Category: Social Entrepreneurship

SEDPI Top Management Attend Disaster Risk Reduction

SEDPI top management attended a two-day event entitled “Business Case for Disaster Risk Reduction.” The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and SM Prime sponsored the event. Mr. Salonga, Mr. Rapisura and Ms. Sacdalan through the invitation of SM Prime attended the event. It was held at SMX Convention Center in Pasay City on June 17, 2014.

The event explores why increasing disaster risks represent a growing problem for the economic and business community at different scales and examines how paradoxically business investments that aimed to strengthen competitiveness and productivity may have inadvertently contributed to increasing risk. It seeks to engage businesses in a dialogue on disaster risk management that goes beyond the current emphasis on response and preparedness and instead identifies opportunities for the creation of shared value for business and society. It offers businesses as well as investors for the first time a review of practices that can reduce their risk of disaster loss.[1]

[1] http://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/publications/33013

Financial Planning for Social Enterprises

Most social entrepreneurs think that the biggest challenge in expanding operations is attracting funding. In this course, social entrepreneurs will learn to identify and describe the advantages and disadvantages of different sources of financing. They will be able to weigh options and identify appropriate financing strategy for specific situations and social enterprise stages. The course will also provide the motivations and goals of various financing sources and provide tips on how to meet these.

SEDPI Trains OFWs in France, Italy and UAE

A total of 131 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) attended the introductory sessions of financial literacy and social entrepreneurship in Paris, Turin and Dubai. Six training sessions were conducted on weekends from May 24 to June 2, 2013. The participants are registered in the Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship (LSE) Program of the Ateneo School of Government (ASOG). The Social Enterprise Development Partnerships, Inc. (SEDPI) and Overseas Filipinos’ Society for the Promotion of Economic Security (OFSPES) are partners of ASOG in implementing the LSE Program. SEDPI founders Mariel Vincent Rapisura and Edwin Salonga delivered the sessions. Both were evaluated as excellent in the delivery of their sessions.

Joy Sipin, 36, and an OFW for over a decade in Turin, Italy expressed her enthusiasm about the course, “It was a very enriching session. I am being empowered on how I am going to manage my monthly salary. The speakers are also exceptional and have much knowledge to share with the participants.”

The financial literacy session had the following topics: personal financial management; savings planning, budgeting and managing expenditures, debt management and financial goals planning. The social entrepreneurship session covered the following topics: concept of social entrepreneurship; motivation and characteristics of social entrepreneurs; understanding and identifying social issues; opportunity recognition and creative thinking; and external analysis.

LSE envisions a united, empowered and respected Filipino migrants and their families contributing towards Philippine development. ASOG, SEDPI and OFSPES are dedicated to forming economically empowered and socially responsible Filipino leaders. They partner with Filipino organizations overseas and government agencies that cater to Overseas Filipinos to make the LSE program possible.

There are three core modules in the LSE Program: leadership, social entrepreneurship and financial literacy. Four sessions are allocated to each module. Ten classroom sessions are held every two weeks on a weekend to fit the schedule of the migrants. The remaining two sessions are online sessions on financial literacy. The speakers are experts in their respective fields and are mostly practitioners who volunteer their time to deliver sessions.

Since 2008, 517 Overseas Filipinos have completed the LSE course. There are five LSE programs concurrently implemented in Hong Kong, Dubai, Turin and Paris. Students from the Ateneo de Manila University found out in their research that the financial literacy module of LSE has a social return on investment of 20 times per peso investment made in the program. This means that the combined economic and social change of the program is truly effective.

GFC Farmers Undergo SEDPI’s Financial Literacy Training

Good Food Community (GFC) collaborated with its long-time partner SEDPI to conduct one-day Financial Literacy Training for its 13 farmers. This was held in Capas, Tarlac last April 12, 2013. The training covered topics on savings, debt management and its limitations, as well as managing expenditure.

Personal stories and experiences of both the farmers and the facilitators made the training more insightful and interactive. In between sessions, workshops were conducted so each participant had self-assessment on their finances. Tools like personal balance sheets, and cash in cash out forms, were distributed among the participants to evaluate their household expenses. After doing such, everyone was astonished to discover the whereabouts of their money. Attended by both male and female farmers, they felt relieved to trace the path of their money and even committed to share the practice of accounting one’s finances to other members of their families.

