Cogent’s Social Entrepreneur Roundtables are an opportunity for social enterprises to discuss the challenges of entrepreneurship and impact investing as well as to share and exchange resources.
Public benefit corporations, for-profit and not-for-profit enterprises, and individuals are invited to the Social Entrepreneurs Roundtables. The only requirement is that the participating organization is mission-driven and interested in the impact investing community. After exploring roundtables of up to 15 participants, we have limited the number of attending organizations to 4 in order to maintain an intimate setting where we can dive deep into topics with the entrepreneurs.
The purpose of the Social Entrepreneur Roundtables is to create an environment of peer learning that facilitates the expansion of the Twin Cities Impact Investing Ecosystem. We have found that group discussions are fruitful for entrepreneurs because although the stage, scale, and structure of each of the attending organizations varies, their questions about impact investing and business overlap. As a result, the agenda for the roundtables has evolved to emphasize open discussion followed by networking:
Agenda
15 mins – Introductions
45 mins – Open discussion guided by Cogent
30 mins – Informal networking
The Social Entrepreneur Roundtables serve as an easy, low commitment entry point to the Twin Cities Impact Investing Ecosystem for the entrepreneurs and an efficient way to keep a pulse on the activity and challenges of the social enterprise community for Cogent and the Hub.
The Social Entrepreneur Roundtables are held at community partners around the metro. Previous locations have included Impact Hub MSP, The Improve Group and James J. Hill Library. Please see the Eventbrite page for each Social Entrepreneur Roundtable for the specific location.