Funder networks of social enterprise accelerators

I will be taking the second module.

Introduction

Accelerators play a critical role in the social enterprise value chain. They provide a space and culture for creativity to flourish and for social entrepreneurs to network with each other. Importantly, accelerators also connect social entrepreneurs to funders. Funders of accelerators play a foundational role in enabling this industry of social innovation, but what motivates them to fund the accelerators, and do they fund accelerators because of what the accelerators do, or who else is funding them?

Last year, a fellow SNA Fletcher student sought to explore the connections between boards of funders and social enterprises, with people creating that connection; this analysis hoped to identify potential leverage points for collaboration. (http://crtunnard.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-board-member-social-network-analysis.html).

I hope to take a different view than this work by, instead, mapping the connections between funders and social enterprise accelerators, with funding creating the connections. This identifies the major funders of social enterprise a bit higher upstream in the social enterprise value chain, rather than looking at direct funding of social enterprises. I also hope to explore whether the relationships that funders have with other funders (via mutually-supported accelerators) are leveraged by an accelerator to provide funding to the projects they support.

Research questions 

Who are the primary funders of social enterprise accelerators? What influences the funder's decision to fund an accelerator - relationships with other funders or a theme the accelerator focuses on?

Secondary: If accelerators could connect to other accelerators through a mutual funder, what does that network look like? Do first- or second-degree connections to funders play a role in what funding the accelerators' projects secure?

Hypothesis

Accelerators are major actors in connecting social entrepreneurs and funders; one might say they are the ones actively building the social enterprise network. I hypothesize that SNA can 1) uncover the major sources of funding these accelerators are tapping into and 2) show whether accelerators expand the funding available for their projects by leveraging the network of their funders and/or the network of accelerators who share a mutual funder.

SNA methodology

This network is two-mode (Funders and Accelerators). To identify major funders, I will find the highest out-degree funders in the two-mode data. To understand the influences on their decision (relationships with funders vs. theme), I will analyze whether groups of funder's out-degree connections to accelerators parallel each other, or whether funders out-degree connections parallel thematic similarities between accelerators instead. I will compare/contrast different kinds of funders (e.g. foundations, private sector, etc) relationship characteristics to each other.

Secondary: To identify the network of funders available for a particular accelerator, I will convert the two-mode data sets to two one-mode data sets. In one, the accelerator-accelerator connections will be if they share a funder. I will analyze the most connected accelerators – are the funders they are able to secure for their projects the funders from the other accelerator's network?

I will collect all data required by locating popular and commonly recognized accelerators and finding who their founding funders were.  Then, I will identify the most central accelerators (highest degree, eigenvector via funders, etc), identify their 2013 projects' funders and compare this list of funders to the funders of accelerators; are they founding funders or second-degree connections who those founding funders have relationship with?

Conclusion

This analysis aims to uncover the networks of funders that underlie the funding of social enterprise accelerators (and its projects). By outlining patterns of funding flows along particular relational or thematic lines, it may clarify how funders make decisions to fund accelerators. Additionally, the analysis might shed some light to help accelerators better understand how to prioritize relationships with funders if it impacts what funding their projects are able to receive.