An article published on ScienceDirect by Center Director Molly Lipscomb on the importance of infrastructure on health in population-dense areas in light of increasing climate variability.
Message From the Director: 2024
This year the Center has focused on deepening a few key partnerships with NGOs, City governments, and private sector actors. Our work has an increasing focus on improving the resilience of communities in the face of climate change. I hope you will join me in developing and participating in new and exciting opportunities for the Center, both in terms of student programs and research opportunities.
2024 Annual Center for Social Innovation Report
Policy lessons from new advances in sanitation economics
Center research featured in VoxDev
Recently, research led by the Center for Social Innovation was featured in the VoxDev article: How lumpy investments determine the effect of expanding financial services: Evidence from Uganda. Read the full article on VoxDev or our website
Report 2022 — The Center for Social Innovation
Letter from the Director — 2022
It has been a very exciting year for the Center as we continue many of the popular programs that have taken place in past years and add on new projects. I have enormous shoes to fill in taking over Directorship of the Center from Christine Mahoney—the Founder and Director of the Center for its first 10 years. I hope you all will join me in thinking about and participating in new and exciting opportunities for the Center.
The impact of privatising the management of a sanitation utility: Evidence from Senegal
Privatisation can directly increase the productivity of treatment centres, and thus indirectly increase the productivity of desludging truckers. However, privatisation is not necessarily a panacea for the problems of the sanitation sector. Privatised management of the treatment centres could lead to market power, particularly if the treatment centres are managed by actors from the downstream trucking market. This could lead to lower quantities of services provided and welfare transfers from consumers to a few connected suppliers.
Center for Social Innovation Director Wins Public Impact Focused Research Award
On January 28, 2022, Professor Molly Lipscomb received the 2021 Public Impact Focused Research Award from the Office of the Vice President at the University of Virginia. The Research Achievement Awards are annual honors dedicated to recognizing excellence in research by university faculty in their respective fields over the course of their careers.
Alumni Spotlight: TEDx with Monica Gray Logothetis
Monica Gray Logothetis is a Batten Alumna, and recently served as a Fellow in Residence at the Center for Social Innovation. She recently delivered a TEDx talk discussing her research and innovative proposal to address recidivism and the lack of economic and social opportunity for formerly incarcerated people in the United States.
Jonathan Walters at The Center for Social Innovation
Jonathan Walters is an energy economist focusing on climate change mitigation. He has provided energy and climate policy advice to more than 60 governments in the developing world and Europe, and has served as a Director at the World Bank. Now, at the beginning of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, he will share some key lessons learned and speculate about next steps for our worldwide climate response.
Kevin Fanfoni and Brian Thorne Welcomed as New Members to the Advisory Board
Brian Thorne: Brian has over 13 years of experience as an advisor, investor and operator in the consumer sector. He was most recently a Principal at Tengram Capital Partners, a private equity firm that invests exclusively in branded consumer and retail companies. Joining the firm shortly after its founding, Brian completed and managed investments in several prominent brands, including NEST Fragrances, Laura Geller, DevaCurl and Algenist within the firm's core Beauty vertical, as well as Luciano Barbera, Zanella and SWIMS within the Fashion/Apparel category. Prior to Tengram, he was a Senior Associate at Catterton Partners, one of the largest and most experienced consumer-focused private equity groups in the world. There, he was involved in evaluating and executing investments in the personal care and branded food sectors, including Frédéric Fekkai, Brach's Confections, Van's International Foods and Naya Water. Previously, Brian was an Analyst in the Consumer/Retail Investment Banking group at Lazard. Additionally, Brian maintains investments in a portfolio of emerging consumer brands, including Ursa Major, Owl's Brew, Naadam, United By Blue and Sombra Mezcal. Brian earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and holds a BA in Economics and Psychology with Distinction from the University of Virginia.
Kevin Fanfoni: Kevin is a Director of Investments with Calvert Impact Capital, a non-profit impact investing fund manager based in Washington, DC with $500 million in assets under management. He joined Calvert Impact Capital in 2008 and has served in a variety of roles on the Investments team that have focused on investment analysis, portfolio management, and impact measurement. During his time at Calvert he has originated over $80 million of impact investments in affordable housing, renewable energy, access to finance, and other areas of community development in the United States and Latin America. He graduated from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia with concentrations in Finance and International Business. Outside of work, he can usually be found on a bicycle navigating the streets of DC or the mountains of his native Shenandoah Valley.
Jacqueline Novogratz Awarded the Social Innovator Of The Year Award
Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, is excited to announce the UVA Social Innovator of the Year Award to highlight the transformative work of UVA alumni in the social impact space.
The awardee is Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen, a non-profit impact investment fund changing the way the world tackles poverty. In 20 years, Acumen has been able to provide basic services like affordable education, healthcare, clean water, energy and sanitation to more than 308 million people through its social enterprise investments across Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States.
Before Acumen, Novogratz graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's degree in Economics and International Relations and continued to the Stanford School of Business where she received her MBA. She went on to found and direct The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership programs at the Rockefeller Foundation, serve on boards of the Aspen Institute, and write her best-selling memoir, The Blue Sweater, on her quest to understand poverty and challenges readers to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink their engagement with the world.