This training was facilitated by one of the senior program officers of SEDPI, Ms. Denise Subido, and also one of its program officers, Ms. Clarice Crisostomo, who both rated excellent after being evaluated. Once again, SEDPI has been successful in imparting financial education to Filipinos from different walks of life.

SSEVI Extends 0% Loan to GFC Farmers

In response to the needs of GFC farmers for provisions of farm equipment and greenhouses, SSEVI extended a PhP300,000 zero rated loan to GFC farmers. GFC is a social enterprise that implements community shared agriculture. It supports around 20 farmers in Capas, Tarlac by directly linking them to socially aware and health conscious consumers in Metro Manila. SSEVI provides technical assistance to GFC and at the same time an equity investor.

Through the loan, it is hoped that GFC farmers will be able to at least maintain their level of production even in summer when water is scarce and during the rainy season. It would hopefully enable them to adapt to climate change through the loan and technical assistance from GFC. The loan is zero rated since based on the cash flow analysis of the farmers personal finance, the farmers would not be able to bear the cost of funds due to low productivity. In the next one to two years, interest would be charged to the farmers once they get to the level of increasing their productivity. This would make the product design market-based and sustainable in the long run.

The loan product is flexible. There is no fixed amount of installment or amortization to the farmers. Instead, 15% of the value of their sales to GFC will be used as payment. This will ensure that the farmer will still have enough take home pay to provide for the needs of their households. With this system, the loan term varies from one year to two years depending on the loan size and the productivity of the farm. Loan collection is done every week when farmers deliver their vegetables to GFC.

Before loans were released, SSEVI conducted financial literacy training to the farmers to ensure that they have knowledge on savings, budgeting and debt management. The training was conducted on a makeshift venue with only a beach umbrella as shield from the sun. One participant said that she was sometimes distracted by the animals and birds around. In spite of this, most of them said that they learned how to budget better and realized the importance of saving for emergency. They also said that the SSEVI staff clearly explained the concepts. Denise Subido and Clarice Crisostomo, Senior Program Officer and Program Officer respectively, delivered the training to the farmers. The farmers gave them a perfect evaluation.

Social Return on Investment of SEDPI’s Financial Literacy Program for OFWs

One of the problems that most OFWs have encountered over the years would be having a hard time to return to the Philippines from what they originally planned. Most of them usually stay abroad over an extended period of time. The reason behind this longer stay abroad lies in the fact that most OFWs cannot seem to manage their financial resources properly.  They do not accumulate enough savings.  On top of that, many OFWs are overindebted.  All these are pressing issues that prevent our fellow OFWs from coming home to the Philippines and be with their loved ones, even after staying abroad for more than 10 or 20 years.

To address these problems experienced by the OFWs, SEDPI developed a financial literacy program. This program aims to equip OFWs with the necessary knowledge to become financially independent individuals who are capable of realizing their financial goals both for themselves and their families. This is achieved by teaching them the importance of saving and investing, and the proper financial management techniques for them to achieve financial stability.  SEDPI envisions this program to help the OFWs increase their savings, obtain health insurance for unforeseen circumstances, pay off their non-productive debts, invest their money and set up their own businesses after accumulating three to six months’ salaries worth of emergency fund.

This service provided by SEDPI is undeniably valuable to the OFWs and their families. Our study shows that after attending SEDPI’s financial literacy program, each OFW saves around PHP 3,850 more every month or about PHP 46,000 more savings every year; each also pays off an average of PHP 49,000 worth of debt each year, which translates to around PHP 7,000 of savings in interest per year; each also invests an average of PHP 87,500 per year in various investment vehicles, which leads us to an average earnings of around PHP 6,500 per year.  Furthermore, each OFW provides around PHP 15,000 of salaries to employees per year by giving them jobs.  These represent the social benefits that SEDPI’s financial literacy program provides to each OFW. This adds up to an average of around PHP 74,500 per year worth of benefits per OFW who participates in the program.

