined the company 9 years ago, CSR was about sending their top executives to other countries to build homes and playgrounds, literally with cement and bricks. Eventually it was realized that they were in fact not making the best use of their human resources. The people they were sending away were experts at building business plans and marketing, so 5 years ago they began mentoring social enterprises and have continued doing so at a global level in numerous locations (and in Southeast Asia over the past 3 years).

Another CSV agenda for SAP is to pilot new projects; for example they have an Asia-Pacific-Japan program called ‘1 Billion Lives’, where their goal is to touch a billion lives by 2020. SAP reached out to 21,000 employees in Asia-Pacific-Japan and asked them to submit ideas on an online platform on how to do good while still being a business. Out of more than 120 submissions, 3 were selected. Each project was given a budget of 200,000 Euros and was backed by operations and support.
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Eugene gave two examples of their current projects. One project is about working with a partner in Japan and using the iPhone to test the physical stability of a building. Using their analytic software and a seismic device you can find out if you need to leave the room you are in during an earthquake. Another project, based in India, is a partnership with a cancer institute where they use analytic software to devise customized treatment plans for Indian patients with cancer.

Roxanne Somboonsiri talked about people being more likely to do things and make greater impact in groups rather than individually. Each individual can do things on their own, but when you come together as an organization, the impact can be much larger and more sustainable. She therefore encouraged all to collaborate in groups and work together towards social good.

Attributing her giving nature to her childhood where volunteering at the Salvation Army was an integral part of family life, Roxanne was on the look-out for an opportunity where she could do the same in her corporate life in a more concerted manner. A chance meeting with Audrey at an event, and subsequently Roxanne’s perseverance, led to Krakakoa chocolate squares being showcased in Facebook pantries. 

Roxanne shared that what she thinks and feels must also be engrained in her corporate life, therefore really enjoying her work at Facebook. She explained that Facebook is in a very interesting position, with over 1 billion users on its platform and its mission being to bring people together and make the world more open and connected.
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Through Free Basics, Facebook is able to connect people in remote parts of the world to the relevant information that they might need. For example, they work with DTAC in Thailand and pay for Internet connections on people’s mobile devices in order to give them access to basic healthcare information in absence of medical facilities in the vicinity. So a mother living far from any medical center can search online to find out what to do if her baby is sick with fever. 
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Facebook also runs internet.org where they connect rural areas through satellite Internet. The ethos of Facebook, according to Roxanne, is centered around the desire to bring a group of people together who are passionate about the greater good of society, whether that's locally, regionally or globally.

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During the Q&A, Roxanne shared that anyone can give money, but the best way to make impact is to give your time and resources in the right manner. When you align your company’s mission with the betterment of the world and the society around you, you start to see real change. It’s about shifting mindsets, finding likeminded individuals - “change agents”, raising awareness and educating ourselves and others (for example, by knowing where our food comes from).

Eugene emphasized the importance of sustainable sourcing and looking at the whole supply chain within companies. He suggested that if a company wants to seriously begin incorporating CSV into their business model, they should bring in experts to help make this process effective.

Eugene also shared the 4 Cs of CSV:

• Customers – Ask how your products can help your customers.
• Core innovation – Work in teams to share skills.
• Consumption – Use sustainable sources.
• Community - Provide mentorship and build a larger community.

After such an enlightening and inspiring session, we are positive and hopeful that in the future we will not need social enterprises as a separate sector, but that in fact all businesses will be aiming to do social good, with CSV at the very core of what they do!

What a wonderful way to celebrate the season of festivities and the success of our launch this year by organising a Christmas Fair. Products consciously produced by our Social Enterprises were displayed. Lurata Lyon, a survivor of sex trafficking shared inspiring insights with us. Read More.  ​

Facebook@women showed their support by purchasing Krakakoa’s chocolate squares. ​​

No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes. Heart to heart experiences were brought up on stage with a panel of three incredible women – Saleenah Ismail, Penny Burt and our dear Co-Founder of Angels of Impact, Liana Green, during one of the sessions during the first Women@facebook for South East Asia.

One of the questions raised by the host of this session – What is one of the biggest mistake you have made as an entrepreneur?

