Mônica Nascimento
On the last day of the 2006 International Conference, at breakfast, representatives of companies and guests met with the Steering Committee of the Solidarity Capital Fund (FCS), an initiative aimed at solidarity economy enterprises in Latin America as a solidarity and sustainable investment option.
Francisco Mazzeu, executive-director of the Unitrabalho Foundation, put forward a working plan and an intersectoral cooperation agenda for the development of this fund.
The FCS aims to contribute to the implementation of enterprises and their improvement, with high potential of economic and social return, carefully selected, and continuously monitored, since the investment will be made in installments, to be gradually released as operational, financial, and social goals are achieved. Such enterprises can already comprise the partnership network of companies or institutions that might participate in the fund.
Francisco explains that “the FCS is a path for raising additional funds in new social enterprises or even in existing ones, which can, with new investments, improve or enhance the production capacity and have management monitoring carried out by professionals of one of several project incubators created in the Unitrabalho Foundation projects.”
When the social enterprise reaches maturity and becomes self-sustainable, generally after five years of activities, the FCS will start getting return on investment, being able to start a new investment cycle or return the capital to investors.
Some partnerships are still being set up to ensure the elaboration of the Fund’s Bylaws, and also of the agreements that are being signed among all stakeholders. “One of the main challenges to consolidate this initiative is to have a financial institution participate in the Steering Committee to manage its finance,” concluded the FCS director.