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My dream is to destroy the schooltotally with a missile, says the7-year-old boy on the video.

Every day is the same there. I dontlike doing homework. I have no idea aboutothers eelings and the reverse is also true.My handwriting is the worst in my class.The teacher would punish me. I wouldhave to stand at the balcony or one hour.

The boy eels this way becausehe has dyslexia, deined as diiculty inreading and writing and thought to aectbetween 5 and 17% o people worldwide.

However, in the Chinese mainlandew are amiliar with dyslexia, accordingto Lan Zi, whose Lang Lang LearningPotential Development Center in BeijingsXizhimen district is the countrys irstschool to oer specialized training ordyslexic children.

This lack o awareness meansmillions o dyslexic Chinese children goundiagnosed. Some are even punishedor their learning diiculties by parentsand teachers who dont understand thecause o the childs problems and the ways

to address them. It also makes raisimoney to fnance the Lang Lang Centecontinued operation diicult whichwhy Lan Zi wants the school to operatea sustainable business generating its oincome through tuition ees rather threlying on donations.

Without proper help these kmight end up on the streets. They coubecome gangsters. So this work is vmeaningul, says Lan Zi. I we fnancially independent then we can othis training to more children. Donatio

Avantage Ventures hopes to help social enterprises become self-sustaining by TOM SPENDER

Teachers and students of

the Lang Lang LearningPotential DevelopmentCenter in Beijing, one ofthe social enterprisesAvantage Ventures isadvising.

Making a Difference

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just arent stable.The Lang Lang Center is just the

kind o social enterprise that Yvonne Li andher company, Avantage Ventures, hopes tohelp. A ormer investment banker, Li andher partners started Avantage Ventures

in 2008 tohelp suchenterprisesd e v e l o presourcesand con-nec t ionswi th in -v e s t o r s .The LangL a n gC e n t e ri s o n eo about50 such

enterprises that Avantage is working withacross Asia.

Instead o relying on continuedphilanthropy to keep going, socia lenterprises look or investment to reachsustainability and expect to eventually paytheir investors back.

The term social enterprise wascoined in the West, where the ideadeveloped out o the a id model . I ti s now taught in univers i t ies andqualiying enterprises are oten eligibleor government grants and preerential

banking.Investing in a social enterprise is

not about getting the money back, itsabout giving people dignity, says Li. Iyou hand them money they will always bedependent on you. I you invest in them

you support them in their belie that theyhave the ability to do something and createincome o their own. And i the investmentdoes well, investors get their capital backand can go and re-invest in the sector.

The aid model is really importantin war-stricken countries or during naturaldisasters, such as the earthquake in Haitior the loods in Pakistan. But there arealso models that allow social enterprisesto thrive on their own without aid moneyand i they can then its better or the NGOsector and less burden on the government.So why not?

Besides the Lang Lang center ,Avantage is working with Canyou, asotware company in Shenzhen run bya person with a disability, whose 700employees also have a disability (seeOctober CIB). The company needs workingcapital in order to scale up his business.On the environmental side, Avantage isworking with Hebei Jing Long HusbandryPig Farm, which is looking at a scheme tocapture the methane rom pig waste (whichotherwise contributes to global warming)and use it to generate clean energy that

can be used to power the arm and soldinto the grid. The process also creates asubstance known as bio-sludge, whichcan be used as a ertilizer, reducingreliance on chemical-based ertilizers.

Social entrepreneurs have bothan innate desire to make a dierenceand strong business acumen. They areinnovative in how they approach both thesocial sector and business, says Li.

Indeed, theres plenty o desire tomake a dierence in Asia, Li says, butAsian social enterprises are less visiblethan those in other regions because o thenumber o dierent languages spokenin Asia, lower levels o English languageprofciency and the Asian cultural trait odoing things in a quiet and understatedmanner rather than bragging about onesachievements.

With the dominance o Englishit takes a longer time or Asians to beheard, says Li. And there are a loto unsung heroes in Asia who justdont talk about it. Its an Asian culturalcharacteristic. It absolutely does hinder

their ability to scale up their activities they are trying to attract unding.

Lis decision to make a dierencby starting Avantage grew out o hework in investment banking, when shserved on her frms committee advisin

charities. As part o her committework, she organized a trip or some oher colleagues to a school project run bthe China Literacy Foundation in rurShanxi.

Aterwards, ive people came up me and said the trip had changed thelives. That trip gave me more satisactiothan anything else in the job. It was a hugsign that I had no eeling or the numbergame even though I was in fnance.

Later, while she was examinina structured equity product based ocarbon credits that she described aawul, highly speculative and possibeven damaging to the environment, shbecame interested in the carbon market

It was commercial in one sensso I could still use my commercial skillbut it had the greater purpose o helpinthe environment. And thats what realprompted my decision to leave thbanking sector, she says.

Two years a ter i t s oundingAvantage Ventures is now in the proceo raising money so it can also invedirectly in the social enterprises that it

currently advising.Last month, Avantage held its ir

social investment orum in Hong Konan event that brought together potential investors, social entrepreneurs anexperts on the sector, including JosMaria Figueres Olsen, a ormer presideno Costa Rica and an expert on climachange and sustainability.

At the orum, Avantage launcheits investment club, called the ImpaInvestment Circle, which is not a uno pooled capital but is instead a waor investors to gain access to welrun social enterprises that need capitaOver 120 investors rom across Asia anEurope had the opportunity to hear aboumultiple social investment models and said they would join the newly launcheclub.

We said to investors: here are thenterprises, they all have very stronentrepreneurs, competitive advantagsustainable business models and wevdone all the consultation and due diligenc now get on with it, says Li.

ImagesbyTomSpender

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She expects investment into socialenterprises to ollow the pattern set byinvestment into microinance, a decades-old industry now worth USD 20 billion.The irst investors gave money in theorm o grants, expecting no more returnon their investment than getting their

initial capital back, and then they becamegreedier as they saw the returns that theindustry was able to generate.

Its a airly new concept in Asiaso they wont have really high expecta-tions initially. But as things become moremainstream more institutional investorswill come in expecting a return. As itdevelops more players who will help thesector become more proessional andsophisticated, she says.

But to Li, social enterprises oergreater value than a normal commercialinvestment because o the social beneft theybring.

To me, social enterprises are theuture, says Li. Social enterprises donthave a pure proft motive, but i you couldput a value on the social or environmentalimpact that they have, this would increase

the value o the organization. That isvalued in todays society. We are tryingpromote a sector which would value it.

Back in Xizhimen at the Lang LaCenter, Lan Zi says she hopes to set up schoto help dyslexic children all over China.

H e r c a l c u l a t i o ns a r e s im p

Assuming an average o 10% o childrare dyslexic, there are about 500,0dyslexic children in Beijing, Shangand Guangzhou alone. Thats a maro USD 500 million based on tuition o around USD 1,000 per year. With ja 1% share o this market, Lang Lacan generate USD 5 million in revenenough to be sustainable.

The value to Chinese society o pventing hundreds o thousands o childrom missing out on an educationincalculable.

In Chinese we have a saying: xian xian lie, which translates as he who gfrst, dies frst, says Lan Zi. We want tofrst but we have no intention o dying.

And hopeully with the helpAvantage Ventures, the Lang Lang cenwill be able to reach its goals.

Yvonne Li of Avantage Ventures

ImagecourtesyofAvantag

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