When we created SOCAP, it had one main goal: to demolish the dominant two pocket thinking myth. That is, that you could only invest for financial return and later on give back some of that return to “do good”.
That’s been done, or is nearly done. People now understand that they can invest for good as well as give for good. You can think like a philanthropist and still act like a serious investor.
Now it’s time to take it to the next level, focusing on the interlinked problems of climate change, communities and the need to transform the nature of capital, tame it in time to build a world that works for our mutual survival. Transform owes no debt to the status quo, or old questions of whether you can have market rate returns along with real impact. Transform is ready to change the rules of the game and make sure they work for everybody, including under represented communities and marginalized neighborhoods.
Rather than being a simple convening where you hear ideas and meet partners, co investors and investees, Transform will help people solve collective problems that require the participation of all stakeholders before hand. This will happen at the event with professionally designed labs and afterwards, using HiveBright an online collaboration platform provided to us by the Capital Institute along with regular conference calls and pop-up local versions of Transform (think a local Tedx linked to a network dealing with complex issues shared by a community or economic bioregion).
One problem we are working to solve is the fact that transitioning to farming that sequesters carbon and builds deep topsoil costs more than most farmers can afford; it’s a problem they need to solve collectively because an individual cannot solve it alone. We may, in fact, create a mutual health and crop insurance system, where families would pay health forward with insurance premiums, or use a social impact bond or some other tool.
This transition challenge is the kind of problem Transform is focused on: problems of collective action that require coordination central to our ability to respond to climate change at the needed speed. Several other labs are in development which we will share with you soon!
If you want to be part of solving the biggest problems facing us, using entrepreneurship and a capital that serves the community rather than the wealthy few, then join us as we learn to think and act differently together at Transform.