However, not all PHP 74,500 of benefits per participant is attributable to SEDPI.  This is because there are other factors that might influence the behavior of these participants such as other seminars they may have attended.  In the study, each participant is asked how much of each benefit can be attributed to SEDPI’s financial literacy program on a rating scale of 1-10 (with 1 being the lowest attribution to SEDPI and 10 the highest) After taking this into consideration, the average resulting benefits per participant are as follows: PHP 42,000 increase in savings per year, PHP 5,000 of interest saved per year from earlier debt payments, PHP 4,200 gained per year from investments made, and around PHP 3,000 worth of salaries generated per year, which translate a total of around PHP 54,200 worth of benefits per participant per year.  If we multiply that by around 120 OFWs that SEDPI trains every year, we would end up would around PHP 6,500,000 worth of benefits per year that the financial literacy program provides to the OFWs and to society. If SEDPI maintains this number of participants for the next 5 years, it will generate PHP 32,500,000 worth of benefits, which translates to a present value of around PHP 27,800,000 after discounting it using a rate of 5.5%.

The result above is quite encouraging, and if the investments (around PHP 1.3 million) made for the program is taken into account, we can see that the financial literacy program is promising, as it yields us a social return on investment (SROI) of around 21 over the next five years (27.8 million worth of social benefit divided by 1.3 million of investment).  This means that for every peso invested in the financial literacy program, it generates a social return of around 21 pesos in the next five years.

However, this SROI ratio is still low as compared to what the program really generates. This ratio just gives us a conservative estimate or the least amount of social benefit the program will generate. This is because there are still many other benefits that the OFWs get which was not included in the computations of the study.  For example, if the OFWs are able to send their children to school because of the additional 42,000 pesos per year, it would have an even greater impact.  Or, because the OFWs are now paying off their debts earlier, they experience less stress and less sleepless nights—this clearly is also a benefit for the OFWs.  Furthermore, the OFWs are now able to invest their own money, which will probably be used when they retire.  This stable retirement that can be brought about by these investment funds is also a benefit for them.  Lastly, OFW participants are taught to avail of health and life insurances so that their savings will not be wiped out in case there are unforeseen events, which surely also has a benefit for the OFWs.  All these benefits are not included in the study because they are quite difficult to monetize and the limited time that was given to the researchers.  No matter, it cannot be denied that these benefits, if monetized, can greatly increase the SROI ratio that has been shown above.

With regards to the financial aspect of the program, the study took into consideration the cash flow related to the program. Cash flow is divided into two parts, cash inflows and cash outflows. When computing the cash inflow, training fees for the program and the indirect cash flow from the net income that the Sustainable Investment Fund (SIF, this is where some OFWs invest in). Cash outflows on the other hand are comprised of the cost of travel, cost of living of the trainers, etc. The values for these cash flows are the projected over the next five years. The study ended up with the net financial loss of about PHP 3,400,000, which is quite insignificant compared to the 27.8 million worth of benefits the OFWs receive.

Even though it seems that SEDPI is conducting the financial literacy program at a financial loss, this is still acceptable for the company as long as the social impacts are experienced by the OFWs. SEDPI generates financial income from the OFWs when the OFWs are ready to invest in SEDPI. This takes 18 months to two years. The OFW investment in SEDPI is leveraged with loans from commercial banks. For every peso that OFWs invest in SEDPI, SEDPI can borrow an additional four to five pesos. This increase the available funds for SEDPI to reinvest in microfinance institutions and social enterprises. Thus, even if the financial literacy operates at a financial loss in the short term, SEDPI greatly benefits in the long run.

Based from the study conducted, it can be seen that the financial literacy program indeed serves as a give back to the society. Amidst the losses, SEDPI still chooses to run the program because of the many endless possibilities for creating impact and its ability to touch people’s lives.

Service Learning Program Group (ACC 35, 2 BS ME)

Perry Ang
Jeanel Co
Annika Chua
Carolyn Ramis
Kyle Velasco

SEDPI Provides Local Example of SROI in British Council Sponsored Training

On February 19-20, 2013, the British Council hosted the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Network to provide a training on SROI. The training was held in Pasig City. A total of 45 participants from 19 organizations attended the event. The main objective of the training is to introduce the concept of social return on investment as a means to measure social impact.

Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a framework for measuring and accounting for a much broader concept of value; it seeks to reduce inequality and environmental degradation and improve wellbeing by incorporating social, environmental and economic costs and benefits.

