Innovative Finance That Works for Social Enterprises 

March 2026 | Portland, Oregon

What does it look like when a room full of practitioners, lenders, foundation officers, and community leaders lean in around a shared problem? Visible energy, active discussions and great resonance. That is exactly what happened at our recent roundtable, graciously hosted by The Lemelson Foundation at their Portland offices.

The roundtable brought together interested participants from Portland's blended finance, social enterprise, and lending ecosystem keen to engage in thoughts to build financial structures that work for the enterprises solving our most pressing community challenges.

The India Proof Point

Srinivas Ramanujam, CEO of Villgro - Inkludo's India implementation partner - opened with a presentation on five years of on-the-ground pilots in India. He shared what it takes to change lender behavior — not through advocacy, but through evidence. By placing a first-loss guarantee alongside technical assistance, Villgro demonstrated that lending to social enterprises is viable when risk is shared and markets are supported. $400K of philanthropic capital unlocked $1.3 million in lending across 12 enterprises, with a default rate below 5%.

The story of BharatRohan which received a $30K loan backed by guarantee in 2021 to its listing on the BSE SME Exchange and serving 50,000 farmers helped bring the model to life. It showed how enterprises, founders, communities and investors are richly rewarded if there is a stitch-in-time. Srinivas explained how these pilots helped create the Guarantees for Enterprise Acceleration and Resilience (GEAR) model, in partnership with Inkludo.

A Room Buzzing With Energy

As we went around the room, participants shared diverse perspectives that had a lot in common. Dr. Astrid Scholz brought grounding examples of what is already working in the Pacific Northwest. Maggie Flanagan of The Lemelson Foundation — whose early support funded the first pilot of our guarantee structure — asked the questions that sharpened everyone's thinking. Kory Murphy and Kasem Rodriguez Mohsen brought lived experience of navigating capital access from the enterprise side.

Patrick Maloney and David Kenney surfaced something that comes up repeatedly in these rooms: the limitations of venture equity as a model for mission-driven businesses that are not built for a high-return exit. Guarantees, as Dimitry Gershenson articulated, offer investors a different kind of confidence — not equity upside, but a de-risked entry point that changes what becomes possible.

Juan Barraza spoke to the collective will that is required to make systemic change happen for early-stage enterprises, and Michelle Kostouser brought a timely reminder of how mentorship sits alongside capital as a critical ingredient for enterprise growth. 

Representatives from Portland's Prosper Portland, Metro, and CIT — Yohannes Wolday, Mitch Daugherty, and Cristal Finley — brought the local policy and community development lens, connecting the GEAR model to the realities of place-based economic development. John W. Haines added further texture and nuance, while Travis Massar brought an international perspective that connected the dots between what is working in India and what could travel.

What We Took Away

There was real appetite – not for lunch, as the discussions went on as the lunch was getting cold - in Portland's ecosystem to know about financial tools that sit between grants and equity. Conversations like these remind us that while contexts are slightly different, social enterprises everywhere are doing the quiet, essential work of building a more resilient world and need access to capital and support to build market and organization capacity.

We are grateful to The Lemelson Foundation for their generosity in hosting, their early belief in this model, and their continued partnership.