Options for Effective Intermediation of Social Businesses
Date: 2012 | Countries: Egypt, India, E Africa | Sector: Social Enterprises | Client: World Bank Development Marketplace
The Development Marketplace (DM) is a competitive grant program that identifies and funds innovative, early stage development projects that are scalable and/or replicable, while also having high potential for development impact. Grant beneficiaries are social entrepreneurs with projects that aim to create jobs and/or deliver a range of social and public services to low income groups.
Through a research project including extensive fieldwork, we assisted WBDM to understand the options for effective financial intermediation strategies to support growth and scaling of social enterprises providing critical services and goods to its target markets. Taking a “capital plus capacity” approach to addressing the needs of small and growing businesses, we analysed opportunities to expand appropriate finance, culminating in a convening and consultation with key stakeholders to vet and advance adoption of recommended approaches.
This project led to a second mandate where Enclude used a “real life” transaction mandate to help explore the role of intermediaries in mobilising capital for social businesses.