Introducing the Social Venture Fund’s first Impact Report

Download the Report (in case you’re in a rush)

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain

While we ourselves still feel like a startup enterprise, we now reflect on the first two years of building Mercy Corps’ Social Venture Fund (SVF). Of course, had we waited for that perfect first investment — an enterprise that completely fit our investment criteria, was an exact match with our programming and a slam dunk in both impact and business potential — the Social Venture Fund would likely never exist. There is no substitute for just getting started — and learning along the way.

Risk taking goes both ways — we want to give a big thanks to Steve Andrews and the NewLight Africa/Heya! team for wagering that Mercy Corps and our nascent impact investment fund just might have something unique to offer.

With that, we’re excited to announce the launch of SVF’s first Impact Report!

In this report we look back on the first two years of SVF, the lessons we’ve learned, and how our portfolio entrepreneurs are channeling an era of radical change to benefit communities around the world.

Some of SVF’s high level impact numbers include:

• 9 investments
• $1.15M invested by SVF
• $16.3M in additional funds leveraged
• 500,000 customers directly impacted (5 companies reporting)
• $4.2M in additional income for smallholder farmers, agents and informal works (4 companies reporting)
• $8.2M in loans provided to smallholder farmers

Bottom line — two years in, we can report that international NGOs like Mercy Corps have a unique role to play in the impact investing space and can be tremendous partners to social entrepreneurs. And we’ve only just begun. Download the Report