Giving Compass' Take:

• The Impact Incubator was formed by Social Finance UK partnerships with foundations. The Impact Incubator brings in experts to help address social issues and provide the capacity to solve them. 

• How is this an effective driver of social change? Where are the potential pitfalls? 

• Read about how impact investing is becoming the new nonprofit model. 

The Impact Incubator is an ambitious partnership between Social Finance and leading philanthropic foundations. It works to develop systemic responses to difficult issues that so often elude tried and tested methods.

Unlike a commercial incubator model, it is not about creating and nurturing new organizations. Instead, the Impact Incubator is about driving transformative social change that is beyond any one organization. Over the last three years, the Impact Incubator has worked with a diverse range of partners to explore new ways of tackling difficult social challenges. It starts with no agenda and looks to understand the problem. It is open to any models that could affect change and seeks long-term approaches with the potential to be effective at a national scale.

The team has learned a lot over the past three years and has been lucky to work with some inspiring partners. Working to address social challenges is often overwhelming. In Social Finance’s experience, there is rarely an easy fix. Addressing social problems is not straightforward and imagining that there is a silver bullet in the form of an individual, organization or intervention creates fault lines in how society tackles social problems. If an issue has existed for decades it is rarely within the province of one organization to fix it and often the answer lies beyond any one sector.

Tackling complex issues is usually beyond the ability of any single stakeholder. The solution relies on bringing people together but that does not mean parties need to compromise on the outcomes. This collective approach has given the Impact Incubator team real optimism that together can it improve outcomes in some of society’s most difficult issues.

Read the full article about impact incubator from Social Finance UK at Medium