By Rick Aubry, CEO and Founder
Greg Dees, Ed Skloot and their colleagues from Duke University as well as the folks at the Growth Philanthropy Network pulled together an impressive group of conference attendees to focus on the question of how philanthropy can scale the impact of social innovation at the Social Impact Exchange’s Inaugural Conference on Scaling. Over 450 people gathered in NYC June 17-18 to look at the challenges involved in moving to scaled solutions and look at examples of some of the best solutions available for creating this scaled change. Philanthropists, academics, practitioners and financiers spent two days hearing about the latest thinking on how to take big ideas and bring them to scale. Given Rubicon National’s mission to serve as a laboratory for scaling social impact, it was a timely conference for us to attend; and we also had a dog in the hunt at the conference.
The central part of the conference is a social business competition featuring leading new innovations ready to scale. One of Rubicon’s social businesses, Emerge, was competing in the early-stage growth category. Our venture was created as an alternative for working folks who have had no choices when they need small, short-term loans in emergencies than to go to the predatory lenders. Over 200 organizations submitted plans and 8 finalists were selected to present. Jonathan Harrison and I pitched our presentation on Emerge for 10 minutes on Friday afternoon and later that day we found out we won! In addition to $25,000 in cash, we also will receive six months of pro bono consultation from Public/Private Ventures to help us achieve the scaled impact we all are interested in. (See the press release we published on the win.)
So of course, we are jazzed and excited that we received such a prestigious recognition (and the cash could not have come at a better time for our start-up venture). We have spent nearly two years dealing with all the behind-the-scenes steps necessary to create a system-changing business—one that provides working folks access to fair credit, connections to financial services and asset building programs, and a pathway out of the debt traps that payday lenders and other predatory financial services help create. It’s satisfying to know we won because we created this solution within the construct of a market-based business that is designed to grow to scale and be sustainable. This is what Rubicon National set out to do from the beginning.
Greg Dees, Ed Skloot and their colleagues from Duke University as well as the folks at the Growth Philanthropy Network pulled together an impressive group of conference attendees to focus on the question of how philanthropy can scale the impact of social innovation at the Social Impact Exchange’s Inaugural Conference on Scaling. Over 450 people gathered in NYC June 17-18 to look at the challenges involved in moving to scaled solutions and look at examples of some of the best solutions available for creating this scaled change. Philanthropists, academics, practitioners and financiers spent two days hearing about the latest thinking on how to take big ideas and bring them to scale. Given Rubicon National’s mission to serve as a laboratory for scaling social impact, it was a timely conference for us to attend; and we also had a dog in the hunt at the conference.
The central part of the conference is a social business competition featuring leading new innovations ready to scale. One of Rubicon’s social businesses, Emerge, was competing in the early-stage growth category. Our venture was created as an alternative for working folks who have had no choices when they need small, short-term loans in emergencies than to go to the predatory lenders. Over 200 organizations submitted plans and 8 finalists were selected to present. Jonathan Harrison and I pitched our presentation on Emerge for 10 minutes on Friday afternoon and later that day we found out we won! In addition to $25,000 in cash, we also will receive six months of pro bono consultation from Public/Private Ventures to help us achieve the scaled impact we all are interested in. (See the press release we published on the win.)
So of course, we are jazzed and excited that we received such a prestigious recognition (and the cash could not have come at a better time for our start-up venture). We have spent nearly two years dealing with all the behind-the-scenes steps necessary to create a system-changing business—one that provides working folks access to fair credit, connections to financial services and asset building programs, and a pathway out of the debt traps that payday lenders and other predatory financial services help create. It’s satisfying to know we won because we created this solution within the construct of a market-based business that is designed to grow to scale and be sustainable. This is what Rubicon National set out to do from the beginning.