1. “Being burnt out. Being so immobilized by the pain, learn to take care of oneself, to have good friends who can be the Check in for you, I am of no use to the cause if I’m burnt out. Being present and enjoy the little moments even washing the dishes.” – Saleenah Ismail.
2. “Second guessing myself. We have to own it, getting counsel from others will allow us to make better decisions.” – Penny Burt
3. “Quitting on jobs because things had gotten to me. Embrace your feminity and be who you are. Selling my company prematurely, leaning in together and women supporting women with Angels of Impact.” – Laina Green

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Everything happened for a purpose, and people come into your life either as a lesson or a blessing. These ladies transformed difficult circumstances into positive motivation, and we were privileged to be able to learn from their experiences. Never be ashamed of past mistakes and strive to be better by learning from those mistakes.

Many other issues were raised by the ladies during the panel, sharing of some of the challenges faced by them in the work place before. For example, when a woman raises an idea, it doesn’t create as much resonance with the team as compared to when a man raises up the same idea. A Whitehouse post recently shared how women used, "amplification" to reinforce and reiterate fellow women's voices around a male dominated meeting.

What's important to keep in mind, is that do not be restricted by the labels that the society has placed on women. If you know you are doing it right, you go girl!

Be strong, be courageous, and ​women stick together to create an inclusive community to help one another with all these seemingly difficult hurdles to overcome. ​

Many times women face challenges at work place due to conscious or unconscious biasness. All these sharing reminded us how important it is to empower women in every aspect of life, not just in the work place, and this is what Angels of Impact aims to bring to greater consciousness if #genderequality.

​We are truly grateful for this opportunity to take part in Women@Facebook, to witness these women’s faith and dedication in the empowerment of women. Ladies, now go forth and kick ass!

Sharing Kakoa's products with LinkedIn is part of our mission to bring responsibly-made products to a wider audience. We know that people don't want to harm others when they buy things, but it's so difficult to know how the things we buy affect the people who make them. That's why we're so excited about companies that put responsible production at the heart of what they do. When you buy a responsibly-made product, like chocolates from Kakoa, or clothing and gifts from Torajamelo, another of our Angel social enterprises, their supply chains are transparent and you know the the people who make them are well-treated. You can be confident that by buying their products, you're making people's lives better, not worse. 

What do we mean by a transparent supply chain where people are well treated? Watch the video: it shows the difference that Torajamelo is making to the lives of women weavers in Indonesia. We are passionate about bringing products made by companies like Kakoa and Torajamelo to as many people as we can - because everyone wants to have a positive impact on the world, and buying responsibly-produced products helps us to do that!

Our very lovely host Yee Yeung from LinkedIn, and Shria, truly an Angels indeed! Along with our amazing volunteer teamates Airashi and Legha!

​What response do women-led social enterprises get when they seek finance? What do they want finance for and what repayment terms can they make? What other challenges, other than finance, do social enterprises face?

​We asked our group of 33 women-led social enterprises and social enterprise intermediaries these questions. We wanted to understand their issues and to test the assumptions underlying Angels of Impact’s model of offering membership-funded, low-interest, long-term loans to social enterprises.

​We wanted to know if these organisations faced particular obstacles because they were run by or for women. First the good news. Our group of intermediaries - which included impact investors and grant-funding organisations - reported that women pitch well and tend to be more convincing because they’re much more pragmatic and realistic about what they can achieve. However in their experience, it’s mainly men who are pitching for and getting funds. Women tend to rely on friends and family far more before they’ll consider formal financing. Women are also more risk averse: they’ll usually only raise what they believe they can get back, and they’re usually more reluctant to pitch to scale up the business.

​When we talked about the response the social enterprises got when they sought funding, we found that they were asked all the usual questions you’d expect a company seeking finance to be asked: what’s your business plan, what are your KPIs, is it sustainable, what’s your track record? But our social enterprises reported some interesting attitudes from the investors they’d pitched to. Even the impact investors were still focused on financial returns and had little interest in social impact. One social enterprise has stopped seeking equity funding because “they will try to pull you away from your mission to boost their financial returns” – a common sentiment that got a lot of nods.

​There is still a widespread incredulity among investors towards a company genuinely committed to impact before profit. As one investor had apparently put it, “Why are you doing something so RISKY?!”

​As a result of the difficulties they face getting mainstream finance, many of our social enterprises reported that they’d gone down some unconventional roots to fund their growth. One had created all her prototype products on equipment bought on credit cards. Another relied on volunteers and donations and several had relied on their own savings to establish the business. Someone quoted the phrase “when you first start a business, it’s only family, friends and fools who’ll support you” – then added that even her family wouldn’t support her for months until her mother gave in and gave her a loan.

