Think Different. You probably remember that as an Apple motto. But Andrew Stern of Global Development Incubator (GDI) applies the think differently model to the social impact space. It takes a different kind of thinking to apply the incubator model to nonprofits, but that’s what GDI does. You have to think differently if you want to help social enterprises go from startups to scale, but that’s what GDI does. You have to think differently about multi-stakeholder initiatives in which philanthropists, government agencies and private organizations team up take on Sustainable Development Goals. Again, that’s what GDI does. One of the initiatives GDI launched in 2016 is Convergence. Convergence is a platform that connects and supports private, public, and philanthropic investors for blended finance deals in emerging and frontier markets. Blended finance uses public and philanthropic funds to attract private capital, in order to achieve positive development outcomes. In other words, blended finance is: Government money + charity funds + private money = social impact. Convergence has an investor and deal network where investors and deals come together in a more efficient way. In this episode of Social Entrepreneur, Andrew Stern explains all of this different thinking. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Andrew Stern: “We’re trying to identify social agitators.” “What is the ultimate pathway to scale of impact that will really make a difference in the world?” “Convergence is the first platform exclusively for blended finance.” “The middle market or mezzanine level still has some gaps, and those gaps go beyond the financing.” “Get in the field and work on the ground.” “Very few of these good ideas are getting to the scale of impact that we want to see.” Mentoring Giveaway: Throughout the month of April, we’re giving away 10, one-on-one mentoring calls to help you launch or grow your social enterprise. We’ll be drawing each week. To enter, go to http://tonyloyd.com/coaching Social Entrepreneurship Resources: Global Development Incubator: http://globaldevincubator.org Convergence: https://www.convergence.finance From Blueprint to Scale: http://acumen.org/content/uploads/2013/03/From-Blueprint-to-Scale-Case-for-Philanthropy-in-Impact-Investing_Full-report.pdf Enter to win a one-on-one mentoring call! http://tonyloyd.com/coaching Try Audible and Receive Two Free Audiobooks: http://tonyloyd.com/books

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