Yunus Social Business – Global Initiatives

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Yunus Social Business
Industry Impact investing
Founder Muhammad Yunus
Headquarters Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Area served
 Albania, Brazil ,Colombia, Costa Rica, Haiti, India, Tunisia, Uganda
Website http://www.yunussb.com/

Yunus Social Business Global Initiatives (YSB) is a social business accelerator that incubates and finances local entrepreneurs to help build solutions from the ground up. YSB is active in 8 countries with local offices in 7 which source, coach and mentor entrepreneurs. YSB finances promising social businesses and provides post-investment support as well, in order to create and empower social businesses that address and solve social problems around the world.

YSB’s headquarters in Frankfurt coordinates all countries across the globe, serves as a shared services provider to all countries and develops YSB’s overall strategy. The team drives process standardization, quality control, and knowledge exchange across all countries and makes the final financing decision. Global partnerships that benefit all countries are initiated through YSB, as are global fundraising activities and investor relations.

Background

Building on the success achieved by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh where social businesses have worked at scale, YSB was co-founded by Professor Yunus in 2011 to replicate the model globally. As a spin-off from the Grameen Creative Lab, its focus is on creating and empowering social businesses outside of Bangladesh.[1][2] As the international implementation arm for Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus’s concept of Social Business,[3][4] YSB operates as a social business itself while applying business approaches to the world of social development, in particular, the social business model.

What YSB does

In each country where YSB operates – namely, Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, India, Tunisia and Uganda – it concentrates on two activities to help develop social businesses: entrepreneurial services (through its Accelerator Program and post-acceleration services) and financing (through its in-country Social Business Fund).

The Accelerator Program

YSB screens and selects social businesses, builds local capacity and provides technical assistance in each country through its Accelerator Program which trains entrepreneurs to scale their social businesses. The three- to four-month Program offer social entrepreneurs the opportunity to strengthen their business acumen through workshops, leadership training, access to international and local mentors and networks as well as prototype testing. Indeed, businesses that are admitted into the Accelerator Program are typically at the prototype or early-revenue stage and just need small but meaningful financial assistance to test their prototypes, increase their productivity and/or scale up of production.

The Social Business Fund

To high potential social entrepreneurs emerging out of the Accelerator Program, YSB provides financing and post-investment support. At the end of the Accelerator Program, entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to the YSB Investment Committee and selected social businesses may receive seed capital from YSB’s Social Business Fund in the country. Investment amounts are determined by the level of the entrepreneur’s proof of concept, viability of business plans and overall cash requirements. Financing is provided in incremental steps based on milestone and KPI achievements and as equity and long-term shareholder loans with below-market-conditions and tailored grace and repayment periods.

Country Initiatives

YSB is active in 8 countries with local offices in 7 including Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, India Tunisia and Uganda.[5] Since 2011,YSB has deployed $7.4 million to 26 social businesses in 7 countries, supporting more than 400 entrepreneurs and having an impact on more than 200,000 customers.

YSB Albania

YSB Albania began operations in April 2012 with the support of the Albanian National Government, and in 2014, it expanded its outreach to Kosovo. YSB Albania has financed 5 social businesses to date, and ran its first intense accelerator program in 2014.

YSB Brazil

In March 2013, YSB Brazil was launched to spread the social business concept throughout Brazil; Rio was officially declared a ‘Social Business City.’ Yunus Negocios Sociais Brasil, as it is locally known, ran three cycles of accelerator programs in São Paulo and Rio in 2014.

YSB Colombia

YSB Colombia was created in 2011 originally as Grameen Caldas and officially became YSB Colombia in 2013. It currently manages a portfolio of 3 social businesses to date, including a joint venture with potato giant McCain.

YSB Costa Rica

Launched the first corporate social business joint venture with a Costa Rican leading food company, Florida Ice and Farm Company, to produce food to combat malnutrition targeting children.

YSB Haiti

Based in Port-au-Prince, the YSB Haiti office was opened in 2010 with the support of our founding partner SAP. Currently, the team manages a portfolio of 9 social businesses. In 2013, YSB set up a new social business joint venture together with Virgin Unite and the Clinton Foundation – The Haiti Forest initiative.[6] The main objectives of Haiti Forest are to engage the local community in re-foresting Haiti, provide sustainable livelihoods to farmers across Haiti, create job opportunities and create an affordable and clean fuel source to reduce dependency on charcoal.

YSB India

YSB India was launched in 2011 in Mumbai, and 7 social businesses have received financing to date.

YSB Tunisia

Launched in 2013 in partnership with the African Development Bank, Tunisia was the first in a series of African countries to replicate the social business concept. In 2014, it launched its first accelerator program, locally known as iBDA.

YSB Uganda

In partnership with the African Development Bank, YSB Uganda was started in November 2013, and the first social businesses were supported in 2014.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Muhammad (2011). Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs. PublicAffairs. pp. 256.ISBN 978-1-58648-956-4
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Yunus, Muhammad (2009). Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. PublicAffairs. pp. 320. ISBN 978-1-58648-667-9.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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