Making an Impact through Social Finance

We’re really excited to be participating in the inaugural Canadian Global Impact Investing Group event: Making an Impact through Social Finance. The event will bring together organizations working to deploy capital to transform lives, create a world beyond poverty, fund social ventures and support sustainable development.

One of our knowledge/education team member, Jocelyn Ling, will be presenting on behalf of Vancouver for Acumen Fund — shar­ing the acu­men model (both on a global and chap­ter level) to the impact invest­ing com­mu­nity in Van­cou­ver. The event will be held on Wednes­day, Nov 23rd from 6:30pm — 9pm at SFU’s Segal Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness in down­town Van­cou­ver. You can check out more details about the event here.

Three other orga­ni­za­tions will also be pre­sent­ing at the event: Vancity, Global Cat­a­lyst Ini­tia­tive and Oppor­tu­nity Inter­na­tional Canada. Also, at the event, they will be giv­ing away door prizes: Impact invest­ing: Trans­form­ing How We make Money While Mak­ing a Dif­fer­ence – Jed Emer­son, Antony Bugg-Levine and Banker to the Poor – Muham­mad Yunus.

Look­ing for­ward to con­nect­ing with other fel­low impact investing/social enter­prise champions!

Update: For those of you who could not make it out to the event, check out Jocelyn’s presentation at the event here.

Workshop Spots Available!

The Education team has been able to secure a larger venue to host the Case Competition Workshops! If you weren’t able to register for the competition, but would like to participate in the workshops, you’re more than welcome to join us!

Workshop participate will cost $50 at the door and includes all 4 workshops!

The first will be held on Saturday, November 5th at 10am at Buchanan A104, UBC.

For more details on the workshop, click here.

Case Competition – it’s back!

Excited yet? The Vancouver for Acumen Fund Case Competition: Investing for Impact is back! (more details)

Registration is open to students in undergraduate and graduate studies competing in teams of 3. Successful applicants will be notified by October 24th.

If you haven’t received your confirmation email – check your spam, or email us!

email us if you have any questions: van4acumen.edu@gmail.com

A short video from our last Salon

Vancouver for Acumen from Chris McNally on Vimeo.

The First of Many Conversations at +Acumen Salons

Tuesday, June 28^thmarked the first of Vancouver for Acumen’s newly launched Salon Conversation Series; an event designed around conversation and inspired by the values and principles of Acumen Fund.

The idea sprung from our chapter’s two-day moral leadership workshop in early May after posing the question “How can we share more conversations about the values and principles of Acumen Fund in a way that is unique and enriching for participants but at the same time scalable to other chapters?”

Acumen Planning Workshop Vancouver Spring 2011

Van4Acumen’s journey to implement the Blue Sweater Challenge

Part 1: Listen. Listen. Listen.

‘Jacqueline’s dream would be to see the Blue Sweater Challenge taken chapter-wide.’ said Jo-Ann Tan, our direct contact at Acumen Fund HQ, who has become a friend, mentor and inspiration to me and chapter leaders around the globe.

And that’s how Vancouver for Acumen started thinking about how we could make Acumen Fund’s dream a reality.

The Blue Sweater Challenge was a business plan competition held in Kibera, Nairobi; a challenge to individuals and groups to create change in their community. In true Acumen-style, the winners were given one-year loans instead of grants and charged a nominal interest rate to start their business ideas.

When Jo-Ann first proposed that our chapter implement the challenge, my first reaction was, ‘What could Vancouver and Nairobi possibly have in common?’. But after giving it some more thought, I started to see the similarities between Kibera, Africa’s infamous slum, and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), a neighborhood known as Canada’s poorest postal code.

DIGNITY: A moment in time

It’s 7pm and the signs of dusk are slowly taking form in Vancouver. Tucked away at the corner of Dunlevy Street on the East side of Vancouver is a white washed building with the word “CHAPEL” imprinted just above the entrance. Inside, rows of photographs line the walls. Each one telling a story that transcend the glossy paper it has been printed on. 

On one end of the room, a young Maasai girl sits by the window of an empty classroom: her most treasured space. On the other end, hundreds of worshipers are on their hands and knees scattered amongst what used to be a mosque in Kashmir, silent, in prayer. And in the middle, a young ballerina strikes an elegant pose outside her small family house just outside Cape Town. 

On May 5th, Vancouver for Acumen hosted a one night photo exhibition and auction: DIGNITY. That night, “a picture is worth a thousand words” as each print captured tales of hope, dignity and the beauty of the human spirit. Using photography for social change, the photo exhibition was curated by Nuru Project and included a local Vancouver social enterprise, Hope in Shadows, with prints taken from their annual photography contest for residents in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the poorest postal code in Canada. 

The evening was a blend of cocktails, music and a live photo auction peppered with conversations about poverty and the incredible work of Acumen Fund. The night also hosted Jo-Ann Tan (Business Development Marketing Manager), Peter Thompson (Hope and Shadows photographer) and Blair Miller (Global Fellows Manager). The former two also spoke about the work that Acumen Fund does and the inspiration for certain photos respectively. Through the generosity of Vancouver residents, Vancouver for Acumen raised just over $13,000 that night. 

Behind the scenes, DIGNITY is more than just a photo auction. It is a combination of two parts of a story: a dedication to a world beyond poverty and a deeper, personal symbolism of what dignity means to the human spirit. 

“[When] we think about solutions to poverty, we cannot deny individuals their fundamental dignity. Because at the end of the day, dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth,” Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of Acumen Fund.

You can see more pictures from the night here and learn more about Acumen Fund here. 

Vancouver for Acumen would like to thank our sponsors, in-kind sponsors, guests, volunteers and chapter members for all your hard work and support for this event. 

Jocelyn Ling
www.twitter.com/j_ling