ChangeFusion's investment section focuses on managing funds, brokering financing and providing business building support for early stage social enterprises:
LOCAL PORTFOLIO:
Grassroots Innovation Network - Empowers farmers in the Northeast of Thailand with appropriate grassroots technologies such as drip irrigation to improve their crop yield and ultimately knowledge in agricultural practices and overall income levels.
Usable Labs - Specializes in creating online learning environments, and enhancing the usability of websites. To date, it has created blog platforms such as Gotoknow.org, which is a space for adult bloggers, and leaners.in.th, which acts as an alternative online learning environment for university students across Thailand. Both platforms have become extremely popular and have exceeded 1,000,000 million page views since its inception.
Fuse - An online platform that attracts independent artists to upload and share their original creations - art, writing, music, short films, etc. Fuse also has a magazine that features the most creative and innovative works of art found in the online platform.
Siam Intelligence Unit - Provides data, research and analysis on socioeconomic and political issues to keep the Thai society informed. One of their key initiatives is politicalbase.in.th, which is a wiki-database that keeps track of all facts and information concerning all formal actors and elements in the political sphere of Thailand.
Volunteer Spirit - A service that matches volunteering opportunities and volunteers across Thailand.
REGIONAL PORTFOLIO:
Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (East & South Asia)
YSEI is a social venture fund/ program that finances and supports young social entrepreneurs in the region. Additionally, it aims to promote the concept of social entrepreneurship amongst young people. It is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). We are currently supporting 7 ventures in the region:
XayanIT - Provides IT education and jobs to underprivileged youth in Bangladesh. It?s unique business model is derived by taking on outsourcing work in data-entry, web-building to the US and Australia primarily.
School & Community Horticulture Enterprise - Provides nutritional supplements to mid-day school meals in India.
YouthWorks - A microcredit program for youth entrepreneurs in the rural part of the Philippines. They were recently featured in the Financial Times.
Padma - A knowledge that provides global best practices and collects indigenous information of agricultural knowledge for farmers in Bangladesh.
Community Friendly Movement (CFM) - Sources hand-made crafts from across India and sells in bulk and e-commerce to USA and Europe. The total turnover for CFM last year was USD 170,000.
Idea!s - Provides advertising and communications services to nonprofits in the Philippines. It has a hybrid business model that takes on market rate jobs while subsidizing nonprofits that cannot afford proper communications work.
SOLS 24/7 - Science of Life Systems (SOLS) 24/7 provides life-skills education to underprivileged youth in less developed countries. To date, it has schools both in Cambodia and Timor-Leste with over 2000 students.
To learn more about the entrepreneurs and ventures under the YSEI fund/ program, please visit this profiles page.
