the mif blog

This article is the last piece in the series that I have been writing for the MIF’s official blog since my assignment at the MIF ends on April 30th.  Let me take this last opportunity to explain, as a sort of conclusion, what I have found in my discussions with many people throughout the comparative study: What does “scale” mean for social enterprise? And what is the exit strategy? 
* A full version of the PPT presentation of the MIF’s Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Topic can be downloaded here.

I would like to share on-going updates with readers on the progress of our comparative study. Based on extensive discussions, we defined a structure for the study and target countries as follows (Figure 1).

photo provided by Florence 

In my previous posts, I described the general characteristics of Florence, a model social enterprise in Japan. In this article I will analyze its way of scaling its impact.

photo provided by Florence

A Japanese version of this blog is available below. 日本語版は下記にあります

Continuing from my previous article, let’s see how Florence, a Japanese social enterprise with annual turnover of US$ 8 million and a staff of 324, has been generating social innovation through business to solve a social problem.  I will explain in this article Florence’s core business: “Sick Child Care Services - a mutual aid system for taking care of children who unexpectedly become slightly ill.” 

As a part of the MIF-commissioned comparative research on social entrepreneurship between Asia and LAC, we organized a brown-bag lunch session on February 22nd, inviting as our guest speaker Mr. Ken Ito, Japan’s member of Secretariat at G8 Social Impact Investment Task Force and a lecturer at Keio University.