Social Investment Toolkit: A Social Entrepreneur's Guide To Raising Finance

Are you a social entrepreneur looking to raise investment? Perhaps you’re wondering where to start, but don’t know how, or what social investors are looking for? Then this toolkit is for you! In eight modules, we guide you through all key steps, from how to tell your impact story to creating a compelling investor pitch. Along the way, we'll explain the technical aspects of raising finance and what social investors are really looking for. This Social Investment Toolkit is specifically written for social entrepreneurs – people using business methods to tackle social issues. We’ll show how social entrepreneurs can best find social investors: funders who are eager to put their capital into businesses that deliver measurable impact on social or environmental causes as well as profitable financial returns. This guide assumes no prior knowledge about raising capital. We de-mystify the jargon of finance, and explain in simple steps what you need to know and what you need to do in order to be able to present a compelling case to funders. Drawing upon the experience of many of the field’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors, the Social Investment Toolkit is packed with: · Case Studies from entrepreneurs who’ve succeeded, showing how they did it · Insights from Ashoka, the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs · Practical advice from practitioners and pioneers in the field · Diagnostic tools to help you work out which parts of your investment proposal to work on The Toolkit also offers unique advice specifically for social enterprises, such as: · The legal aspects of launching a social enterprise: should you be a for-profit, not-for-profit, or a hybrid? · How can you blend philanthropy and investment? · Valuing the Social Impact of your business · How to make your mission the core of your business · Key financial decisions: should you raise debt, equity or philanthropy? · How can you protect your social mission while bringing in outside investors? The Toolkit will also be of interest to social investors, students of social enterprise, and to anyone interested in learning the latest techniques from the rapidly developing field of social finance. Those with a finance background but unfamiliar with how finance operates in the social enterprise sector will also find this Toolkit useful. This is a must-read practical guide on how to raise social finance, packed with insights from one of the field’s leading experts.