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social impact
faqs
💗 impact fund
our impact fund is designed to support & collaboratively work with our 5 core community partners.
not only does 1% of gross merchandising value that flows through somos go into our fund, but our community partners are also shareholders in our business.
🤝 what benefits do our core community partners get?
equity ownership + dividends
- our core community partners are allocated 500 shares each with the same financial and voting rights as the founder and investors have.
- this entitles them to dividends and a pay out in the event somos is sold.
- our ownership model
1% of gross merchandising value
- 1% of all cash that flows through the platform via our course sales will be split equally amongst our core community partners.
- how this works in practice
1% of any additional somos revenue
- we also donate a further 1% of any additional somos revenue to our impact fund.
- this will also be split between our core community partners 😀.
in kind benefits
- where relevant to their own mission & goals, somos core community partners will be able to use our technology for free (or at cost if provided by a third party).
- we also provide access to our deals/discount marketplace in partnership with builtfirst.
🤔 frequently asked questions
‣
we will be announcing our core community partners in 2023.
the organisations will be groups specialising in either:
- the protection & promotion of language rights,
- mental health & wellbeing;
- broader access to digital services for systematically excluded cultures and groups, and/or
- supporting refugees and migrants in diaspora.
‣
- no. somos is a for-profit social enterprise.
- unlike regular for-profit companies, somos is obliged under its governing documents to look beyond its shareholders and also consider other key stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners and the wider community) into account when making decisions.
- one of somos's key objectives is to have a material positive impact on society.
‣
- we want our long term future to be aligned with our community. if our project goes well, we want to share that success directly with grassroots organisations doing critical work protecting languages, culture and people.
- traditional csr and diversity and inclusion programmes are often very top down. we want to build with (rather than for) the communities we work in. giving our partners shares with the same financial and voting rights as our other investors makes us directly accountable to them.
‣
- yes! we are particularly keen to work with people/organisations that:
- (i) teach or facilitate the teaching of endangered, minoritised & indigenous languages;
- (ii) support refugees and migrants in diaspora (e.g. free classes to learn local languages, protecting rights etc);
- (iii) broaden access to digital education; and
- (iv) support mental health and wellbeing.
if you are a charity or community organisation interested in working with us/think our platform could help you, please feel free to contact us and we'll be happy to discuss.
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