Thursday, 9 May 2013 Interactive Panel European and US Perspectives on Venture Philanthropy Panel Participants: Cliff Prior, Chief

f Executive, UnLtd Douglas Miller, Chairman, AVPN Kurt Peleman, CEO, EVPA Luther Ragin, CEO, GIIN Lance Fors, President, Social Venture Partners International

We talked about whats happening in the US and Europe Kurt Peleman reported that the EVPA in the early years was focused on promoting the VP concept so that more people would become practitioners. They were very successful in building up the network of practitioners, and now they are focused on fostering community among those practitioners. Peleman also mentioned that other geographies should replicate the innovative ways that the VP industry in Europe is collaborating with governments (he used the UKs Social Impact Bonds as an example). Lance Fors reported that the VP ecosystem has become quite developed in the US, and funders have started to place themselves within that ecosystem. He described it in this way: Individual investors usually invest in early stage projects/seed funding Professional funds have a more defined time horizon, usually invest in middle stage companies/projects Larger endowed foundations there are still only a handful that play in VP (but its growing Gates Foundation is an example), and they tend to invest in the later stage

Fors suggested one US trend that is worth spreading: there has been significant field building happening in the US. In addition to providing financial capital, VPs are now working on the human and intellectual capital elements too, making this a more holistic relationship. We talked about whats happening in Asia The VP market in Asia is currently showing a huge amount of increased interest. How do we translate that interest into engagement and action? Suggested solution from Douglas Miller is: Raise awareness Attract pioneers Facilitate cross border learning with US/Europe Facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing Promote sector specific learning Promote establishment of new VP/SI practitioners Engage governments and multi-laterals

We talked about what has been critical to the development of the VP sector in the US and Europe: Legitimacy - Significant players brought legitimacy to VP. Investors are risk averse. Big players have helped move VP forward. (This includes institutional investors and Foundations.) Improved Deal Flow Organizations including Ashoka, Schwab Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and many others have helped help connect investment opportunities with funders. The more effort that is put in to connecting funders with funding opportunities, the better. The GIINs ImpactBase is also helping to to connect investors to opportunities in the investment landscape.

And finally, we discussed challenges that exist across geographies to varying degrees: Managing expectations Funders need to understand what sort of financial return and social impact return they can expect. Transparency Transparency with respect to social impact and financial performance. Investors must be more transparent about criteria and investees about whether they can meet those criteria. The GIINs IRIS project is helping investors and investees speak the same language with regard to social metrics. More efforts must still be made to improve transparency.