Image: Venture Avenue
charity and thus lack knowledge
in business. Some have strong
business expertise, but a few want
to work for the social sector.
D: In addition to investment,
do you provide other kinds of
support for the social enterprises?
M: Yes. Our consultants do
hands-on work for them including
establishing financial models,
referring clients, etc. Our work
on corporate social responsibility
gives us a large client base. We
introduce them to the social
enterprises we invest in. There
is a strong interdepartmental
collaboration within Venture
Avenue.
D: How do you evaluate the social
impact of your invested projects?
M: Usually the social enterprises
will submit the data and we review
them. We will look into the scope
of their service such as how
many people they serve. We also
conduct an analysis of how much
34 Change Magazine
improvement they make before
and after the investment. For
instance, for a poverty alleviation
project, we will look into the
income growth of the peasants.
D: Are applications by invitation
only or do you accept online
applications too?
M: We do both. Although we do
not have an online application
option on our website yet, we
review applications sent to us via
email.
register as both a non-profit entity
and an enterprise so they can
receive grants or donations as well
as investments.
D: Many social enterprises have
difficulties at the ideation or
startup stage. Do you have any
suggestions for them?
M: My suggestion is to develop the
prototype product/service as soon
as possible, Test it and try to sell it.
D: In China, do you have any
policy obstacles in doing impact
investment?
M: Neither social enterprises
nor impact investors enjoy tax
exemption. This is because you
cannot register as either of them.
Last year, China passed the Charity
Law to allow you to start Charity
Trust to do equity investment.
We have tried this new approach
in a few pilot cases. For social
enterprises, we encourage them to
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