danone.communities: a network of social businesses
Fighting poverty and malnutrition through social business
It began with a meeting between Danone CEO Franck Riboud and Muhammad Yunus, President of microlender Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
As they shared their ideas and convictions on bringing progress to the world’s neediest people, the two men discovered that their expertise was complementary, and agreed to start a business together. Enter Grameen Danone Foods, built on an innovative idea: create a yogurt plant in Bangladesh to promote local community development. From the beginning, the business was designed to make enough money to be sustainable, but to focus primarily on social goals -- a revolutionary ambition.
By 2007, the first plant was up and running in Bangladesh, producing affordable yogurts fortified with micronutrients -- iodine, zinc, iron and vitamin A -- to counter nutritional deficiencies among Bangladeshi children.
Open to all: an innovative mutual fund to support social business
Danone went on to found danone.communities, offering a mutual fund designed to encourage social business initiatives. Managed and marketed by the Crédit Agricole group, this innovative financial tool was launched in December 2007 with a clear mandate:
- Expand Grameen Danone Foods by building additional plants in Bangladesh.
- Support social businesses consistent with Danone’s mission in other parts of the world
- Use this innovative business model to partner with local stakeholders and NGOs, combining their know-how with Danone’s.
- Expand the fund’s support community to embrace all contributors to the project, including an entirely new type of investor. With danone.communities, these new investors can commit their savings to social progress, generating a social return on their investment.
As a result, danone.communities supports Senegal’s La Laiterie du Berger and Cambodia’s 1001 Fontaines project, in addition to Grameen Danone Foods in Bangladesh.
Learn more about Grameen Danone Foods
Learn more about La Laiterie du Berger
Learn more about 1001 Fontaines
In 2010, India and France came to extand the geography of the projects.
Learn more about Naandi Community Water Services (India)
Learn more about Isomir (France).
Learn more about the danone.communities mutual fund
Today danone.communities is launching nearly a dozen immersion trips to study the potential of new projects.
danone.communities : what is it?
Meeting of minds
It all started in November 2005 with a meeting between Danone CEO Franck Riboud and Muhammad Yunus, President of microlender Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Realizing that they shared the same vision of development for poor countries, the two men moved quickly to found a business that would leverage their complementary skills. Grameen Danone Foods was built on an innovative idea: set up a small yogurt plant in Bogra, Bangladesh, to promote local development and bring health to the country’s poorest people. Today, the micro-plant they envisioned is in full operation and more plants will be built on the same model throughout Bangladesh.
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danone.communities: How does it work?
The Board of Directors danone.communities
The Board of Directors danone.communities is composed of 12 members: personalities and pioneers in the development actors. History, personal commitment or professional background of those who motivate their involvement and contribution to the project danone.communities. Their knowledge or interest in the problems of developing countries, their experience with communities and their diverse geographical origins make this collaboration a real force for the project. All are convinced that there is now a real place in the economy to the "social business".
danone.communities - The latest news
December 2008 -- danone.communities branches out
Following its initial success with Grameen Danone in Bangladesh, danone.communities has invested in two new social businesses: 1001 Fontaines pour Demain in Cambodia, and La Laiterie du Berger in Senegal.
The danone.communities FCPR venture-capital fund, which is wholly owned by the danone.communities mutual fund (SICAV), has acquired a 34% interest in a business set up by 1001 Fontaines pour Demain to provide safe drinking water to villagers in isolated parts of Cambodia at less than one eurocent a liter.
In Senegal, the venture-capital fund teamed up with I&P, a private investment company focusing on microfinance institutions and small to medium-size business in West Africa, to back a capital increase for Senegal’s La Laiterie du Berger and become a minority shareholder with 25%. La Laiterie du Berger's mission is to promote the production of fresh, locally collected milk, improving conditions for northern Senegal's Peul cattle herders and at the same time offering local consumers high-quality fresh dairy products that are more affordable than those made with imported milk.
Today, danone.communities is launching nearly a dozen immersion tripsto study the potential of new investment projects.
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The Blog
What’s new on Social Business Youngsters, the Facebook app of danone.communities ?
Last December, we launched on our Facebook page the game Social Business Youngsters, an app dedicated to people under 25 who wants to contribute to build a better world through social business initiatives.
The game is still going on, (until end of March) and almost 2000 people have already subscribed to be part of this innovative “call for projects”.
After several weeks, let’s have a look on the results !
What is blindingly obvious is that 2 countries are really implicated in submitting projects: France and Bangladesh. Sure, both countries are quite close to each other because of the initiative Grameen Danone Foods Ltd, but… are they becoming competitors? We need more weeks to shed light on this subject.
The other point is about Categories: it seems that social business youngsters are most interested in creating their own project or start-up than simply promoting or doing acamdecal studies about social business. Indeed, the category SB Create is the most declared by members of the game whereas SB Research and SB Promote are the less used. It inspires me one question: Where all the students writing a thesis on social business have gone? It’s time to take your chance !
Now, what can we say about the best schools involved in the game? Bangladesh is the star with 2 universities on the podium:
- Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka
Matthieu Dardaillon joined the danone.communities team in Paris !
Hello everyone,
I am very happy to join the danone.communities team for the six months to come! I will work on community mangement with Olivier and Laurence to gather the efforts of the various communities involved in the danone.communities adventure and promote social business.
I discovered social business and social entrepreneurship through two main readings during my years of preparatory classes, ‘A World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism' by Professor Yunus and '80 Hommes pour Changer le Monde'by Sylvain Darnil and Mathieu Le Roux. I was finally convinced at the conference with Professor Yunus organized by danone.communities in February 2010. I was immediately excited by the idea that a company can make a considerable difference to solve social problems on a large scale, such as malnutrition or access to water in developing countries, or poverty and insecurity in developed countries.
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