Wednesday, November 14, 2018
On 14th November 2018 the "Circolo della Stampa" (Press Club) of Turin hosted the “ALPSIB FORUM: Building an equitable future. New forms of social impact investments across the Private, Third and Public sectors”. The forum was chaired by Davide Dal Maso from the social accelerator AVANZI.
The Forum was open by Monica Cerruti, Regional Minister of Immigration Policies and Equal Opportunities Polices of Piedmont Regional Government. Giving her welcoming greetings, Minister Cerrutti strongly stated that “Regional Development is not only brought about by technology, it also means community development: it is about welfare and wellbeing”. This statement paved the way for the moving stories of six exceptional best practices of investment in social impact and healthcare, stories told by investors, public officers, social providers coming from all around Europe.
The first Austrian Social Impact Bond “Economic and social empowerment for women victims of violence” was presented by the Center for Protection Against Domestic Violence Upper Austria, the social provider contracted by investors to achieve the employment outcomes expected by The Austrian Ministry of Social Affair. One of the four Social Impact Contracts set up in France, since the call come out in 2015, was presented by BNP Paribas (Intermediary and investor) and WiMoov (the social provider) portraying a promising digital tool for inclusive mobility targeting unemployed people. Two highlighting cases of Hybrid Finance from Germany were reported by FASE (Financing Agency for Social Entrepreneurship), describing how grants and loans can go together to boost innovative social business. The Italian Social Venture Fondazione Giordano dell’Amore illustrated its strategy to accelerate and invest in social business, a device for blood sampling from children small veins was showcased. A striking presentation of the Slovenian social organization Simbioza, illustrated a ready to market social initiative for tackling digital illiteracy and portrayed the challenges social entrepreneurs face every day in scaling their business. The morning was closed by the story of first Social Impact Bond launched in the Canton of Bern (Switzerland) to integrate Refugees into the labor market: Caritas Bern and the intermediary Invethos reported on it.
In the Afternoon three workshops focused on innovation in private and public financing “impact”, each targeting a particular audience: public administrations, investors, and social enterprises/organizations.
120 people attended the forum, the audience was well balanced between representatives from the Public, the Finance and the Third Sectors. Feedbacks were also high scoring on average 8 out of 10, both for the morning and the afternoon workshops. Press release was also extensive: 2 articles were published on Italian newspapers (La Stampa and Il Corriere della Sera) and several articles were published on line.