​Many had sought – and some had received – grant funding, which had made a huge difference to their business. Even grants, however, came with their own set of issues. These ranged from the amount of time required to complete grant application to a story of a donor programme that shut down halfway through the funding period – after a time-consuming application period that took months. Grant programmes were focused on specific projects and were reluctant to fund necessary overhead costs. Direct government support was rare: one lady found that her Government was very supportive of her education project and asked her to establish it in five other schools; a great show of support until she learned that they weren’t planning to pay her. “They are waiting to see this project succeed before they fund me – they don’t realise that funding me will save them money elsewhere and make me far more likely to succeed!” 

​The biggest issue was finding money to cover operational costs. Foundations and grant-giving organisations didn’t want to cover working capital costs, while investors just didn’t want to invest at all. 

​In short, while the concept of social enterprise and impact-first businesses is praised, and social entrepreneurs held up as heroes, on a day-to-day level life is a constant struggle. Neither the financial market or the grant-giving world is set up to provide what these companies, operating at the tightest margins and changing the lives of the world’s poorest, need to survive and grow. Equity risks losing the company’s core mission. Grants won’t cover overheads. Loans come with a heavy interest rate because the value of social impact doesn’t translate to the financial bottom line.

​So what is the answer? We asked the group what financing models would work best for them. The answer was pretty simple and agreed by most people: the social enterprises wanted to see low-interest (below 5%) lines of credit with at least a one-year grace period, and repayment mechanisms that included in-kind repayments and repayment through profit-sharing. Grants which covered operational costs and had a simple application process were also on the wish list. 

Now, you might read this and think, “Well of course they’d like that: those are the easiest terms possible! No investor could offer those terms to such a high-risk venture!” And you’d be right. But if we believe that impact-first businesses are a big part of the solution to tackling social problems, then we need new models of finance that allow them to do that. Of course a traditional investor – even an impact investor – which gives low-interest loans repaid over a long period of time won’t be able to make any money.

​We learnt other things as well. Our final question for the group was “other than finance, what are your three biggest challenges?” By far the most common answer was “SKILLS SKILLS SKILLS!” So we’ll look at what our community can do to support our social enterprise Angel members with skills development in the future.

We at Angels of Impact are working closely with our social enterprise Angels to co-create the appropriate networks, support and funding structures that best suit them. We’d love to hear your thoughts on what the Angels of Impact community can offer. And we’d love to learn more about challenges and solutions to financing impact-first businesses. Please leave a comment below or contact us - or join the discussion on our Facebook page!

If you're a social enterprise and you'd like to become part of our network, sign up here. 

The pop-up shop at Naiise's Orchard Central store marks the start of raiSE's 'Festival for Good', which will culminate in with a weekend of music, workshops and entertainment to celebrate Singapore's social enterprises. The pop-up on floor 2 of Orchard Central shopping centre features ​products from eight social enterprises, ranging from clothes, bags and notebooks to t-shirt recycling kits and jewellery. 

The best news is that the pop-up features some of Angels of Impact's very own Torajamelo's products! You can buy Torajamelo's bags, blouses, kaftan, bags and notebooks, all crafted in Torajamelo's signature tenun weaving. It's beautiful stuff - come and take a look!

​Why aren’t more women getting to the top of organisations? What do they need to do differently? Is it particularly difficult for women to get on in the tech-industry? Angels of Impact’s resident gurus, Laina and Audrey, confronted these issues at when they were keynote speakers alongside senior women from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and IT firm Akamai at the most recent Connected Women Singapore gathering at Twitter HQ.
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Connected Women Singapore was formed by ladies at Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, MasterCard and Facebook, to connect and inspire women across the tech industry to fulfil their potential. Wednesday’s #ELEVATE event brought together over 100 women – and a few men – to ask “how do we elevate our career and own our success?”

“Have you ever said something in a meeting that went unheard, only for a man to say the same thing minutes later to wild applause?” This was Laina’s first question when she took the stage – and the audience nodded vigorously! Laina has been a pioneer for women in the tech industry throughout her 25-year career: she was the first woman Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Internet Association in the mid-1990s, the first woman policy advisor at the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre and is an International Steering Committee member of the Global Telecom Women’s Network.
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“When I started I used to wear dark colours, tie my hair back – do everything I could to make my colleagues forget I was a woman,” she told the crowd. Referring to Lois Frankel’s book, ‘Nice Girls Still Don’t Get the Corner Office’, Laina offered her tips for success.

