We Encourage Builds Ecosystem Of Impact Investing

We are revolutionizing the world with a new concept to replace the noble but outdated idea of charity.

Charity has been an essential force to help those in need, however, it has some serious downsides:

· Roots deep in colonialism and religions, in the idea where a superior nation imposes their agenda on other people, which is harmful even when that agenda is benevolent.

· Invisibly replicates and reinforces the setting where one agent/person/organization/race is the benefactor, higher and superior, and the other one is a victim, less privileged and somehow of lesser essence.

→ Charity is not effective because it is driven by the benefactor’s feelings and it does not EMPOWER those who receive help.

→ Money is wasted, knowledge doesn’t stick, the old-world non-transparent system also attracts those who seek to use it for their own gains.

Luckily, today’s technology allows a different kind of solution to be built. We are replacing the concept of charity with IMPACT INVESTING for individuals.

Currently, impact investment generally refers to the emerging trend of investors looking to invest in startups or other companies who make an impact — make the world better, in one way or another.

We believe that everyone can be an impact maker. Because we are not all business investors, a new kind of ecosystem is needed to empower regular consumers to become impact investors.

Because we are talking about investing, not charity, the following apply:

• Nobody is expected to give out (donate) money without expecting anything in return
• Everyone is accountable for their actions
• All activities and transactions are transparent

The ecosystem we are building comprises the following agents or parties:

• Private impact investors aka impactors/impact makers. The heart of the ecosystem, private impact investors choose to invest in a person or an initiative, expecting measurable results (impact value) and real return in the form of money saved. They will be able to access reports on what is happening to their investment, in real-time. So, how is this an investment? By utilizing blockchain technology, we will be able to create We Encourage Points (WEPs) that impactors receive for every investment they make. Working much like customer loyalty points, those tokens will grant them real savings when buying products or services from our impact partner companies (see below).

Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean the impactor will get the entire investment (or more) back in actual money. We call it investing because it does generate more value and savings over time than what could have been directly bought with the same amount of money.

• Impact partner companies. Impact partner companies are (generally Western) companies and organizations that provide goods or services that interest our private impactors. For every investment our private impact investors make, they will receive We Encourage Points (WEPs) through our ecosystem. These points work as bonus points. Thus, our impact partner companies invest in our ecosystem in the form of points-based discounts, expecting in return a higher number of client transactions from our private impact investors.
• Local cause facilitators. These are the hand-picked key people who manage the operation in the cause-specific target country. They have first-hand experience in the issues we are committed to resolving, and they have values that are in alignment with our cause. They work as points of contacts and advisors, interacting directly with our company. Their work is directly funded by the ecosystem.
• Local partners. These are companies, organizations or individuals that form partnerships with us and are located in the cause-specific target countries. Generally, they are directly funded by the initiative to provide a good or service as a part of the ecosystem.
• Specialist mentors. We are building a team of mentors with a long-term interest in “exporting” their valuable know-how to places where it can truly make a difference. A feature in a more mature ecosystem, the specialist mentor program virtually connects professionals from Western countries with their equivalents in the local cause environment, based around a concept where honest dialogue, mutual respect, and skill-based coaching can bring change and transformation on a wider scale.
• The Empowered. These are individuals our investors have made investments in and that our ecosystem encourages and coaches to become whatever it is that they wish to become. It depends on the individual situation and unique personality of the empowered, what that may mean.
• The facilitator — us. We will build the ecosystem and develop the technology it requires to function. We breathe life into it. In the long term, we will be funded by a transparent commission, however in the short term we are looking for an initial investor for developing the technical solution and running the pilot project with it. The share structure of our company will be set up so that it is unhackable, with a significant proportion (percentage to be defined) transparently going to the development of new impact initiatives. We will have our technical interface, partnering ecosystem and reporting systems in place to track down the money, and monitor it is used where it is supposed to.

Causes

The existence of mankind today is defined by an extremely complex cluster of historical, economic, cultural and environmental problems that are interlinked on many different levels and in many different ways. The most important ones include:

- Climate change

- Mass extinction

- Overpopulation

- Inequality (gender issues, racial issues, income inequality, sexual minorities…)

There is no single solution to tackle this cluster of problems, so “war on all fronts” is needed. Our chosen front is to first address overpopulation and with it, gender inequality.

Research undeniably shows us that giving women access to sexual education, family planning and education as well as improving their position in society is precisely what brings down fertility rates.

Significantly, it also vastly increases their outlook on life and helps unleash their potential to become active, productive members of society.

12 million girls are forced into marriage every year. Nearly 33,000 every day.

According to Global Partnership for Education:

“It costs on average US$1.25 a day per child in developing countries (low and lower-middle income) to provide a full cycle of pre-primary through secondary education (13 years). The largest share of this cost, 88%, is borne by the developing countries themselves. The international community should help in filling the funding gap of just 15 cents a day per child.”

Our first measurable goal is to prevent 10% of these marriages, thus saving 1.2 million girls from forced marriage.

While our first aim is designed to directly address this goal of preventing forced marriages, further down the line we expect it to develop into a larger ecosystem where later stages of the girls’ lives are also considered and other aspects of this cluster of problems are also addressed through new sub-initiatives yet waiting to be formed.

Pilot project

We are on an ambitious mission to stop child and forced marriages by enabling education, but every journey starts with a first step, and our pilot project is that first step.

For our first experiment on revolutionizing the way people are able to make an impact, we will launch an initiative in Nepal. Our local cause facilitator partner for this pilot is Rachana Sunar, who saved herself from being married against her will at the age of 15 and is now a women’s rights activist in Nepal, committed to saving Nepalese girls from forced marriages and providing help for marginalized children. Together with Rachana and her organisation IDEA Nepal, we will be building a solution in Nepal where girls can be encouraged to stay in school and they are saved from forced marriages.

Our first pilot is for Baalan Shikshya kindergarten, run by Rachana Sunar. We will be helping directly with our piloting experiment 35 marginalized kids in the kindergarten by directing money for their sponsorship, so they are able to stay in the kindergarten and Rachana with her team are able to keep their operations running. After a successful experiment we will widen our system to local schools.

In Finland, we have a team ready to develop the technological solution, processes, and stakeholders as well as relevant marketing and communications material to facilitate the project on our end.

After a successful pilot, we are looking to further develop the ecosystem to incorporate education and help girls to find jobs or start businesses. We will be looking at building a volunteering system and bringing in specialist mentors from e.g. Finland to mentor the local partners in matters related to education and child care, and establish a new function in the ecosystem where the empowered are supported and coached after they finish school to help find work or further education. There is also a long-term goal to build a mentoring system where the empowered can join to receive training and coaching on how to start an impact business.

Once the ecosystem in Nepal reaches a mature stage, we will look for another target country to expand our initiatives in — most likely one with even higher birth rates.

Currently, we are looking for early adopters for our Impactor pilot testing group. If you are interested subscribe and we’ll let you know more!

Author of this article is our content wizard Hanna Veltheim