Food4Thought DDB by Sarah Sterling

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Slide Notes

Food4Thought DDB (F4T) is a for profit social enterprise that works to connect with socially-minded agro-producers who grow local products in developing countries to help them turn their businesses into social enterprises. The idea for F4T came about during Sarah Sterling and Luz Vazquez' (the founders) Peace Corps Service in El Salvador. Sarah lived in an agricultural community where she watched her family and community members work under harsh conditions for little pay on a daily basis, all the while wanting to create a better future for their families and their community but they didn't know how. Luz partnered with an inspiring woman, Ana Edith, who was trying to start her own social enterprise using a native nut called Ojushte in order to provide jobs and better nutrition to people in her community.
Sarah and Luz both attended the Middlebury Institute of International Studies where they came together to form what is now F4T with the mission to Do Development Better.

Food4Thought DDB

Published on Nov 20, 2015

Social enterprise idea "graphic" - step by step thought process for the idea.

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Food4Thought

DDB (Doing Development Better)

Photo by Paco CT

Food Producer

It all starts with finding a socially-minded agro-producer who is growing, or would like to grow, crops that are local and or native to their country. By socially-minded we mean, well-respected in their communities and with the goal of wanting to create positive change through their business. Social entrepreneurs aren't something new, they are just people who already exist and don't know how they can gain access to the capital and training they need to put their social mission as part of their business model. Right now, we have a pilot project in mind to start in El Salvador with Ana Edith (the reason that F4T exists) and create networks of agro-producers there. Expanding from that point, we want to get the help of Peace Corps Volunteers to help us identify agro-producers that might want to turn into social entrepreneurs.

Photo by CIMMYT

Investment and Training

Integral to F4T's model is the idea of co-ownership. In exchange for receiving training (technical, business skills, community development), as well as monetary capital and access to a network of organizations (banks, micro-finance, NGOs, GOs, impact investors, etc), F4T will be direct business partners with every agro-producer. We will own a percentage of their business which we believe will not only keep both of us accountable for the success of the agro-producers but also will help foster a relationship between both parties - as they grow, we grow. At a certain point in time, we could potentially think about having them buy back our shares in the business but it creates an accountability factor that is unique and we believe, more reliable than simply giving a loan or donation.

Photo by geishaboy500

Community Impact

In return for our investment, training, time, and resources agro-producers will be using their revenue from their business, once it gets going, to create positive social change in their communities. Since they will have received training on community development practices and principles, they will be able to identify how they can create change through food - whether it be the creation of community garden, hiring at risk populations to work for them, a school lunch program, or nutrition classes, they will be deciding what their business' impact will be in their communities, putting them in the drivers seat of change. F4T will monitor and evaluate these projects to measure the overall impact of our organization through the agro-producers' projects

Photo by Feed My Starving Children (FMSC)

Change4Change

Where else will agro-producers as well as F4T get access to capital? We would like to set up an online platform, similar to Kiva, called Change4Change which would enable anyone in the world to directly invest their money into an agro-producer that is within our network. We will create online platforms for each agro-producer and include a processing fee that would go directly to F4T. For example, if an agro-producer needs $200 to buy a new piece of equipment, we would ask for $220 (10% F4T fee built in - we need to decide how much this would actually be) and $200 would go directly to the agro-producer who would then eventually pay back the investor that money with interest (no more than 10%). That way, investors can reinvest their money in another agro-producer and F4T gets the processing fee from each transaction.

Photo by coffeego

Sarah Sterling

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.sterling.775

Slide Notes