Our
impact
Since our founding in 2003, we have supported around 50 social enterprises. Each has either improved the lives of disadvantaged people, mitigated our damage to the planet or worked to create a more harmonious society. All together, they have achieved an astounding impact, supported by us and our investors:
People reached
Tons of CO2 emissions avoided
Why “high-impact investment”?
High-impact investing means that we go beyond the usual exclusion criteria or ESG criteria of sustainability funds: for each of the companies we support, we set out clear targets by means of an external impact analysis. As part of this process, the company must clearly describe the social challenge it wants to solve and identify its causes. Furthermore, it must pursue a measurable goal with a defined target group and set out the leverage with which it wants to reach the goal. We measure the achievement of these goals by means of the “IOOI Theory of Change” with suitable indicators. We have steadily developed our impact measurement further since BonVenture Fund I.
What qualifies as a
social enterprise?
Our goal is a sustainable society as defined by the United Nations. All of the social enterprises we support promote one or more UN Sustainable Development Goals, but not merely with an annual Christmas donation or through their CSR department. Real social entrepreneurship runs deeper for us.
Striving for profit and the common good at the same time
The EUROPEAN VENTURE PHILANTHROPY ORGANIZATION (EVPA) ranks social enterprises on a spectrum with two distinct poles: on the one hand, classic for-profit companies, which may occasionally engage in CSR or donate part of their profits; on the other hand, the non-profit sector, which subsists on donations or subsidies. In between these extremes are social enterprises, in various forms. They combine entrepreneurial profit with social impact. They maximize neither one nor the other but seek to achieve a harmonious optimization of both. Only if they achieve their social impact and at the same time operate profitably do we consider them as successful.
How we support
social enterprises
When it comes to achieving social impact, our role is to support social enterprises – financially, strategically, ideally and with our network.
High-impact investing from an entrepreneur’s perspective
We only select social enterprises for BonVenture investments with exceptionally high social impact. The impact must be an integral part of the business model, that is to say, a direct consequence of the business activity. This gives us significantly higher impact targets than typical sustainability funds. At the same time, the enterprises finance themselves from their own business, so they are not primarily dependent on donations or subsidies. More details about our selection criteria can be found on the page for social entrepreneurs.
