The Final Speakers

Guest Speaker Paola Greiner on Venture Philanthropy

On Thursday we were fortunate enough to have two speaker presentations. The first was with Paola Greiner who currently works for the EU. Paola has a degree in Social Entrepreneurship from the London school of Economics and is very involved in the non-profit sector. The presentation she gave was focused on Venture Philanthropy in Europe. Venture Philanthropy is not an easy topic to discuss or learn. According to Wikipedia, Venture Philanthropy is defined as "Taking concepts and techniques from venture capital finance and high technology business management and applies them to achieving philanthropic goals." Paola described Venture Philanthropy in Europe as philanthropic giving to social purpose organizations with an emphasis on performance and a combination of expertise and financial support. In Europe Venture Philanthropy is focused at the organizational level because it is seen as a more rewarding style of giving. During her presentation, Paola also spent a few minutes to discuss the European venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) with us. The EVPA has 31 current full members and many more supporters. The organizations involved with EVPA tend to support social welfare initiatives while focusing on expansion and replication. The EVPA is set up in order to help finance small non-profit groups that need funding. The funding is mostly provided through grants, however some agencies do provide loans. The EVPA is not only a financial based organization. Alongside their financial initiatives, the EVPA also provides business plan development, management training, and other programs necessary to running a successful Non-Profit. In total, Paola's presentation was very helpful to myself and the others in the group because until now Venture Philanthropy has been difficult to grasp the general concept of.

Conversation With Student Social Entrepreneurs of The Volunteer Construction Camp

Here is a link with some background on the student Organization I will be discussing below.

https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=102178413186846

The second presentation on Thursday was by a small student organization from the college for advanced studies in Social theory. The student organization consisted of board members and other members in charge of running the Social Housing Reconstruction Camps in Hungary. The Social Housing Reconstruction Camps is a program based in Hungary which focuses on helping poor families reduce their rent in exchange for growth in the value of government properties. The program focuses on getting small local governments to agree that if the poor community work to improve the status of their government provided housing, they can in turn reduce their rent. The program believes that the main outcomes of the program will be that those involved in the re modification of the housing projects will gain a sense of pride in where they live and they will also learn to basic working skills. The main project that the group has been working on is focused on a slum community called Ligetvaros which is in the city of Nagykanizsa. Ligetvaros is a slum of 110 council flats which were originally built as military hospital barracks. Sewage and plumbing was added to the community in 1989 and there has been no reconstruction since. Because of thee help of the Social Housing Reconstruction Camps, the Ligetvaros has been able to improve the condition of their community and almost 70 community members have been able to reduce their rent and completely eliminate their debt. The success of the Social Housing Reconstruction Camps is reliant on a lot of outside help. Through the cooperation of many corporate sponsors such as Dewalt and other tool, and home improvement companies, The SHRC is provided with the tools necessary for housing reconstruction. The SHRC is also partnered with habitat for Humanity which provides them with volunteers and supplies in order to further their accomplishments. Along with tool donations and other essential supplies the SHRC also receives funding from Norwegian Grants. While the program is very new, the student group emphasized that they have already learned many valuable lessons about how to run a successful charity organization. The SHRC is currently waiting to hear back from local government if their application to become an officially registered Non-Profit has been approved or not. The meeting ended with a round of Q&A and then we were finished. In all I was able to tell that the SHRC has the ambition needed to become a great organization and I speak for myself and my colleagues when I wish them the best of luck in the future.