Capacity Building -- Crevisse Building the next generation

of socially innovative and financially sustainable

enterprises
Similar to other countries in Asia, building good organisations and people is a continuous effort.
Crevisse fills this gap by investing in and then partnering with social enterprises. Remarkable about
this model is the tangible implementation of Crevisses mindset of high-touch partnerships and
transfer of capabilities to the enterprise with the aim of making socially innovative companies
profitable in the mainstream market.
Having been in existence since 2002, Crevisse has invested in eleven ventures:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Eduplex Education (investment, 2003)

DONUS (investment & incubation, 2007)
Inspire.D (investment & incubation, 2010)
Tree Planet (investment & incubation, 2010)
D3Jubilee (investment, 2011)
Musical Moby Dick (investment & incubation, 2012)
Bring your cup (investment & incubation, 2013)
Frientrip (investment & incubation, 2013)
Eone Timepieces (investment, 2014)
ZipBob (investment & incubation, 2014)
Enlighten (investment & Incubation, 2014)

Crevisse also initiated an Impact Talent Program i , which is aimed to affect societal change by
addressing personal development. Started in 2012, the programme is an initiative to find young and
talented artists who wish to make a change in society, but have yet to find the appropriate channels
to apply and develop their skills. The Impact Talent Program is still in development.
In its hopes to generate greater local impact, Crevisse has partnered with Korean organisations such
as RootImpact, MYSC, D3Jubilee, Social Enterprise Network (SEN). It also aims to extend the Crevisse
town into other regions and countries in expanding its Asian network to include ChangeFusion and
Social Venture Competition Asia.

Joining the town economy

The selection process for investment is biannual and 2-3 organisations are selected annually. While
organisations can apply, Crevisse is aware that organisations choose Crevisse as much as Crevisse
chooses them. It outlines its parameters transparently on its website. Crevisse invests in socially
innovative enterprises with a strong business model, that are able to generate revenue. Yet, if the
enterprise does not display a clear social mission, Crevisse will refrain from investing in it ii . Once
Crevisse decides to invest, it invites the organisation to work in their premises where its other
partnered organisations have also moved into to conduct their business operations.

Partnering like co-founders: making the mindset tangible

Incubation is a bit misleading according to Crevisse president and CEO Wonyoung Kimiii. Crevisse
investees are all for-profit enterprises with Crevisse holding equity, convertible notes or bonds but no
debt or grants. The primary reason for this lies in Crevisses mindset, which is built on partnership with
the individual organisation. Crevisses credo Entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs makes this
relationship equal in the sense of respect but different in terms of experience and the expertise.
Crevisses approach mirrors its incentive to have ownership and to relate with enterprises like cofounders.
This attitude of partnership manifests itself throughout Crevisses capacity building efforts.

Walking together but also alone

As a first step, Crevisse and the new organisation will develop a vision, mission, principles and goals
together. Crevisse will then help to develop the business model in collaboration with the organisation.
Once the business model proves feasible and the enterprise can penetrate the market, they work
together to create extra revenue. The aim is for the enterprise to have a sturdy business model and
to generate financial returns. Overall, the Crevisse team spends approximately 300 hours annually on
each organisation.
The top three areas for capacity building are strategy, finance, and business operations such as
accounting and human resource management. The CEO of the founding team and the partner meet
once a week to discuss the organisations strategy. Similarly, the financial meeting is held on a weekly
basis, where they examine the revenue growth, financial status, finances required to move forward,
and timelines for launching an investment pitch. Finally, business operations is a daily service that
helps complement the team with human resource and accounting management, which require
external expertise.
In the weekly capacity building meetings, [Crevisse tries] not to tell them the conclusion or the
process, but provides room for entrepreneurs to develop their own style, give them values, such as
value of excellence and love. [Crevisse] also tries to lead by example.iv In this transparent and hightouch environment, Crevisse hears much about what goes wrong. When this happens, we get
together and solve the issue, as Wonyoung Kim says, We regard everything as our business, so every
problem is our problem. Beyond the meetings, Crevisse invites speakers or lecturers who give new
perspective to entrepreneurs in areas such as UX design, entrepreneurship values, new ideas and
global market knowledge.

Creating a self-perpetuating culture of partnership

Crevisse Town Leaders

While mentorship and support are important, it is crucial for entrepreneurs to be able to succeed
alone, to get the resources they need outside of Crevisse and become the next generation of
entrepreneurs. Realising this, Crevisse fosters peer support, collaboration skills and a culture of
partnership in two ways:
Firstly, it holds a monthly townhall meeting,, where all entrepreneurs come out to share their progress
and expand on the forms of support they still require. In exchange, other enterprises will recommend
resources and share their solutions on relevant issues.
Secondly, Crevisse encourages collaborations between enterprises that share the same clients or work
on similar projects or have profit-sharing businesses. For instance one enterprise may have
crowdfunding expertise, while another has a solution to an issue. So they get together to market this
solution. While it is not easy to market a collaboration, this is a crucial skill for entrepreneurs. The
town economy thus fosters collaboration skills, increases and provides sustainable revenue and a longterm strategy. What were trying to do is have the entrepreneurs figure this out by themselves, to
transfer these capabilities back to entrepreneurs so that they can pass it on to othersv. This is a crucial
part of the partnership arrangement of Crevisse and a way to create the next generation of
entrepreneurs with a particular culture.

Building the next generation

Ultimately, Crevisse aims to grow the ecosystem of socially innovative organisations in Asia and to
integrate social innovations into the mainstream capital market. This adds significantly to the three
layers of enterprises in Korea, which are either established enterprises, startups or socially innovative
enterprises. With these skills, Crevisse, togther with its entrepreneurs, will discover the true potential
of and push their ventures to be the best for the world. They shape the next generation of enterprises
which believe in making a better tomorrow for the world.

All figures, dates and names are taken from the website: http://www.crevisse.com/about/ and have been
checked and augmented by Crevisse
ii
Interview on 7 April 2014 with Wonyoung Kim.
iii
Interview on 7 April 2014 with Wonyoung Kim.
iv
Interview on 7 April 2014 with Wonyoung Kim
v
Interview on 7 April 2014 with Wonyoung Kim.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0

International License.