As part of its ongoing series of informal chats, New York for Acumen Fund (NYfA) recently welcomed to our group Melissa Richer, founder of the Ayllu initiative. Envisioned as a series of small gatherings to discuss and highlight specific approaches to tackling global poverty, the series provides participants the opportunity to engage directly with thought leaders, innovators, and practitioners in the field of social entrepreneurship.
Melissa gave an overview of the history of the Ayllu Initiative, its model, and the ways in which it aims to achieve its goals. Ayllu, she explained, will serve as a link between social enterprises in the process of scaling through franchising and micro-finance institutions looking to add “micro-franchising” to their portfolios. By aggregating market-based solutions to poverty amelioration, Ayllu is working to innovate in the new field of microfranchising. And Melissa hopes that Ayllu’s development of a simple, replicable model will enable it to bring microfranchising and social enterprises into large-scale bottom of the pyramid financial services efforts. By sharing best practices that can be used by MFIs, impact investors, NGOs, and social enterprises, Ayllu expects to be a leader in a field that it is itself helping to create.
Melissa spoke with us about how she plans on carving out a space for microfranchising in the world of social entrepreneurship. Clearly her plan for Allyu is ambitious, but armed with a solid foundation and an optimal network of institutional supporters (including Ashoka and Alianca Empreendedora) she is already on the path to realizing her aims. But she also shared some of the difficulties she’s encountered running a start-up; touching on problems familiar to many in this field, such as lack of capital, under-staffing, and the persistent stress put on the founder to realize their original vision.
As is always the case at these events, the audience was able to actively engage both with Melissa and each other, in the process gaining purchase on microfranchising, a very recent and in certain ways complicated innovation. The group was also encouraged to discuss their own personal ventures, to share the trials and joys that come with starting your own enterprise. One audience member, a representative of Starting Bloc, encouraged the group to consider becoming a Starting Bloc Fellow, an opportunity that has many benefits for those starting their own ventures. Melissa was a warm and fascinating speaker and we thank her for taking the time out to reach out to New York for Acumen Fund. And we’re very much looking forward to upcoming events this year and next.
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Seth Nemeroff serves on the leadership team for New York for Acumen (NYfA), Acumen Fund’s first official volunteer chapter. Seth has put his experiences as an equities and commodities trader to good use at a number of non-profit organizations and he’s currently shifting his focus to more socially-minded ventures.
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