"It's a year since financial education became a compulsory part of the curriculum for England's 11 to 16 year olds. But do you know the answers to some of the questions in their lessons?"

Social entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important all over the world. The main difference between what we generally call an enterprise and a social enterprise is in that the majority of companies measure their success through earned and retained profits, whereas social enterprises measure their success in the quantity of people they have helped and the extent, to which they made this world a better place to live in for all the members of society. Social enterprises usually apply their profits either to their own growth and promotion, or to the promotion and the development of the entire community.

                Some contributions social entrepreneurship makes to society are increasing the solidarity and cohesion, encouraging cooperation between people and volunteering, inspiring people to innovatively solve problems that society faces, etc. Even more importantly, it provides an increasing amount of people with employment, many social enterprises produce food and help people who are hungry, get something on their plates, but it also boosts the economy from the socioeconomic as well as traditional economic perspectives. Social entrepreneurs operate in the fields of family safety, animal protection, environmental sustainability, promotion of health and physical activity, fair trade, social inclusion, sustainable energy sources, etc.  Thus, social entrepreneurship seems to substantially contribute to the positive changes we increasingly see in this world, and since making a social enterprise flourish is very difficult, especially with the difficulty of gaining funding, we should invest some effort into nourishing it and helping the budding social entrepreneurs thrive even more. As a member of the social entrepreneurship community, we will hopefully help our colleagues through creation of this article, which is going to contain some information on how to finance a socially focused business.

                In general, there are many options for funding a social enterprise. Some of the initiatives through which many countries are trying to promote it, are granting loans at favourable rates, grants, subventions and funds, which are specifically focused on this type of business. In addition, social enterprises are also receiving a lot of attention from the European Union, which designed a strategy for promoting social entrepreneurship all the way to the year 2020. One of the reasons it has done so is probably the fact that nearly 20% of Europeans are already walking the path of social exclusion and poverty, which is a very frightening statistic for a part of the world, which is supposed to be among the better developed ones. A few initiatives that the EU has taken on in providing financing options to social enterprises are through the European Social Fund, which is supposed to promote employment and social cohesion in the member states of the European Union, the European Agricultural Fund, which aims to support European farming community and the European microfinance initiative. Besides these institutionalized funding options, there are also quite a few private financing strategies. These include social bank, which is an umbrella term for ethical and alternative banks, the private investors, for example, companies which are already operating in the social entrepreneurship sphere or who wish to expand their operations to incorporate more socially sustainable projects and through philanthropic funding, for example, if you have a really remarkable idea, you could contact people such as Warren Buffer & Bill Gates, who would certainly be excited to help. One of such initiatives supported by Bill Gates and Microsoft, is Salman Khans’ YouTube mathematics lessons, which later developed into Khan Academy. Gates initial investment into the project was $1.5 million, however, he later poured in at least another $7.5 million. This means that if your idea is really good and you can persuade a famous philanthropist to support it, it could enable your help to reach millions of people. For an inspiration, make a note of Khan Academy, which today educates over 10 million people a month.

                Another path of obtaining financing for a social enterprise which should not be forgotten and actually resembles what Gates did with Khan academy, though we have observed that many social enterprises wish to avoid it, is getting funding through donations. Even though we realize that most social enterprises wish to contribute to the society with their hard earned money, we feel that sometimes slightly too much attention is put on that, as what is supposed to matter is helping people, not where you obtained the means to do it. A few simple ways of collecting donations can be through posting a “donate” link button to your webpage, promoting your cause and willingness to accept donations through social media, or through directly contacting companies who you feel care about society, to perhaps help you with your start. If you are sincere, persistent and honest in your efforts, we are certain that success will come your way. You could also try to gain funding through sponsorships or memberships.

                Hopefully, we have provided you with some valuable insight into obtaining funding to help change the world yourself, through your own social enterprise. If you feel there is something we forgot to mention, don’t hesitate to tell us about it within the comments section bellow and if you wish us to write another article on this topic, let us know about that as well, or any other topic you want us to touch upon of course. Enjoy your day and don’t forget to read our other articles as well. If you are into social entrepreneurship, you could perhaps start with the article on social franchising.

