The former president of the Philippines Corazon Aquino has joined the philanthrocapitalism revolution, according to BusinessMirror. Her anti-poverty PinoyME Foundation is reportedly launching a bond through its Philanthrocapitalism social investment fund to extend its microfinance work to 5 million people across the country, with support from the private sector coming from Metrobank.
In the book we talk about the way that philanthrocapitalists like Pierre Omidyar are looking to lever for-profit rather philanthropic capital to take microfinance to scale. The PinoyME bond, on the other hand, is not offering a return to investors, aiming instead at getting rich Catholics in the Philippines to give more, according to BusinessMirror’s interview with one of their trustees. Then again, 0% is not much less than what you’d get from a commercial savings account at the moment.
Disclaimer: we should point out that, while we welcome the use of the word philanthrocapitalism, we have had no involvement in this product. Similarly, we offer no endorsement of the youtube member called philanthrocapitalism but we will admit that we too are fans of the Four Tops.
Meanwhile, Matthew has been speaking at a couple of events. One, hosted by Bridgespan and Edelman, focused on the future of philanthropy in this tough economic climate, and is the subject of a useful blog post by Mitch Nauffts. He also spoke at a gathering of leading social entrepreneurs hosted by venture philanthropy pioneers New Profit Inc at which one social entrepreneur confessed he had recently been called a “philanthrocapitalist pig”. It was only a matter of time…