EVPA is indebted for the following account of the proceedings of the Paris conference to its communications partner, Hill and Knowlton

Summary of proceedings

The conference was opened by Serge Raicher, Conference Chairman and EVPA Trustee, who, in his remarks, described the aim of the EVPA as being to provide a bridge between European VPs, foundations, venture capitalists and high net worth individuals.

Plenary 1: VP – The winning ingredients: picking the team, financing the deal and knowing when it works

The panellists for the first plenary, Deirdre Mortell (One Foundation), Stephen Dawson (Impetus Trust) and Heiner Baumann (New Profit Inc), agreed that the quality of leadership is absolutely critical to an organization’s success and is the most important criterion in due diligence. This means that sometimes a new CEO will be recruited, or a COO installed alongside the existing leader, as a pre-condition for funding. Attracting talent to run an organization is difficult, with many leaders now recruited from the for-profit world. Another point of agreement was that, once a VP investment is made, every effort is made to ensure the organisation’s success and investors consider themselves as having a moral responsibility to avoid failure.

John Kingston addresses a breakout session at the conference

Serge Raicher chairing the first plenary at the Paris Conference

There must also be a performance management system with clear milestones. An adapted Balanced Scorecard (BSC), initially developed by New Profit Inc, is useful in this respect. It aligns the board, management team and investors on targets/milestones. The BSC has also been valuable in measuring VP portfolio success when data can be aggregated.

The plenary was followed by breakout sessions on measuring performance and impact, VP and social entrepreneurs, and starting a VP operation. Among the points discussed at these sessions, was that in framing measurement systems, VPs need to acknowledge the culture of the organization and show that a performance management system is critical to their future growth. It is also crucial to get investors to realize that they are there to support the organisation long-term, which can prove initially difficult. It is equally important to get entrepreneurs and VPs to network to ensure good practice is captured and used to best effect. Credibility is critical to success for a VP fund and needs to be earned through caution and humility.

Plenary 2: Leveraging resources for venture philanthropy

The first part of the panel discussion in the second plenary focussed on how to build a successful fund involving a for-profit partner. Panellists Jamie Cooper Hohn, whose organization, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, has built a highly successful fund through a hedge fund partnership and Carlo Bonomi (Invest for Children) discussed their experiences in this connection. The main advantages for the for-profit partner are that it marks them out from others and it motivates staff.

Pilotlight’s Fiona Halton then discussed her organization’s work in leveraging the resources of senior managers to help develop the work of social entrepreneurs. The obstacles to be overcome, she said, are getting managers and social entrepreneurs to understand each other’s language and for managers to be able to dedicate enough time. Pilotlight has developed a best practice model which structures the interaction between managers and social entrepreneurs, and it has proved highly effective for both parties.

EVPA continues to develop in numbers and experience. Representatives from 35 EVPA members came to this year’s conference, double the number represented at last year’s London event. As David Carrington observed: ‘EVPA gets stronger with each meeting as the practical experience grows. The rhetoric of venture philanthropy is now tempered by reality and translated into meaningful work’.

Private Equity International magazine reports on EVPA's Paris Conference