Social Value Investing to Prepare a New Generation of Serving

Monday was the opening session of the Mashable Social Good Summit held in New York and I would be remiss to not comment on Howard W. Buffett’s amazing presentation entitled “Social Value Investing: A New Paradigm for Future Generations.” As part of a legacy of social responsibility and philanthropy, Buffet, who is the executive director for the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, exuded eloquence, passion and ideals to inspire and encourage others to make a difference in a tangible way.

Buffet is like a philanthropical fortune cookie of challenging statements and nuggets of wisdom. Each paragraph opened with a sentence that could be printed on t-shirts and sold in the conference lobby. Here are some examples:

“Doing good does not excuse us from doing better.”

“We are hardwired to care for each other… the purpose of innovation is to unlock the tremendous power of the human spirit.”

“In the philanthropic world the problem is the product. In the business world the product is the solution.”
“Don’t give money away; invest it.”

Now if those quotes weren’t inspiring enough, Buffet went on to explain some practical methods to get the biggest impact out of our non-profit organizations. With his “Social Value Investing” model, Buffet proposes that “innovation has no power without implementation.” Through smaller organizations joining together, the “human capital” can best be invested to focus on positive outcomes and not just on raising funds.

Furthermore, Buffet made an incredible announcement that his Aunt Doris Buffet is donating $5 million to the Learning by Giving program which equips young leaders to impact those in need. (Don’t we all wish we had an Aunt Doris!) This organization is implemented at various universities and creates courses in philanthropy and non-profit studies. Each school is given a $10,000 grant and the students are challenged to allocate those funds in the best way to benefit their communities. When they are finished, they are required to prepare reports about what they’ve done and what they have learned on Learningbygivingfoundation.org.

The primary goal of this new foundation is to give future leaders the tools to become problem solvers in their own communities and to adapt to future challenges. Investing in the future seems like a viable solution to me!
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