Social Venture Partners logo.

Businesses are becoming more socially aware and responsible across all industry sectors, most notably in Finance where a whole new type of venture capitalism that focuses on investing that is not based off of returns, but off of impact has taken root. Take Social Venture Partners (SVP)[1], a social enterprise that combines the best of both philanthropy and venture capitalism to create a unique “virtuous capital” approach that provides the necessary start-up or maintenance investment to local, community based charity organizations that perpetuate SVP’s social vision. So far the SVP idea has been taken across the globe with localized SVP branches in 38 cities from Boston to Bangalore and with more and more investment and capital management firm shifting their focus from high return to high reward.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has for sometime been a very important point of difference in the consumer goods industry, however this difference has never truly been explored in the buy low sell high world of finance. But, with the emergence of groups such as SVP and financial institutions that focus on CSR it is finally time for CSR and the capital rich industry of finance to be combined and create real change in communities across the globe.

[1] http://www.socialventurepartners.org/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai8rUSsDeog