Today we are thrilled to announce the global launch of Breaking the Binary: Policy Guide to Scaling Social Innovation, a collaborative effort of InSight at Pacific Community Ventures, the Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship/World Economic Forum, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation.
Breaking the Binary is the culmination of over six months of research including in-depth discussions with policymakers, entrepreneurs, and global leaders on how government can foster social innovation – including social enterprise and impact investing. The result is a Framework for Policy Action, supported by on-the-ground case study examples from around the world, that provides clear entry points for policymakers interested in encouraging social innovation in their own political, cultural, and economic contexts.
Governments approach social innovation in myriad ways. And more and more examples of government action are emerging – from a venture capital trust fund (Ghana), to a national innovation council (India), to a hub within government (Colombia), to a social investment bank (United Kingdom), just to name a few efforts already in progress and highlighted within the report.
The Framework is intended to be intuitive and concrete, offering six practical actions for scaling social innovation grounded in thoughtful governance:
- Engage market stakeholders: Foster network development and ideas generation
- Develop government capacity for action: Clarify need for policy and align internal resources
- Build market infrastructure and capacity: Develop and capitalize intermediaries and knowledge
- Grow and direct private capital: Motivate investor participation
- Prepare enterprises for growth: Ready private actors to attract capital and scale business models
- Review and refine policy: Evaluate performance and respond quickly to learnings
The report is being launched in Lima, Peru at the inaugural World Economic Forum Social Innovation Summit. PCV InSight Director Ben Thornley is at the Summit with global leaders to lead discussions around the Framework and the role of policy in scaling social innovation.
Launched by the Summit discussions, the Framework will provide an ongoing resource for policymakers around the world, facilitating government action to harness the power of social enterprise and impact investing to address their most pressing social and environmental challenges.