Guest blogger Roxanne Miller is a 2nd-year MBA student at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, focusing her studies on the intersection of international development, social enterprise and technology.  She spent this past summer interning at Unitus and working on an ICTD health care project in Uganda.  Prior to Haas, Roxanne was a Kiva Fellow in Tanzania and spent several years in marketing roles at Yahoo! and American Express.  She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Communications.

By Roxanne Miller

Kevin Jones recently said that "markets convene in conversations" and part of the impetus for SoCap08 was to foster a space for dialogue.  By the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around, the conversations were flowing.  As I tried to hurry between the afternoon sessions I had to squeeze past folks chatting in hallways, stairwells, restroom lines, even doorways with new acquaintances or old friends. 

I navigated my way into one of the few seats remaining in the "New African Capital" room and settled back to learn more about the equity funding models these African investors were pursuing to support local entrepreneurs. 

The panelist's background and approaches were quite varied and really highlighted a subset of the work being done.  Jo-Ann Pohl from Teba Bank, a South African community-owned bank that started by providing financial services to mineworkers, pitched in to moderate the session when Kojo Paris fell ill.  Pohl said that trying to meet the needs of Teba Bank's customers, mostly migrant laborers, has been the driving force behind the banks innovation in areas like cross-border transfers and reducing loan interest rates based on saving track records.   

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Guest blogger Cindy Chen is a 1st-year MBA student at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and is interested in helping businesses incorporate impactful social and environmental factors into the design of profitable strategies. Prior to Haas, Cindy worked on business development and consulting for the manufacturing and supply chain of labor-intensive goods in developing countries.  She is a graduate of M.I.T. with a degree in Management Science.

By Cindy Chen

Here at Social Capital Markets, Breaking Silos was another great panel, and one that was especially relevant to our present moment in history. The session's original agenda was the dismantling of silos as the keystone of the new social capital movement. But given the meltdown of the financial sector in recent weeks, the session evolved into a frank discussion of the successes and failures of cross-sector partnerships and future steps to accelerate the social capital market. 

Katherine Fulton of the Monitor Institute skillfully moderated the diverse set of panelists and encouraged interaction and dialogue with the audience.  The first panelist was David Erickson of the Federal Reserve of San Francisco's Center for Community Development Investments.  Erickson kicked off the session with a history of the Federal Reserve and its influence on affordable housing in the US.  One important milestone in this history was the Community Reinvestment Act, which stipulated that regulated financial institutions provide credit and deposit services in low-income communities.   Today, CRA is often blamed for causing the sub-prime crisis, although Erickson noted that it is actually the unregulated mortgage companies and investment banks that are in trouble. 

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Guest blogger Jill Finlayson is the Marketing Manager of Social Edge, the leading online community by and for social entrepreneurs.  She is a graduate of UC Berkeley, with a degree in Political Economy.  This post first appeared on Social Edge.

By Jill Finlayson

Yesterday was Blog Action Day with a focus on poverty. Looking at this topic through the lens of the Social Capital Conference held this week, there is hope and a rising tide of interest in investing in social enterprise (for profit, hybrid, and not for profit) as one way of directing resources toward solving problems of equity and environment (the latter also disproportionately impacts the poor). 

I am reminded of a comment made by one of the founders of B Corporation some time ago when he was pitching his venture - he pointed out that with most revenue passing through for-profit companies, to really affect change, you need to change the private sector. This conference helped spotlight those opportunities and the interest by entrepreneurs, family funds, grantmakers, and investors alike, in bringing about change on a significant scale. It was a rare ray of positive light in the otherwise bleak financial landscape. 

I participated in the panel on online communities with colleagues from Just Means, Changents, and Change.org.  And perhaps the most unifying point was the desire to help people connect with social entrepreneurs and causes they care about, and enable them to take action.  Whether choosing to work for ethical companies, buy locally grown organic foods, or support social entrepreneurs, people are coming together as powerful tribes demanding and causing change.

But they need help, and that is where the social entrepreneur comes in.  As Seth Godin says in his book Tribes, "there are now more tribes, smaller tribes, influential tribes, horizontal and vertical tribes, and tribes that could never have existed before ... All of it is worthless if you don't decide to lead. ... The market needs you (we need you) and the tools are there, just waiting. All that's missing is you, and your vision and your passion."

So with that in mind, and because Social Edge is all about practical, tactical tips, I'd like to share with you some of the great insights about how to pitch your social venture from the SoCap conference.  Whether you are pitching your social venture to investors or grant makers, the tips from the session were packed with concise guidelines for successful pitching. Here are the take-aways in a nutshell:

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