VA
Insights

My dear friends,

On the occasion of yet another Christmas season, I sincerely wish all friends and family of Venture Avenue happy and healthy.

To Venture Avenue, 2016 is a year in which we continuously explore the frontier of China philanthropy. Social enterprise is not a strange concept any more while the boundaries of commercial and philanthropic capital are being broken. It is exactly the right time and right place for Venture Avenue team to exploit its cross-sector advantage to the full.

Starting from June this year, Venture Avenue team was engaged by the Asian Development Bank (hereafter “ADB”) in “inclusive business” research and practice. Based on a comprehensive study of over 70 domestic businesses, we probed into the question of how these businesses achieve success while alleviating the BOP population from poverty. From small-scale agricultural start-ups, to e-commerce platform worth trillions, we cheer for the blend of commerce and philanthropy. The kind of “scalable social enterprises” that we have been looking for finally surfaced in the form of “inclusive business”, and we have witnessed many successful prototypes that are even comparable to international best practices.

In September, together with ADB and provincial Poverty Alleviation Office, Venture Avenue was engaged in making rules of distributing USD 100 million of inclusive business loans and execution in Shanxi Province. From a pool of over 50 businesses, we selected 20 inclusive businesses and provided with loans and incubation to support their scaling up, which will lead to thousands of BOP population to be lifted out of poverty. In Heilongjiang Province, we will soon start another project to explore the way to success among SME incubators. We expect these incubators to play a vital role in local economic transformation, urbanization construction, and attracting talents back to their hometown.

Same as the social enterprise incubation and impact investing that we have been driving in China for the past five years, “inclusive business” is a brand new concept crossing the public sector, private sector and philanthropic sector and in accordance with the national 2020 anti-poverty strategy. In this context, it is perfect timing for Venture Avenue team with crossover expertise to be involved in cross-sector strategic operations.

In the traditional philanthropy sector, Venture Avenue and our strategic partners have worked closely in 2016 to explore Project Management Office (hereafter “PMO”):
– In March, we initiated “First Sound” project targeting impoverished children with severe hearing impairment. Our PMO service covers project design, resource consolidation, fundraising and implementation, etc. We are also managing “Family Philanthropy Office” with China Women Development Foundation, Joy Miles project with Nike and One Foundation, and will soon be working with Dulwich International Schools Foundation. These together constitute the core of our PMO service.
– The first incubator of Social Innovation Hub in partnership with Tsinghua x-lab has incubated over 20 young social entrepreneurs within the year. Also we have made investments in three outstanding social enterprises in the areas of talent cultivation, charitable project promotion, and recycled material redesign.

Looking back into the seven years of development, Venture Avenue has developed core expertise in strategy consulting and management in the philanthropy sector. In the near future, cross-sector strategic operations is becoming an exciting area to tap into.

Dear friends, as we approach the end of 2016, let’s reflect those fine moments once again and walk hand-in hand into the new boundless era.

Robin Zhang
Founder, Venture Avenue