SVC Key Terms and Definitions

 

 

 

a.        Venture Philanthropy –

                                                               i.      Venture philanthropy takes concepts and techniques from venture capital finance and high technology business management and applies them to achieving philanthropic goals, rather than achieving financial returns. It differs from social venture capital in that the capital is from donors who do not receive their money back.

 

b.      Social Entrepreneurship –

                                                               i.      Entrepreneurship that recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success, firstly in terms of the impact s/he has on society, and secondly in terms of financial returns.

 

c.       Leveraged Debt –

                                                               i.      Debt added on to equity investment to keep company ownership from being diluted

 

d.      Mission Related Investing (MRI) –

                                                               i.      Mission-related investing describes particular approaches to social investing that are appropriate for foundations. The recent upsurge in linking a foundation's corpus (the 95% of its assets) with it's mission (the 5 % of its assets it is legally obliged to spend or donate toward it's charitable mission) started with a series of articles about the Gates Foundation in the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story

 

e.      Triple Bottom Line –

                                                               i.      Accounting measures that capture additional values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success, including economic, environmental and social. TBL became the dominant approach to public sectorfull cost accounting with the ratification of the United Nations and ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007.

 

f.        Program Related Investment (PRI) –

                                                               i.      Low interest loans for social enterprises. Typically, interest rates range between 0-8%.

 

g.       Global Exchange for Social Investment (GEXSI) –

                                                               i.      Serves as a global security market for social capital. GEXSI was formed by UK-based Triodos Bank and helps create incentives, risk limitations, and development investment services for the social capital market.