In a world devoid of cash, I’ve recently started paying attention to the beautiful world of business funding. What triggered this post though goes beyond the “trivial” hurdles of attracting what are often tiny sums needed for generous ideas that make a lot of business sense, into the bluring vision of “what’s next”…Sramana Mitra’s insight into Capitalism 2.0 generated the title of the post, but more importantly changed my paradigm about sources of funding into a direction that is not exactly favouring them…
To make things even more interesting, I’m going to use the example of a guy I’ve only met a fortnight ago, whom I’ve pledged to help out because of his incredible human value, dedication to a beautiful cause and potential breakthrouth impact. So here is Bogdan H. needing some 120,000 EUR for a project designed to help young people with dancing & acting aptitudes discover & grow their talent, to educate & emotionally empower people, and to promote Romania via its cultural value (as opposed to similitude with the word “rom” or other Dracula-related brand positioning). You’ll have to take my word for the value of the project, because describing it is beyond the point of this post. The point is here: out of the tens of structural funds & grants available between 2009-2013 for cultural projects, none is currently open. Here comes the GOVERNMENT actor mentioned in the title: how is it possible that local & European governments provision obscene amounts of money (I’m talking thousands of million EUR) towards big companies and completely disregard the breakthrough that can be better expected to come from incredibly committed people such as Bogdan? Swimming around in the same pool of big players is easier to administer and catering is nicer at events, but should these be the only criteria for spendin OUR money? I really want to know some of my taxes are put to better use and perhaps one good starting point is to have in the government apparatus some volunteers with a fresh point of view for this type of decisions…
With the government (who incidentally bears the main responsiblility for education & culture) out of the picture, Bogdan’s chances are in the hands of sponsors (VERY tough job these days if you catch the drift) or Angel Investors – specifically people willing to provide the seed money for this type of social entreprise if you wish. Efforts like his (with all the self-understood sacrifices he and his crew are ready to make for their dream) are such an incredibly safer bet than those of established businesses already getting into the bureaucracy mode. But here’s the catch: he is least likely to generate a “healthy” (to be read speculative) return on the investment, plus he may not be so happy with giving away the control over a beautiful concept in exchange of the funding (as the twist in the concept might ruin his dream). So what do we have here? A bunch of guys willing to self-sacrifice for a beautiful concept with significant social impact versus a bunch of completely different guys looking for a luxurious waiting time for a glorious return of their money.
I’m really upset here. Because the current system does not allow for any other option. (I sure hope I’m off track here and someone will comment to prove me wrong!). We do need Capitalism 2.0 in which people with dreams can find a way out of these Scylla & Charibda choices. If we don’t invent it, if we don’t find a way to reward good people with good ideas that make good business sense, we’re doomed to plunge forever in the world of Maddoff’s and such…
