Hello everyone,
 
I am very happy to join the danone.communities team for the six months to come! I will work on community mangement with Olivier and Laurence to gather the efforts of the various communities involved in the danone.communities adventure and promote social business.
 
I discovered social business and social entrepreneurship through two main readings during my years of preparatory classes, ‘A World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism' by Professor Yunus and '80 Hommes pour Changer le Monde'by Sylvain Darnil and Mathieu Le Roux. I was finally convinced at the conference with Professor Yunus organized by danone.communities in February 2010. I was immediately excited by the idea that a company can make a considerable difference to solve social problems on a large scale, such as malnutrition or access to water in developing countries, or poverty and insecurity in developed countries.

Last week, we made the presentation fot he nuw functions onf the website, and the updated information you could find, etc.

This week, focus on the Socialization part of the website, which has a main objective : "To give more value to the community".

Networking, value, gratitude and fun: it was important to include these objectives into the shaping of the community of danone.communities.

#The profile: Clearer and nicer, the profile aims at telling everything that the member wants to tell: biography, social networks, scholarships, supported projects, competences and skills.... Easier to be updated, this new profile is thought to be found into the search section, where people can meet and connect. The new functions on the profile have been made to create more links between people inside the community. Two tools help them to do that : the search section and the badges.

"Call it blended value, call it philanthrocapitalism, call it social investing. Whatever you call it, it’s a wave and it is happening now:  people want their money to have meaning." This is what SOCAP is all about and this is why it just came to Europe for the first time, gathering in Amsterdam 650+ people coming from 50+ different countries. As a business master's student conducting a survey on the factors influencing individual choices to invest in social enterprises, I had the opportunity to get to SOCAP and meet key players from this emerging industry. Here is my modest feedback.

On May 30th, Frank van Beuningen, co-founder of SOCAP/Europe, opened with brilliant humor the two and a half day SOCAP conference on impact investing. "Time of maximum profit has passed" he recalled. The 100+ entrepreneur attendees show that this movement has gathered force, pushing "money for meaning" forward.

The assembly first had the honor to listen to Her Royal Highness Princess Máxima of the Netherlands, UN Secretary General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development. You can read HRH very determined speech here. Then, a panel discussion, moderated by Margaret McGovern from PYMWYMIC, brought together key actors of the impact investing field around "This moment in Europe, This moment in the world". I would like to share with you two ideas which I will try to further analyze in my research study:

>>> “Investors don't want a lot of measurement or proofs. They just want transparency." (Klaus Tischhauser, Director of responsAbility).

>>> "More and more individual investors hear the stories and want to get involved" (Jonathan Jenkins, Director of Ventures at UnLtd)

Aymeric and Osanne, Danone interns and volunteers to the organization of the GCM 2011, share with us a few personal insights into this evening.

Aymeric first offers us some pictures of his first danone.communities event. Welcome!

A lot of emotion and joy during the GCM.
Especially when Franck Riboud explained how Pr. Yunus ended up going to the Ministry of Finance on a scooter.

In late February, Aurélie Daligand, senior legal counsel for Danone and danone.communities visited students of the Diploma in Legal Business Council of Montpellier (DJCE).

Through the case of the Naandi’s project (access to water in India), this is a vision of social business which was shared: since the double-project in 1972 by Antoine Riboud, until the launching of this new project, through the creation of a societal innovation platform, Danone's mission is to bring health through food to as many people as possible.

Actions and projects which are created, supported or funded by danone.communities have the mission ... to extend the fundamental mission to fight against malnutrition and poverty in the world. What students can learn from this presentation is that social business is a powerful societal and economic transformation.

Aurélie’s presentation is just below. You can ask all your questions in the comments.

"Architects of Change" or how to be the voice for small causes to serve a large one.

Last week we met Muriel, founder LatoSensu: a production company committed to promote sustainable development. The program: the very rich documentary series Architects Of Change, which promotes local economic development initiatives throughout the world. At a rate of 3 meetings with independent entrepreneurs per episode, Architects Of Change addresses 10 issues of the current debate on sustainable development and solidarity: for instance, let’s quote Philanthropy and capitalism, the impossible marriage?, Innovation is imitation, or Eco-housing, designed to last.

On March, 06th, 2009, at the Second Board of danone.communities, the community danone.communities gathered at the Casino de Paris! Over 1200 people attended this evening around two round tables. After a status on the progress of danone.communities in 2008, a first round table presented the 3 social businesses that we support in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Senegal and the under observation project in Madagascar.

Our friends from Kiva (peer to peer lending with a social purpose) are participating to the great competition "Members Project" (American Express). They have reached the final lap: just 5 projects remaining (amongst more than 1000) to win $1.5 million. Please join us and vote for "loans that change lives"