Of all the companies we have worked with, few are as colourful as Aduna, a firm that uses two West African superfruits and turns them into healthy beauty and snack products for the “North”.  The website is a glorious rainbow of hues and reinforces the valuable brand, which Aduna has created.  Brand value is extremely important—although starting with products with naturally astonishing properties is essential, (Aduna first focused on Baobab and has since added Moringa).  Unless you are able to create an attractive brand, the company will struggle to be sustainable, and the poor communities Aduna assists will be deprived of the revenues these amazing can generate.

A good friend of mine called Tony Piggott, who had spent 30 years in advertising, was well aware of this and started a project called Brandaid.  Clever name!  More than most, Tony (now CEO of JWT Ethos) appreciated the value of brands and how impoverished developing country communities would remain so, unless they could seize the power of brands for their own benefit.  Brandaid helps artisans in emerging countries gain western brand-value-creation expertise.

I first came across the Baobab fruit myself when my son returned from six months in Senegal and he encountered these fruits, grown on ancient community-owned trees, which possess amazing natural properties.  However, due to lack of meaningful markets, these fruits just tumble to the earth and rot.  I was staggered when just two years later I came across Andrew Hunt at the Global Social Venture Competition and his vision and drive impressed me massively.  Since then, ClearlySo has worked with Aduna on two angel investment rounds totalling £750k, and one of our angel investors has joined his Board.  This is the case in about 1/3 of all the businesses we support, and more like 3/5 when we consider only those who have pitched to our Clearly Social Angels network.

We do many of the things one might imagine a firm like ours does with regard to investor and investee preparation and investment facilitation.  In the case of Aduna, we were able to help in a very particular way.  At the time of writing this piece, Aduna is one of the nine finalists involved in the “Pitch to Rich” competition sponsored by Virgin (Rich, as you may have guessed, is Richard Branson—and I guess he is also quite “rich”, so it’s a double entendre).  If Aduna were to win, they would be showered with money, advice and some fame, as you can imagine.

Becoming a finalist was the result of a public vote and Aduna were in a fight with a few other enterprises, and trailing by a bit.  Under the whip of two of my colleagues, Clare Jones and Mike Mompi, we “took to the social media airwaves” to try to increase the vote for Aduna.  The result was that they came from behind to win by less than 20 votes—we were delighted to be a small part of that story.

Although this is not a core aspect of our normal business offering, Aduna is not a normal business.  From time to time, we are able to assist our clients this way but Aduna was uniquely suited for a social media assault.  Again, it does not work with all companies—there is something quite special about the mixture of West Africa, an appealing brand and superfruits when you are trying to attract social media attention.

We look forward to working with some more Aduna-like entrepreneurs in the future.  I can see a few in the pipeline already!

First published in Third Sector in June 2015.

I tend to consider what to write in this column only as deadlines approach. Quite a bit has been going on the sector, offering an array of potential topics for discussion. However, the recent death of my good friend and colleague, Stephen Lloyd, whom I have described as the social impact investment sector’s leading legal light, means that at this point in time my mind is frankly on him and people like him. I wrote a piece to honour Stephen on the ClearlySo blog so I will not repeat myself. However, he was so significant that it would do him a disservice to neglect him in this piece.

On writing about Stephen and his life I felt a depressing sense of déjà vu. I recalled having written also after the death of two very different but also significant individuals in the sector: Sarah Dodds and Anita Roddick. As founder of The Body Shop, Anita needs no introduction and her influence on the sector has been enormous. The Body Shop, together with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, were the first two “big hits” of businesses that generate significant social impact. Also, each fundamentally changed the way we thought about consumption.

Sarah Dodds, like many of the hundreds toiling away in the social investment space is less well known but equally loved and admired by those who knew her well. The Canadian born Dodds spent years here in the UK working in particular with early-stage ventures that had scalable potential. She spent much of her career here in the UK at UnLtd running their ventures arm and dedicated herself tirelessly to helping many early stage social entrepreneurs achieve scale.

I feel a sense of rage at the premature passing of these three great people, but I also thought it might be worthwhile to explore some of the characteristics common to them—I have come up with three I thought were worth sharing.

First, the most noticeable trait all three of these people shared was a deep abiding faith and conviction in what they were doing. All three believed, almost as a matter of faith, that the endeavours on which they were embarked had the potential to change the world for the better. Each chose their own path to achieve this although, like any who are cut down before their time, there was much more still to be done. But this sense of dogged determination is something I admired in all three.

Second, all three seemed incapable of doing anything else. It was as if they had received a custodial sentence and were legally required to commit to community service to the sector for society’s collective benefit. They all seemed to have no choice in the matter and I could not imagine them doing anything else.

A third characteristic was an inability to do things the way they were supposed to. They each drove people around them a bit crazy with their desire, commitment, drive and work rate. Although loved by many this did not mean that their colleagues always found them easy to work with. We should recognise and accept that when people are embarked on world-changing ventures, their single-minded focus, their inability to easily say no, or to be told “no”—all of these qualities which contribute to their success—can mean they can be frustrating at times.

I offer these observations above because I wish to remember my friends and because their passing away before their time raises existential questions I do not attempt to address in this piece.  But also, these three great individuals from the social impact investment space serve as role models for many actively engaged in the sector, and also for those considering social impact investment careers.  I think we could not ask for better models.

First published in Third Sector in August 2014.