Edited by Dr KK Tse
“I have a Dream….”
Announcing the launch of DreamImpact 「夢創成真」
A brand new platform to transform dreams into impact
I have a dream that one day social-purpose organizations in Hong Kong will have access to all the critical support that they need in order to grow their business and impact.
For the past few years, Education for Good has been pioneering social entrepreneurship education and have mentored and supported a number of social entrepreneurs to launch social ventures.
It is time to create a brand new platform to support a network of social-purpose organizations to scale their individual operations and create collective impact.
DreamImpact 「夢創成真」 will be this platform.
It will be located at a 12,600 sq. ft. facility in Lai Chi Kok just 3-minute walk from the MTR station. There will be co-working space as well as event space.
It is not a conventional co-working space. There will not be any tenants, only partners. All partners are by invitation only. They could be social enterprises or NGOs, but it is likely that the majority will be privately funded social enterprises.
There will be two types of partners, namely, Resident Partners (RP) and Non-resident Partners (NRP). RP are those who will be using both the co-working and event space. NRP are those who will be using only the event space.
Our Dream
DreamImpact aspires to become the most-sought-after community for social-purpose organizations with dreams, commitment and capability to change the world for the better.
All Partners are expected to share their dreams and 3-year goals with fellow Partners. DreamImpact will mobilize resources, expertise and networks to support each Partner to realize their goals and dreams.
All Partners are encouraged to make use of the space provided for meetings, gatherings and events. Both RP and NRP will enjoy the same preferential rates which are lower than those charged to non-partners.
All Partners are invited to attend the semi-annual Partners Forums to share their progress, challenges and plans, as well as to build fellowship and explore collaboration.
All Partners will receive support in the following areas:
- Lean Startup training and coaching – we believe that this methodology is critically important for all startups
- Guerrilla and social media marketing – one of the members of the Steering Group is the founder of a leading digital marketing company in HK
- Debt and equity financing – assisting our Partners to access repayable finance
- Central support services – such as accounting, auditing, legal, etc.
- Sharing of client networks – we will facilitate the sharing of client networks among Partners
- ‘Corporate Buy Social’ program – we will initiate this brand new program to encourage corporates to procure from social enterprises
- Access to B Corps – Partners will be connected to the growing number of B Corps which are keen to collaborate with social-purpose organizations
- Consultancy on scale up strategy – we provide advice to Partners to scale their operations and impact
Corporate Buy Social
Most social enterprises could be either B2C or B2B, or both. From our experience working with dozens of social enterprises, one insight stands out:
For a social enterprise to be able to self-sustain and grow, there must be a strong B2B component in the business model.
DreamImpact will place special emphasis on advocating for Corporate Buy Social. We will be developing and promoting a Corporate Guide to Buy Social.
We will build on the pioneering work of two overseas initiatives, one from the UK and one from the US.
Insights could be obtained from the following two documents:
UK – Buy Social Corporate Challenge Impact Report
Self-sustaining
DreamImpact will be running as a self-financing unit. Our major sources of income are: rental from co-working and event space, training programs (fee-charging for non-Partners and free of charge for Partners), special events and projects, consultancy projects, corporate sponsorships, etc. We target to become break-even within three years.
Mutual Sharing and Learning for Collective Impact
DreamImpact is a community where the Partners will cherish mutual learning, mutual feedback and mutual support. As a sharing and learning community, the Partners will share with fellow Partners their expertise, experience, challenges, and collaboration opportunities.
The Partner are contributing to creating a new eco-system for accelerating the growth of social-purpose organizations. Collectively, we will be making a much greater impact than just working on our own. DreamImpact facilitates turning individual dreams into collective impact.
Co-creators and Steering Group
DreamImpact is co-created by KK Tse and YS Lam.
KK and YS have known each other for over 45 years, since university days. YS is a retired industrialist who has founded a social enterprise running two optical shops adopting a ‘Buy One, Give One’ model; for any sale of a pair of glasses, another pair will be provided free of charge to persons in need. KK was a corporate executive who became an entrepreneur in his latter part of business career. Since retirement he has been active in promoting social entrepreneurship, and co-found a number of social enterprises, including Dialogue in the Dark, Education for Good and Social Investors Club.
DreamImpact will be led by a Steering Group whose members as of May 26, 2017, are:
- KK Tse (co-convenor)
- YS Lam (co-convenor)
- Rebecca Yung
- Kenny Yiu
- Freddy Law
- HW Chan (Honorary General Manager)
What we are NOT
- We are not a conventional co-working space, although we do offer rental space for your teams. Unlike most co-working spaces, we are highly selective in recruiting our Partners and only admit those who share our dreams and will stand to gain a tremendous lot from our services and support. Above all, we deliberately require them to share with us their dreams and targets so that we could mobilize our resources and networks to help them succeed.
- We are not an incubator or accelerator in the conventional sense. For one thing, we do not provide any grants to our Partners. We do provide training and coaching – indeed, we will insist that they master the lean startup methodology as it is a vital tool for startup success. More fundamentally, we are working primarily with startups that have been set up for at least one or two years, with a small team of more or less permanent staff and a product/service that is being tested in the market. It is with such teams that we intend to invest in helping them clarify their dreams and formulate concrete targets.
- We are not limiting ourselves only to social enterprises. In fact, we see the emergence of a growing number of Certified B Corps in Hong Kong which are for-profit companies using business to tackle a range of social and environmental issues. They are natural allies of social enterprises, as all aspiring and Certified B Corps have to demonstrate their contribution to the local community. Social enterprises and B Corps could work together in a win-win manner to create more social impact. At the same time, we also welcome units from non-profit organizations to become our Partners.
A note on our name DreamImpact「夢創成真」
In coming up with a name for this new initiative, Education for Good has drawn on its experience in the past few years in educating and nurturing social entrepreneurs. Without a compelling dream that one is passionately committed to realize, there is usually not enough motivation to put in the hard work to acquire new skills and to break old habits in the journey of launching a social venture. We therefore want to highlight this in our name.
In Chinese, we call it 「夢創成真」 instead of 「夢想成真」, to emphasize that we plan to make our dreams come true through entrepreneurship, not daydreaming.
Above all, we want to create a Platform where the Partners within it stand a much better chance of achieving success than if they operate entirely on their own.
Just imagine: if our Partners achieve their 3-year targets together, the collective impact of the Platform will be formidable.
Target opening date: Mid-August, 2017
Header Image from DreamImpact Facebook page.