As one of Forbes World’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds in 2017, SE@UVA is honored to celebrate Jacqueline Novogratz as the Social Innovator of the Year 2021!
SE@UVA recognized Jacqueline on March 17th, 2021.
Looking Back and Looking Forward: 10 Years of Social Entrepreneurship at SE@UVA
Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia (SE@UVA), a Batten School initiative, is marking its 10-year anniversary with a renewed commitment to educate the next generation of social innovation leaders.
Batten professor Christine Mahoney, SE@UVA’s founding director who is stepping down from the program at the end of this semester, has helped the program flourish.
From its early days in 2011, when a handful of students approached Mahoney clamoring for more courses in social entrepreneurship, the program now has 10 full- and part-time faculty, a full-time director and associate director, five dedicated part-time student fellows and 10 board members.
Under Mahoney’s leadership, the program launched a minor in 2015 in partnership with McIntire, Engineering, and the Architecture School, and created over a dozen courses in social business and impact investing – many of which now have wait lists. Each year, more than 500 students per year enroll in SE@UVA classes and more than 1,600 attend events.
More than 700 students have declared a minor in Social Entrepreneurship and over 2,100 students have taken courses through SE@UVA.
The program’s social impact is quantifiably impressive. Ten years in, SE@UVA is celebrating having mentored and supported over 80 student social enterprise concept teams, provided over 38,400 hours of pro bono consulting support to more than 100 social entrepreneurs and impact investors, and mobilized $7.7 million in resources to support its internal and external operations, Mahoney said.
SE@UVA has also helped students with socially-minded entrepreneurial aspirations start their own companies, like UVA students Alexander Olesen (Col ‘17) and Graham Smith (Engr. ‘18), who launched Babylon Micro-Farms in 2017. While attending the SE@UVA’s “Open Source for Common Good” class in 2015, Olesen developed the idea for a “radically affordable” hydroponic drip system to grow indoor crops in climate-challenged areas. With Smith’s engineering help, SE@UVA provided seed funding to build a prototype, setting the fledgling company on its path to success.
In January, the 24-person company expanded and relocated to Richmond – where it plans to double its staff – and in March Babylon landed $3 million from investors.
Also in March, Mahoney and SE@UVA unveiled its first-ever Social Innovator of the Year award, presenting it to prominent impact investor and UVA alumna Jacqueline Novogratz (Col ‘83), a founding board member of SE@UVA.
The award honored the social impact Novogratz’s fund, Acumen, has made across the globe. Acumen has invested over $135 million to build 136 social enterprises across Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the United States. With Acumen’s backing, these companies have been able to access an additional $746 million in capital to bring basic services like affordable education, health care, clean water, energy and sanitation to more than 308 million people.
Novogratz, who has relentlessly pushed the financial sector to incorporate social justice aims, talked about her personal career path during SE@UVA’s virtual award ceremony, which included an audience of students, alumni and community members.
Click here to watch Novogratz discuss her new book, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World and reflect on the biggest takeaways from her career.
The extensive programming that SE@UVA now provides did not exist when Novogratz was on Grounds, but the university writ large has graduated countless alumni who, like Novogratz, are making a positive impact on the world.
“UVA has always been a place for changemakers,” Mahoney said. “In the past, they had to forge their own way. Now we have an on-ramp for students who want to make the world a better place through social innovation.”
Laura Toscano, associate director of SE@UVA, said the program provides students with hands-on problem-solving experience, internships and a proven “path to a career that’s driven as much by purpose as by profit.”
Christine Mahoney Awarded the Public Impact-Focused Research Award
We want to send a big congratulations to our very own SE@UVA director, Professor Christine Mahoney, for receiving the Public Impact-Focused Research Award. UVA's Research Achievement Awards recognize faculty for their excellence in research and scholarship leading to the advancement of knowledge in their own fields and discoveries with significant impact on society over the course of their career. Professor Mahoney received the award for her work supporting the rights of the displaced locally, nationally and globally. Her research focuses on how nongovernmental organizations and governments at the local, national and global levels attempt to fight for the rights of refugees fleeing their homelands because of ethnic and political violence. Her scholarship in global advocacy uses social entrepreneurship to support the rights of the displaced and has led to the creation of the Refugee Investment Network, a non-profit impact investing collaborative which creates solutions to forced migration around the globe.
Click here to read more about the award and Professor Mahoney's impactful involvement in the community of helping an under-resourced segment of the Charlottesville population: https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-honors-distinguished-researchers-virtual-awards-event
Sustainability, Resilience, and Social Impact in Agro-Processing in Dominica
Congratulations to Professor Bevin Etienne for his new publication, "Sustainability, Resilience, and Social Impact in Agro-Processing in Dominica!" Learn more about scaling up a sustainable essential oil processing facility businesses in the face of an island often threatened by extreme weather here:
http://sk.sagepub.com/cases/sustainability-resilience-social-impact-agro-processing-dominica