Relevance insurance
An insurance for companies that want to start a risky societal initiative. If the initiative fails, insurance covers the money they lost.
Challenge - What societal challenge does it combat?
There are (maybe) companies, who don't want to start societal initiatives, such as community development projects or developing a holistic CSR strategy, because of the financial risk.
Markets - Who will buy, why and how much they are going to pay for it?
Companies that are not yet having a major societal contribution but have at least played with the idea, because they see the potential benefits of societal initiatives but are concerned about the risk. They are going to pay for it remarkably less than are the profit prospects of the societal initiative. Would perhaps depend on the initiative in question.
Competition - What competing products or services there are? What are their market share, pricing, strengths and weaknesses?
Foundations that give money for societal projects. They cost only the time of writing applications. Their strength is that if you succeed in both the application and the project, you get both the money to finance the project (need to invest less own money) and the money that comes later because of a better image and other long-term implications. Their weakness is their insecurity: in worst case you use a lot of time writing the application but don't get funding and need to invest everything yourself and in the end your project fails and you don't even get the long-term benefits you were counting on.
Differentiation - How does this idea differentiate you from others in the markets?
Verified need - How many people you have found that are ready to buy your products or services?
Impact - What positive impact does your idea have on society and environment?
More companies are starting even risky societal initiatives. Many of them fail, of course (they are risky), but some succeed and make the world a better place.
- What negative impact does it have?
- How can the negative impact be eliminated or made remarkably smaller than the positive one?
- How can the positive impact grow bigger?
Adding a consultancy service so that the companies are helped with making their societal initiatives more successful and finding good ways for follow-up and starting new ones.
Hey! Great idea!
There are somewhat similar "financing programs" by TEKES, the finnish funding agency for tech. & innovation. In some of these programs the company gets a loan for technology development and is not required to pay it back fully if the program is unsuccesful.
Currently the programs are not focused on social issues, but maybe in the future? Anyway, TEKES could be a potential partner for funding technology related social business ideas.
Still, the suggested idea is great and someone should try to pursue it!
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