4 minute read
Local Social Entrepreneur Getting Close With KIN
Local Social Entrepreneur Getting Close With KIN
By Leland Schwartz
Advertisement
Alain Chetrit calls it the “network of networks,” put together to provide a new source of “knowledge capital” to those working on scalable solutions to the United Nations Global Goals.
The world’s social entrepreneurs need contributions of sheer knowledge as much as they do monetary donations, Chetrit said, in order to crack the challenges they face trying to achieve zero hunger, knock out poverty, and among myriad other problems, save the climate.
Alain Chetrit
Photo by Leland Schwartz
So Chetrit, inspired by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge, and two colleagues from the Young President’s Organization (YPO) set out to create a way to curate groups of experts to pledge their knowledge, experience and connections, and match them with social ventures that need their advice. It’s called the Knowledge Impact Network (KIN).
Chetrit, who moved to Orlean six years ago with his wife, Claudine, is best known for creating and operating the first Hugo Boss retail clothing stores in the world. He also started a technology business, a hedge fund, and a laboratory services company serving drug research.
Reaching into his past as a fashion designer and artist, Chetrit is making and donating a series of drawings and oil pastels for KIN to make available to its donors who want to accelerate the growth of social ventures producing positive impact in the world.
Meanwhile, to take KIN off the drawing board and scale the idea around the world, he hired Elaine MacDonald, who led Harvard Business School’s alumni organization in San Francisco, HBS Community Partners, that connects the school’s alumni in the region with local nonprofits looking for specific kinds of help.
MacDonald and Chetrit decided that one way to actualize KIN was to have 90-minute brainstorming “Catalyze Sessions” and invite social organizations and “knowledge partners” to apply and engage. They did, and they came. The World Food Program’s Innovation Accelerator asked KIN to help its award-winning hunger app, Share The Meal, find millions of new users by connecting it to partners whose platforms offer frequent transactions for consumers to engage, such as food delivery, eCommerce platforms, eSports and gaming.
Eden Reforestation Projects, which plants a million trees a day and gives nearby villagers a livelihood doing so, asked KIN to connect it to new pipelines of large-scale reforestation projects in Central and South America and Asia.
The Circular City Coalition, with a vision to create regenerative and equitable cities around the world, wants help identifying businesses that are investing in re-use/re-purpose/de-growth business models.
Corps Africa recruits, trains, and places young, university-educated Africans in under served regions in their own countries to facilitate small-scale, highimpact projects. They asked KIN how to leverage partnerships to ultimately enable more young Africans to combat poverty in rural communities.
To pay for its pro bono work for the social ventures, KIN is launching an “Executives Engaging in Impact” program for companies seeking an innovative and turn-key way to involve their management in social impact, advance their corporate social responsibility goals and expand professional networks.
“Company executives will be able to choose their impact areas of interest, KIN will curate social ventures in need of their expertise, and then facilitate knowledge exchanges that enable multiple parties to collaborate and contribute to accelerating impact,” Chetrit says.
At the root of KIN’s network are about 40 members of its Global Advisors Council, purposeful leaders from around the world who are a wide mix of entrepreneurs, philanthropists, social engineers and thought leaders.
Most of the “Knowledge Partners” who want to give back by volunteering their time come from KIN’s worldwide networks and have heard through KIN about the needs of the various social ventures.
Chetrit also has been a long-time member of YPO, the international network of CEOs with 31,000 members in more than 100 countries. When he was Global Chairman of YPO Gold, he started the organization’s Global Impact Initiative, the group’s way of highlighting extraordinary members doing extraordinary things to make the world a better place. Creating KIN was Chetrit’s way of taking that idea the next step. “P&L doesn’t only stand for profit and loss,” Chetrit says looking out the window of his barn out Kilkenny Road. “It also stands for Purpose and Legacy.”
