Social Financial Services (SFS) improves access to financing and sustainable capital in the citizen sector, addressing the lack of quantity and diversity of institutional financial supports needed for social ventures to succeed. SFS acknowledges that investors are looking for more creative and strategic ways to invest their money in social change—with a social, financial and personal engagement return—yet there are few intermediaries that know how to do this in an effective manner, at a global scale.

As a result, SFS works with leading financial intermediaries to educate them about the immense value inherent in the social sector and helps them develop new products and services that will enable them to invest strategically in the sector. Key SFS strategies include:

• Engaging major financial institutions, including private, investment, and commercial banks, to provide alternative sources of capital

• Creating financial models such as SIV (Social Investing Ventures) to allow the movement of these cutting edge ideas to scale

• Assisting other philanthropic groups and Ashoka Fellows to secure investment through non-traditional avenues

• Encouraging learning between potential pattern-breakers and professional support institutions

• Working with other Ashoka programs – specifically FEC and Changemakers to leverage global change

SFS has partnered with UBS to create new means of engaging banks in financing the citizen sector. SFS also runs the annual UBS Visionaris Awards that recognizes and supports the work of leading social entrepreneurs in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

For more information, read "Market Based Solutions for Financing Philanthropy," co-written by Ashoka’s Arthur Wood, Director SFS, and UBS’s Maximilian Martin, Global Head of Philanthropy Services for UBS’s 2006 Philanthropy Forum.