Social investment non-profit organization Foundation for a Sustainable Society Inc. continues to scale up social entrepreneurship by offering financial and non-financial products to Filipino enterprises, promoting inclusive socio-economic growth and environmental sustainability.
The British Council, supported by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, reported that social enterprises in the country have struggled to balance their environmental and financial goals to achieve business stability and effectively measure their overall impact.
FSSI addresses this challenge through its triple bottom line approach, which measures People, Planet and Profit as the main indicators. Through this approach, FSSI has benefited over 280 local social enterprises, resulting in deeper support for the communities they belong to, more paths to sustainability and more profitable businesses.
“Social enterprises aim to create social and environmental impact while maintaining a viable business at the same time,” said Sixto Donato Macasaet, executive director at FSSI. “In order to achieve their goals, we and our partners from national civil society organizations and international organizations help them address their challenges through our needs-based services that include loans, developmental deposits, seed capital and equity investment.”
Women-led enterprise Mallig FST Multi-Purpose Cooperative is engaged in lending, savings deposits, agricultural inputs trading and mechanization services and rice milling. In 2022, the cooperative expanded and opened a gas station in Mallig, Isabela to create jobs for their immediate community.
The cooperative also started the construction of a multi-purpose building to be used as the cooperative’s office, convenience store, agricultural trading store for bulk purchase of agricultural supplies and other stalls for rent.
Through FSSI’s Investing in Women project, the cooperative is able to augment its working capital for agricultural inputs trading and thus offer agricultural inputs to farmer members at a lower price, along with technical advice for better yield per cropping. The project also allows the cooperative to grow beyond its 642 members — 234 of whom are women — by being able to help more communities even outside of Isabela.
Nueva Ecija-based women-led social enterprise Kilusang Lima para sa Lahat Multi-Purpose Cooperative, on the other hand, began partnering with FSSI through a loan program in 2006, to sustain its financial support to members who are farmers and owners of micro, small and medium enterprises.
In 2022, K5 MPC worked with FSSI, under a renewed partnership, to expand its services to the nearby province, Aurora, and launched its first lodging business, Peaks and Waves Bed and Breakfast.
FSSI supported the construction of the lodging house, which now contributes to the local economy of the town of Dingalan through tourism, employment generation and environmental protection by segregating, composting and recycling waste and reusing containers to reduce plastic usage.