Building the Social Entrepreneur Ecosystem

By Silvina Antunes, 1st year MDP student

I was lucky enough to spend three months (that flew by way too quickly) working in Colombo, Sri Lanka with Lanka Impact Investing Network (LIIN), a small organization working to help social entrepreneurs realize their fullest potential.

Throughout my time here, I have heard the word ‘ecosystem’ used more often than in my 10th grade Biology class. At first, I didn’t understand the use of this term but as I heard it explained more and more, I began to understand. How can we promote change if the wider systems stay the same? In situations like this, only the exceptional will survive, and it would be extremely difficult for new social entrepreneurs to break into the market. This is where building the ecosystem comes in.

Conference attendees outside the venue

If a supportive environment is created where social entrepreneurs can access the services they need to begin, build and eventually, scale up, it will increase the opportunities and therefore, the popularity of social entrepreneurship in the country. This is truly a holistic approach to looking at business. Building the ecosystem comprises of the creation of tools at all levels from accessing capital to begin creating a product to market access to financial measurement tools.

The greatest task I took on this summer in terms of helping to build the ecosystem was assisting in the creation and facilitation of a conference, attended by high level business people, large financial institutions and impact investors who are already working in Sri Lanka. The purpose of this conference was to raise awareness about impact investing, investing into social enterprises, for those who are already making investments in conventional ways or people involved in investing on a daily basis. The conference was attended by approximately 50 people and was a great success! 

I was also able to work with entrepreneurs to assist them in aspects of their business where they felt they needed such as in building business plans, doing social media marketing, etc. and to refer them to some partner organizations who specialized in some of these areas. Additionally, we worked to build more partnerships so that LIIN-affiliated social entrepreneurs could access services beyond what LIIN is able to offer such as financial management.  
 

LIIN entrepreneurs selling their products at a Saturday market in Colombo

All in all, it was a wonderful three months. I was able to work in the most supportive environment, I learned more than I ever thought possible in such a short time and I made friends that I am sure will last a lifetime. I truly could not have asked for a better experience and although I am sad it’s over, I am happy to be returning home with new relationships, new skills and a new, more positive outlook on economic development.