SA Social Investment Exchange (SASIX) - www.sasix.co.za - is an innovative platform which connects social investors with the development world. We believe that by pulling together a rich diversity of strategies, markets and business, capital and commerce, can be harnessed not simply for the creation of individual wealth but also for the creation of global prosperity and value in its fullest sense. SASIX offers a transparent intermediary infrastructure providing social investment broking and portfolio management capabilities to stimulate a holistic, effective and dynamic social capital marketplace. After applying rigorous due diligence and accepted risk and impact assessment frameworks, SASIX lists evaluated projects and provides information on researched investment opportunities, simultaneously raising the bar for effective corporate and private sector investment in sustainable high social impact initiatives in poor communities. This levels the playing field by providing access to capital for small, remote organisations. To date over R34.6 million (US$2.7m) has been invested in 53 social development projects in just over two years. The success of the SASIX platform has led to the development of GSIX – the Global Social Investment Exchange. Established as a federation of country exchanges, supported by in-country intelligence and investment identification, GSIX will: - catalyse a collective action platform to bring regulatory compliance standards and efficiencies to the social capital market. - build intermediary structures to absorb capital at scale whilst also building capacity within local communities to meaningfully use that capital - enable and facilitate buy and sell side investment activity to move more money to more effective, innovative and critical initiatives in order to meaningfully address global, regional and country poverty and sustainability issues.

Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

Sustainable poverty eradication will only be achieved if we mobilise private sector funding for economic development on a significant scale. SASIX has shown that a more efficient social capital market means a more efficient development sector, and more effective solutions to the problems of poverty. Social capital marketplaces, like SASIX, are developing successful market-based approaches to the social investment environment. Replicating the SASIX model will further the potential impact it has and can make, delivering real, measurable and meaningful returns and accessing a large and sustainable supply of private sector funding.

Since the launch of SASIX, we have experienced a strong demand for the establishment of a global framework within which local country member operators can source, evaluate and make available to investors worthy projects to invest in. Globally, there has been a growth in both the number of online social marketplaces and in the number of social enterprises fulfilling the role of research analysts, funding intermediaries and asset managers in the corporate philanthropy and social investment fields. These organisations are now keen to create and support the establishment of an effective intermediary structure that brings globally accepted due diligence practices and well researched information, including assessments of potential impact and risk factors, to a global market for social capital.

If successful, the Buckminster Fuller prize will be used to extend the SASIX concept into the Global Social Investment Exchange, pulling together these existing organisations to champion high impact social investing. GSIX will provide global investment opportunities, sourced and researched by member country organisations and forming individual Country Social Investment Exchanges.

GSIX has already been established as a project of GreaterGood South Africa and has received initial support from Ashoka, the Rockefeller Foundation and the European Foundation Centre. An inaugural meeting of 15 founding countries has been scheduled for February 2009.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

SASIX and GSIX provide a comprehensive solution that contributes to the creation of an effective social capital marketplace and provides a full service solution for social investors. SASIX and the GSIX platforms are long-term development interventions, concerned with fundamental systems change and of finding a new way of operating in the social capital markets of the future. SASIX has already proved to be a success with over R23m (US$2.4m) invested in 53 fully funded projects and 28 projects still available for funding. The SASIX technology platform has already been established and country partners are already implementing various forms of existing tools for assessment that could easily be drawn together in a collaborative framework. SASIX measures the impact of each listed project and monitors how the project is delivering on its objectives. So far, SASIX has impacted on an estimated 159,680 people’s lives in mainly under-resourced, rural communities. Extending SASIX’s already successful social technology platform to form GSIX will see the birth of the first truly representative global social broking service. We live in an increasingly global world, facing urgent problems that affect us all. By bringing people together to engage in meaningful social investment, we can find joined-up, permanent, solutions to the challenge of poverty.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

Started in 2004 by social entrepreneur, Tamzin Ractliffe based on her experience as an Investment Analyst and Financial Services Investment Broker, GreaterGood has created a number of programmes aimed at changing thinking around social investment, including:
- Establishing GreaterGood South Africa (www.GreaterGoodSA.co.za) – a broad-based intermediary platform providing information promoting philanthropy and social investment.
- Establishing the SASIX to provide evaluated investment opportunities in high social impact grants and socially responsible financial investments.
- Establishing two financially viable social enterprises to secure the organisation’s own future, independently of donor funding.
- Establishing advocacy programmes to promote social investment in South Africa.
- Grown the body of research available to facilitate the expansion of SRI in South Africa by encouraging the integration of economic, environmental, social and governance factors into investment decisions.

GreaterGood South Africa is a registered South African Trust, Non-profit Organisation and Public Benefit Organisation. The Trust’s Board of Trustees, headed by Chairman Bheki Sibiya and supported by financial services and governance experts including Nicky Newton-King (deputy director of the JSE) and Mervyn King S.C. (Chairman, King Report on Corporate Governance). The executive management team includes MD, Carol Tappenden; Head: Investments, Penny Melck, CA(SA); and Tamzin Ractliffe as Executive Trustee. Tamzin has been awarded an Ashoka Fellowship to continue her work on this initiative.