Today, it has been announced that a new solar-powered invention by the award-winning British company Desolenator can turn seawater into drinking water. While it is believed that the world is rapidly reaching global water crisis level with nearly one billion people lacking access to clean drinking water, it is hoped that this new equipment could lead the way for technological help.

The machine uses patented technology that can transform salt water and other non drinkable water sources into pure, distilled water fit for human consumption. It is capable of producing 15 liters of water per day, using no power supply other than the sun and with no moving parts or filters and is easy to maintain. After the initial purchase the machine needs no extra input of money or consumables and should be able to provide clean water for a household for a period of up to 20 years.

It is estimated that 97 percent of the world’s water is salt water and if we are able to tap into this valuable and available resource we could alleviate the global water crisis in an unprecedented way. Today 0.7 percent of the world’s water comes from desalination and existing technology is expensive, inefficient and dis-proportionally uses perhaps 0.5% of the world’s global energy supply. It is thought that the new invention is different from existing desalination and home water technologies, harnessing solar power in an elegant way, thereby maximizing the use of solar radiation through a combination of thermal, electrical and heat exchange.

The machine is still under development but there is a fully working prototype available http://desolenator.com/  .Interestingly the company has already started an Indiegogo Crowdfunding finance campaign following its success in an accelerator program and has also won a development grant.

If you like this article and want to help empower start-ups with a good socioeconomic cause try: https://www.finance-eco-money.org/fempower/finetech/item/bitwalking-share-the-belief-and-benefits-of-a-new-equal-global-economy-for-all 

Healthy Global competition is at the heart of efficient, open and resilient world economies and financial systems. When markets are highly and fairly competitive, firms compete with each other to provide industry wide products and services that are better value, higher quality or more innovative than their competitors. Highly competitive markets are marked by easy entry and unhindered exit. 

Luxembourg has in the past benefited from the Fruits of National Autonomy but now it must change and harvest the higher hanging fruits relating to sophistication and competitors from abroad. There have been many conferences on this subject but this one was different because it was to concentrate on Luxembourg and to help prepare for its future in the industry:

‘Money makes the world go round’ but never get carried away with acquiring personal wealth to the exclusion of sharing and helping one and other.

We basically want to build an interactive web-site for the exchange of financial and ecological ideas and knowledge amongst the general public and different financial players in a totally transparent and non biased way. Our ultimate aim is to help society realise that finance and ecology are essential elements to business for good, reaching the poorest of the poor and eliminating extreme poverty.

We were privileged to be invited to attend a wonderful evening in Beckerich, Luxembourg on Tuesday 28 July 2015 which, together with CELL(Centre Ecological Learning Luxembourg), and Transition West, hosted the second overnight stop for the cycling team from AlterTour (www.altertour.net).

The force of "Finance for Good and a Socio Economic Conscience Changing the World". At MFTSE Affairs S.A. our World of Change, World of Learning and World of Action aims to help bring this to the general public and the masses. Watch this space and join us going forward into 2016!

The Top 6 Good-News Stories of 2015 Dec 18, 2015 From Bill Gates Notes: 1. Africa Went a Year Without Any Polio On July 24, Nigeria marked one full year without a single new case of locally acquired polio, the crippling and sometimes fatal disease. It is the last country in Africa to stop transmission of wild polio. This milestone represents a huge victory—one that some experts feared would never come.

The OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes has awarded Luxembourg a “largely compliant” rating in its newly released report on compliance ratings on tax transparency.

Lausanne-based business school IMD’s second annual World Talent Report ranks Luxembourg as the leading country in the EU and third worldwide for developing, attracting and retaining talent to satisfy corporate needs.

Luxembourg for Finance will organise a financial mission to Singapore and Sydney on 20-25 February 2016. The mission is led by HE Pierre Gramegna, Minister of Finance and Chairman of Luxembourg for Finance.

Bill Gates was in Paris with many of the world leaders for the big announcement on energy and climate change. He found it deeply moving to be there just two weeks after the horrific attacks that took place on Friday 13 November 2015 but he was inspired by the way the French people persevered and continued with the summit despite the difficult circumstances.