Mission
Small amounts of capital can effect lasting changes, especially when invested consistently in people and the intangible capital.
Social Synergy Deutschland (SSD)'s mission is to contribute to the creation of steady, consistent, and durable impact over time through institution-building of matured, small, and medium non-profits' and enterprises by enhancing their intangible (institutional) capital.
Our mission builds on the unique and proven approach ’investing at margin’ as developed and continuously refined since 2013 by the Social Synergy Foundation (SSF), based in Mumbai, India. SSD was launched in December 2018 and registered in Freiburg, Germany, as a not-for-profit charitable organization ("Verein") under German Law with the aim to promote this unique approach to supporting non-profits, social and impact-driven enterprises in their engagement with financing partners and relevant stakeholders in Europe.
Investing at margin
More money doesn’t mean better outcomes.
Investing (or funding) at margin has been developed by SSF for the particular context of small and medium grassroots non-profits, it is defined as leveraging all the historical investments. If practiced this consciously, deliberately and systematically allows for effective capital allocation. ​Our idea behind 'investing (or funding) at a margin" is very simple:
Leveraging historical investments
Over the years, donors and funders invested substantial amounts in non-profits and programmes for achieving specific outcomes. This has also resulted in organizations that possess an enduring ability to generate impact. Leveraging these historical investments to build institutional capital of these same organizations through the smaller but continuous deployment of capital.
Building institutional Capital
By funding at the margin, we direct capital towards institution-building in order to establish institutional capital within matured small and medium non-profits. Consistently deploying smaller amounts of capital nurtures their core capabilities and fundamental abilities. improvisation, replicability, micro-contextualisation practice, this may mean supporting a strategic programme, hiring of key persons or building their specific potential, or running a straightforward organizational development process.
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​LINK TO CASE STUDY >> MAKE IT MORE PRACTICAL
Principals​
Our approach ​​aims for steady, consistent, and durable impact over time to deepen the quality of impact. ​​We offer a complimentary approach to many prevailing market-based solutions which often focus on scale, innovation, accelerated impact and financial sustainability.
Funding at margin involves improvisation, replicability, and micro-contextualisation which avoid creating solutions for today that create problems for tomorrow.
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- Systems-oriented
- Long-term
- Partnership-based
- Context-specific
- Learning-driven
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Key elements
Many of the things that you can count don’t count, many of the things that you can’t count really count.
Traditional Approach
1. Recognize the cause.​
2. Develop an explicit or implicit theory of change (ToC).​
3. Find the agents of change and means (non-profits) to realize the ToC.​
4. Define concrete, quantifiable and time bound outcomes and outputs.​
5. Create and implement the project.​
Funding becomes a
series of projects to meet an end goal (e.g. specific SDGs)
Funding at Margin
1. Recognise the cause​
2. Find agents of change (esp. small and medium-sized non-profits) to realize the cause.​
3. Build perspective on internal capabilities.​​
4. Preserve & grow 'intangibles' (institutional capital).​​
5. Participate in internal meetings & decision-making processes.