Impetus Trust, UK’s pioneering venture philanthropy charity, shared its practices and experiences with more than 15 members of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) at its London offices last month.

Daniela Barone Soares, Impetus chief executive, said the day provided an opportunity for learning in both directions and gave all important time for members to ask the questions that they rarely have the opportunity to ask.

Beate Truck, managing director of EVPA, who organised the event, said the day provided a unique opportunity for members to network and hear from one of the more experienced of its 115 members.

Truck believes venture philanthropy has reached a milestone in its development, “Though the development of venture philanthropy is patchy across Europe, with the UK several years ahead of most, we are out of the evangelism stage and venture philanthropy is maturing. We need to consolidate what we have learned and start to apply standards,” she says.

With that in mind EVPA is creating a ‘Knowledge Centre’ to act as a virtual hub for all exchange relating to the practice and study of venture philanthropy within Europe and beyond. The Knowledge Centre has secured five years funding and has appointed a research director Lisa Hehenberger to develop a number of research papers. Its future publications include one that looks at how foundations are using venture philanthropy. The centre will also provide design workshops and training and develop best practice.

Barone Soares says it is an ‘exciting time’ for venture philanthropy though acknowledges the market is tiny compared to the whole of the philanthropy sector having raised around £100m in the UK by her estimation. She says the government’s potential involvement with venture philanthropy as part of its ‘Big Society’ vision could see the sector gear up very quickly.

Venture philanthropy is expanding its reach across the globe and co-founder of Impetus Trust Stephen Dawson recently exported the concept to Africa through the Jacana Venture Partnership.

Jacana  is  a  socially  responsible,  for-profit  business  that  invests  in  new  or emerging Fund  Managers  (FMs)  and  builds  their  capacity  to  the  point  where they  can achieve  critical  mass  in  their  operations  and  funds  under  management. It aims to enable small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow and help millions out of poverty through economic development and job creation.

Last week it announced its first investment in an African venture capital (VC) fund manager, InReturn Capital, an East African SME investment firm based in Kenya. Access to finance is one of the major obstacles to the growth of African businesses. “Jacana mitigates this risk for investors by selecting high quality teams and providing intensive support to local fund managers through a network of expert mentors – highly experienced private equity and venture capital professionals who can provide hands-on support to local teams,” says Dawson, Jacana’s Chairman.

Jacana’s offering of capital and expertise aims to enable InReturn to reach its goals more rapidly and support the expansion of the team into Tanzania and Uganda and raise additional capital from international investors, using Jacana’s extensive contacts in the industry.

Simon Merchant, CEO and co-founder of Jacana, says, “This is the first step in growing our network of African partners, supported by international private equity experts. We are delighted to be working in close partnership with InReturn and look forward to supporting this excellent team in making successful SME investments in East Africa.”

It represents a further blurring of boundaries between business and philanthropy.

Dawson says Jacana is based on a social investment model along the lines of the Global Impact Investing Network, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of impact investing, which it defines as ‘investments aiming to solve social or environmental challenges while generating financial profit’.

Dawson and Jacana co-founder Lord Joel Joffe, CBE, philanthropist and former chairman of Oxfam are both investing money in the organisation from family foundations as a Programme Related Investment and it is very patient capital – they expect it to be five plus years before they get any sort of return.

“The ultimate goal is to make a profit and we invest in businesses not charities, but I would certainly argue that it fits within a broad definition of  venture philanthropy in that our mission is a social one (to tackle poverty in Africa) and our methodology is based on venture capital.”