Comments on: Social Enterprise, Exits, and Liquidity Events

By: kevin jones

kevin jones — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:49:00 +0000

I think you can also structure the supply chain and the brand so that the mission survives after a sale. that’s my bet. i wrote about it for the federal reserve here. http://frbsf.org/publications/community/review/vol5_issue2/index.html
it’s the pdf on the top left

By: Elizabeth U

Elizabeth U — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:12:03 +0000

Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts on this topic.

Christiana, I should have mentioned Selling Without Selling Out by name rather than linking to it through text only in my post, as this conference did indeed address many of the issues brought up here… and more!

RSF’s President & CEO Don Shaffer was present, and I was very disappointed to be unable to attend as I wanted to learn more about the alternatives. Thank you for pointing out that the content is available on the website; I can’t wait to dig in!

By: Tana Kantor

Tana Kantor — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:42:09 +0000

I thought this was a very thorough insightful post. I’ve often wondered the same thing. As I talk with “mission investors”, it seems little has changed from the dot.com strategy of the 90s. I find this frustrating because I think that we need to think of a more sustainable model, that is likely to require longer term thinking and more collaborative structures. We should have learned something from the passion for quick profits that brought us Credit Default Swaps and derivatives based on increasingly non-existent underlying assets.

If we are truly going to see a “green economy”, we need to be able to look at investing in innovation, and partnering for a longer term. We need a culture that rewards the creation of value and we need to think that value extends beyond six months, and includes externalities like the costs of pollution, under-employment, resource depletion and community degradation.

By: Christiana

Christiana — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:38:03 +0000

Hello, A group of founders of socially responsible companies met to discuss the very issues you have highlighted at a small gathering called- Selling without Selling Out. Video from the event is posted at this link: http://www.trusteeship.org/
They discussed how they negotiated their exits, and how the values have either been supported or not supported. Many were very happy with the transition. Many had a lot of advice to the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Satori Capital is a Private Equity firm who’s mission is to be the capital partner of choice for the next generation of these businesses. Satori-Capital.com

By: Matt Hobert

Matt Hobert — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:57:55 +0000

Kyle- Thanks for the response. I’ll look for the post. In the interim, I would ask *you* to think about this: What if your rent/mortgage payment minus taxes, insurance, and maintenance went into your capital account at a bank that owned quality properties all over the world? A bank that did not charge interest and enabled *everyone* around the world to build up equity rather than shifting it to those who already had a great deal of capital.

By: Kyle Foley

Kyle Foley — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:08:01 +0000

Matt,

Thanks for reading, and for your comment. As it happens, RSF Trustee & Co-founder Siegfried Finser will have a blog posting up next week discussing how RSF came to the decision to charge interest in our early days – as well as why we still do today.

We encourage you to look for that post to better understand why we operate as we do.

Thanks again,

Kyle Foley

By: Matt Holbert

Matt Holbert — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:00:16 +0000

Let’s get rid of the tick, tick, tick altogether. Even the most “progressive” of the various non-profit money re-distribution schemes seem to want to do it in the form of loans. Why not establish a brand new form of equity building — one that does not charge interest. Those who deposit funds in MindfulWorldBank.org would not be entitled to earn interest, but rather they would have access to the products and services of a world in which debt does not exist.

I challenge RSF — and all others in the Rube Goldberg world of non-profits, for-profits, and higher education institutions — to break free of the current paradigm and the specialization that underwrites the whole inefficient mess.