Sonal Shah and Lily Cole consider potential impact of social enterprise | The Social Enterprise Magazine – Pioneers Post Many of the social entrepreneurs in the running for the prize money were present in the audience.

Amongst the guests wrestling with the critical question was Sonal Shah, from the Beeck Centre for Social Impact and Innovation, based at Georgetown University in Washington. Shah is also the ex-director of the office of social innovation at the White House, established under the Obama administration.

Alongside Shah was former model turned social entrepreneur Lily Cole of Impossible.com, described on the site as ‘A global community who help each other out. From a social enterprise angle, maybe what’s more impactful is lots and lots of small enterprises doing very, very well.”

Investment

Moderator Daniela Papi-Thornton (from the Said Business School) cited the oft-quoted obstacles to growing a social enterprise; lack of access to funding, lack of government support and red tape. If you’re not getting funding you need to look at whether your business proposal is the right kind of business proposal and is that why you’re not getting funding?”

Davies pointed out that raising money for any business was challenging and said he had the utmost respect for social enterprises trying to fundraise: “What you’re doing is narrowing the group of investors that will be interested in you because what you’re looking for is an investor that is looking for a return but also looking for the social value out of that.”

To naively try and have social impact and not have sustainability is a suicidal path

Cole was asked why she thought it was harder to raise money for a social venture.