1. Learn to brag more. Hundreds of studies have shown that women tend to be more self-critical than men, and this hurts them in the workplace. “Learn to be proud of your achievements – and claim responsibility for them. It’s what the men are doing, and it’s working for them.”
2. Use your invisibility. Women – and women of colour in particular – can find themselves invisible (as this brilliant Superbowl advert shows!) Laina’s advice? Use it. “I found that men were more likely to confide in me because they didn’t see me as a threat. I picked up extremely useful information about people and organisations by being invisible.”
3. Quote the stats. Women are a good investment. And we have proof. Just check out the ‘WHY?’ page on our site: women-led companies perform better. Women shouldn’t be shy about saying it.
4. Look after each other – and pay it forward. A mentor can help you define your goals, plan how to achieve them – and most importantly, help you recognise your own success. And there’s good news: a quick show of hands found that most of the women in the room had mentors. 

​The panel that followed was chaired by Senior Director of Product Sales and Strategy at Twitter Maya Hari and consisted of Angels of Impact’s own Audrey Tan, plus Senior Director at Akamai Rachel Fitzpatrick, Head of Lynda Sales at LinkedIn Alex Roza, APAC Head of Gaming at Facebook Melinda Petrunoff. They talked about using humour to diffuse sexism “when someone calls me sweetheart, I call them sweetpea. They don’t do it again”. They talked about the importance of sharing the family workload – and using tech to make life easier. And most of all they talked about how important it is to always be learning, to take risks and to look after one another.
See you at the next one!

​This week saw the launch of ‘Conscious Collection’, a new partnership between Jakarta-based premium furniture company Arbor & Troy and social enterprise Torajamelo. Conscious Collection products have been co-created between the two companies, bringing together Torajamelo’s exquisite traditional woven goods with Arbor & Troy’s signature style. 

The partnership is a historical moment for the two companies, and it’s a welcome sign that mainstream, for-profit companies are taking practical steps to have a positive impact on the world. Arbor & Troy is a for-profit luxury furniture company; Torajamelo is a social enterprise which uses traditional Indonesian weaving techniques to create contemporary fashion, gifts, homewares and accessories. Torajamelo is dedicated to bringing dignity and transformation to the lives of women weavers in remote areas of Indonesia while preserving the exquisite weaving technique known as tenun. 

​The partnership is a living example of a social enterprise's goods and services becoming integrated into the supply chain of a traditional business. This practice has been called ‘shared value’ -  Michael Porter explained the concept in a Harvard Business School article. Shared value models aim to be win-win for the for-profit and the social enterprise: the social enterprise grows its customer base, and so can earn more money and increase its impact, while the traditional business can show that its feel-good values are more than just hot air.
 
‘Shared value’ partnerships are about more than just Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is commonly seen as a tired way of ‘white washing’ a company’s reputation: a sleight-of-hand where a company noisily plants trees with one hand while quietly cutting down more with the other. Shared value is not just about selling a social enterprise’s goods for a one-time, feel-good experience. Instead, shared value is about for-profit businesses recognising that a social enterprise’s products and services complement its own, and that a partnership will not only have a positive social impact, it will actively improve the business’s performance and value to the customer. In essence, it’s about good business sense. 

​The Conscious Collection collaboration shows shared value in action. The endeavour is not a donation based model, like you seen on products where 10% of the price goes to a certain charity. The relationship is stronger and more sustainable than that.  To Arbor & Troy, Torajamelo has become a strong, mindful and common sense alternative supplier of tenun that Arbor & Troy can integrate into their furniture collection lines. 

​Before Torajamelo began its work, many of the local women were unable to find good prices for their weaving, and often moved away to work as servants overseas. Indonesian domestic helpers in other countries risk ill-treatment, abuse and becoming victims of sex trafficking. As the women weavers now earn a good living through the reinvigorated art of weaving, they are able to remain with their families and take pride in their skills. Torajamelo now works with over 1,000 weavers and in doing so has transformed whole communities. As Torajamelo’s founder Dinny Jusuf says, “We think that Toraja women weavers are strong people. We do not think we need to empower them because they are already powerful … all they need is access to market and capital.”

​This sort of collaboration is good news for us as consumers, too. For most of us, our relationship to material things is often disconnected. We have little clue about how the things we purchase regularly are made and the conditions in which they are being made. From time to time we see an article, maybe about the unethical practices of big fashion companies in poor working conditions for the factory workers, or when we learn the impact that our favourite brands are having on the lives of the people who help to produce them. We seldom know at what and whose expense our purchases are being created.

Social enterprises like Torajamelo, and collaborations like the Conscious Collection, serve the growing appetite to buy responsibly. As buyers become more and more aware of the responsibly produced goods that make a difference for the producers in the supply chain, collaborations like these make good business sense.