Capitalizing on the world’s current trends, Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenship (FEC) initiative aims at the creation of innovative solutions for low-income populations at an unprecedented scale by harnessing the joint power of businesses and social organizations.

In the last three decades, millions of social organizations have emerged to create positive social change and social entrepreneurs have been at the forefront of developing practical innovations to advance full economic citizenship for all by serving and empowering low-income populations as consumers, producers and wealth creators. While the social sector is becoming increasingly competitive, pioneering companies have strived to reconcile profit and sustainability to meet increasing pressures from their environment and stakeholders. It is a critical time to instill a mind shift within businesses and social organizations.

A core approach of FEC is the “Hybrid Value Chain” (HVC) - business-social commercial joint ventures that enable each partner to accomplish what they could not achieve alone. Through this model, business and social partners not only generate profits, but help low-income citizens access the essential goods and services they need more effectively, focusing on products or services that enhance both quality of life and the productive capacity of the poor such as access to health, water and housing. Companies tap into new markets and expand their client base, while social organizations increase their social impact by generating new sources of revenue for their organizations and expanding the range of goods and services they provide to their beneficiaries, or clients. This innovative market-based approach combines the capabilities of the business and social sectors to create cost-effective ways of better serving these populations.

HVC partnerships go beyond philanthropy or corporate social responsibility strategies. They are most effective for the goods and services that represent a significant investment from low-income populations and require the delivery of complementary services. Our ultimate goal is to break old inefficient paradigms separating the social and business sectors and transform industries to address basic human needs through the wide-scale application of HVC business models.

Ashoka and Hybrid Value Chains

Ashoka is the largest network of leading social entrepreneurs in the world. It has invested in over 2,000 of these social innovators called Ashoka Fellows in 62 countries as a way to address major social challenges with systemic responses. Ashoka’s global community and its role for more than 25 years, in building “business-social bridges,” position the institution as a leading architect of the new generation of partnerships that Hybrid Value Chains represent. During the last few years, Ashoka has gained significant insights into what makes these hybrid business models work based on the innovations of numerous Ashoka Fellows working with low-income communities and several alliances between large companies and social organizations that FEC has brokered and supported, particularly in the field of agriculture, low-income housing and more recently, micro insurance.