SOCAP - the Company
I Co-founded SOCAP in 2008 to unify the diverse types of investors being attracted to social businesses. Prior to SOCAP foundations, philanthropies, angel investors, government agencies, and even Wall Street all went their separate path. We thought they should all be in the same room sharing insights, experience and deals. I convinced Halloran to be the first major Sponsor and now SOCAP gathers nearly 2,500 people a year generating an acceleration in impact investing. It is a for-profit social enterprise.
New Investment Structure
In 2008 Cheryl Dorsey (Echoing Green( asked Wayne Silby (Founder Calvert Funds) and I to present our ideas behind stimulating more impact investment capital. This led to the formation of the Enterprise Innovation Fund with Michael Cox and a year long effort to make the case to the White House and government agencies to accelerate the supply of impact investment capital. This work helped catalyze the formation of Startup America and the creation of a billion dollar SBA Impact fund. (Obama Administration 2008-10).
Network - Platform
The first online art-science-technology network and platform allowing its members to post their projects with tags and profiles. Included Virtual Reality, robotics, art installations, web-books, software and more. Creative Disturbance connected members with resources including funding.
Social Media App
This Social Media App allows you to access a digital archive based on the physical space you are in. Imagine these as shareable time capsules or mobile post it notes. Leveraging GPS and an engine that allows any type of media to be pushed (beamed) in realtime after matching the recipient in three contexts - time, space and the stream they created or joined. We were selected by Plug'N Play to be one of their top companies in 2015 and are now about to release a new version.
TEDx Oaxaca Event
After starting the Forum on Social Innovation in 2012 in Oaxaca as an international event, we recognized the need to share some of the inspirational stories presented there to the local public. This led to the first TEDx Oaxaca events in succeeding years.
CATAPULTA Network & Platform
CATAPULTA is a Festival & Platform for Social Innovation. Seeing how the open accessibility of tools and technologies were spurring innovation at grassroots levels, particularly led by youth, we believed this should be more visible. We leverage the voices of leading musicians, artists, designers, filmmakers and business people to inspire youth to "do it themselves" in solving their own communities challenges.
Social & Financial Impact Dashboard
In 2008-2009 we began to work with Tony Deifel and Daryl Hammond at Kaboom to create a dashboard for measuring both financial and social impact. One of the most successful example of how non-profits can be both financially and socially successful. In this case creating a scalable and replicable model for engaging volunteers, sponsors and neighborhoods to build their own playground. We helped create a very sophisticated tool for monitoring their work in realtime.