It was no less than the Chief Executive Officer of The SROI Network, Mr. Jeremy Nichols, who delivered the two-day training. He shared, “stakeholders should always be involved in identifying the value of social impacts.” Mariel Vincent Rapisura and Edwin Salonga, SEDPI President and Chairperson respectively, provided a local case for SROI. This brought the international context of SROI at the level where local participants could relate better.

The participants found the training informative, helpful, engaging, enriching and practical.

SEDPI Prex Talk on Discrimination

The Philippine Association of Administrators of Student Affairs (PAASA), Inc., in cooperation with Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan (SLB) held the 4th Interactive Youth Forum. The forum’s theme was “Citizenship by Good Example (CGW): Engaging the Youth Towards the Promotion of Human Dignity and Peace Through Confronting Discrimination.” It was held on February 14-16, 2013 at the Venus Parkview Hotel, Kisad Road, Baguio City.

This forum tackled issues and concerns regarding various forms of discrimination. It will also be a venue for both students and student affairs practitioners to plan concrete actions to confront discrimination through engaged citizenship and youth empowerment.

SEDPI’s President and CEO, Mariel Vincent Rapisura, was a resource speaker for the event. He shared his experience and thoughts on gender sensitivity and the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (LGBT). Mr. Rapisura introduced the concept of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. A lot of times, LGBTs fall prey to discrimination because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The many ugly implications of discrimination include stereotyping, invisibility, marginalization, stigma, inequality and persecution among others. He stressed that we live in a world of diversity. Sexual orientation and gender identity should not be used for unequal treatment and discrimination. These should be discussed. At this juncture, Mr. Rapisura thanks the organizers and PAASA that provided a venue for the youth to know about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Mr. Rapisura also shared things that the youth can do to combat discrimination. These include awareness raising; push for the development of inclusive (school) policies; organizing; policy advocacy; documentation; alliance building and networking; and mainstreaming. To make the presentation more personal and engaging, Mr. Rapisura shared his love story.

SEDPI Develops Climate Adaptation Support Service with the Climate Change Commission

The Climate Change Commission (CCC) engaged SEDPI to the development of a Climate Adaptation Support Service (CASS) aligned with the eco-town framework. The eco-town framework or ecologically sustainable and economically stable communities, aims to build the resiliencies of both the communities and ecosystems towards the impacts climate change. CCC hopes to demonstrate this framework in various sites in the Philippines with the goal of developing communities and ecosystems that are resilient to the impact of the changing climate.

The engagement has four components: (1) review and inventory of conditional cash transfers; (2) program design development for CASS; (3) conduct of financial literacy trainings; and (4) development of CASS transfer mechanism.

The eco-town demonstration also primes the municipality or group of municipalities in their decision making through the integration of climate change in their local planning process. Among the seven components of the eco-town, the Climate Adaptation Support Service (CASS) both addresses vulnerabilities of communities and ecosystems by increasing their economic and climate change resiliencies, respectively. CASS serves as an interim assistance that will be provided to the vulnerable communities in the aim of attaining economic resiliency. It was essentially designed to compensate members of the communities for undertaking sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems that in effect decreases the vulnerabilities of the communities and the ecosystems to the impacts of climate change. It targets households with income below the poverty threshold that are located within high risk areas of the eco-town.

SEDPI Assists Oxfam International on Social Entrepreneurship in Maguindanao

Oxfam is exploring the possibility of using social entrepreneurship as a strategy in making its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Program. It originally envisions to form a community-based social enterprise which is grassroots-led. In a meeting conducted on January 30, 2013, SEDPI provided a framework to Oxfam to explore a different approach to the community-based social enterprise. SEDPI explained that grassroots-led community based social enterprises, while noble, have very long gestation periods. This is mainly because the grassroots typically do not have the necessary skills, knowledge, resources, networks and opportunities to become sustainable.

SEDPI introduced the concept of value chain analysis as a means to come up with a social enterprise model to implement WASH. The strategy focuses on identifying functions in the value chain where the grassroots or microenterprises could participate. The subsector approach is also market-based. This will not pre-judge the entity that needs to be created to support the establishment of a social enterprise to implement WASH.

The project has four components: (1) training on social entrepreneurship and subsector approach to Oxfam staff and community leaders; (2) conduct of subsector research; (3) social enterprise ideation workshop; (4) generation of social enterprise models.

At the end of the project, Oxfam hopes to come up with a more sustainable solution to implement the WASH program.