The Georgia Social Impact Collaborative (GSIC) was formed by a group of community leaders committed to developing a stronger ecosystem around impact investing in Georgia. By bringing together our region’s leaders, representing all sectors of our social fabric, we envision an energetic and dynamic network of resources that raises up our social impact ecosystem.
GSIC’s History
Since the fall of 2016, in an effort to build a broad and inclusive ecosystem of impact investing, GSIC has engaged nearly 1,000 individual investors, social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, public sector officials, professional advisors and other change makers who all care about accelerating social solutions through the use of creative capital. Through educational workshops, lunch & learns, speaking events, surveys, happy hours and vigorous social media, GSIC will continue to support impact investing connections, education and innovation in Georgia.
September 2016: Founding of Georgia Social Impact Collaborative (GSIC) in San Francisco during SOCAP (Social Capital Markets Conference) by a core group of Georgia-based leaders determined to create an ecosystem-wide effort to accelerate impact investing in the state. Over the next 6 months, founders of GSIC researched impact investing networking maps, tools and practices, as well as reviewed dozens of impact investing work around the globe.
June 2017: GSIC engaged Advantage Consulting in data collection effort to develop the Ecosystem Map. We issued RFPs to several local consultants. Advantage, led by Chris Allers and team of 4 consultants, won the RFP to run the year-long engagement.
June 2018: Ecosystem Report published. Georgia has an emerging impact investing ecosystem. Researchers found meaningful evidence of active investors, enterprises, intermediaries, and enabling organizations. However, no entities currently serve as connecting or linking organizations to grow and sustain the ecosystem across metro Atlanta or the state, and the existing ecosystem is highly fragmented, with connections among players maintained by a relatively small number of circles of relationships.
April 2019: Theory of Change Strategy Workshop. Based on surveys and small breakout sessions, GSIC’s leadership plans next phase of development and future focus areas for the organization.
April 2019: Inaugural GSIC Happy Hour with the Center for Civic Innovation (CCI). The first of several happy hours, social entrepreneurs and foundations gathered to discuss the difficulty of raising capital. There are many social enterprises in Atlanta struggling to raise capital; GSIC can provide a space to mingle and network.
June 2019: Inaugural SocEnt Breakfast with the Village Micro Fund. A group of 12 joined Donte Miller to hear about creative ways to deploy and raise capital. New ventures in Atlanta are considering how they can make it a reality.