the challenge

As one of the Philippines’ first social impact incubators, xchange has managed to incubate and exit several successful social enterprises in the past decade. Not a small feat in a market that lags behind its Southeast Asian neighbors in nurturing sustainable impact enterprises with scale. However, the team felt that more could - and should - be done to deliver its mission of “shaping a thriving ecosystem to multiply impact for the common good.”

It had been a few years since the team had reviewed its business model and strategic plans, and given their incubation model of scaling with intention and rigor, returns on investments were taking time, hence the need to explore other business verticals. Throw in new developments in the field of social impact funding and incubation into the mix and it seemed the time was ripe for them to embark on reimagining their future.

They wanted to explore ways to not just enable social entprises but also for-profit enterprises whose products or services could potentially deliver positive social impact. Part of this “enabling” work was, as they had learned through years of practice, providing enterprise education to more individuals. They shared these ideas with me and communicated the need for a consultant who could make sense of all their ideas and conundrums in ensuring a sustainable future for xchange.

the design

For this brief I felt that going beyond the usual Strategic Planning process would have yielded a continuation of “business as usual” strategies without the benefit of exploring possibilities for the organization. I recommended using a Strategic Foresight framework which made room for the team to delve into some futures thinking as well as imagining possible scenarios and paths forward for xchange. As this was done during the Pandemic lockdowns, I designed these as 4-hour Online Workshops spread over a couple of weeks to allow time and room for conversation and reflection - critical elements to the exploratory nature of the Strategic Foresight framework.

the impact

At the end of the multi-sessions, the xchange team arrived at a clear path forward for a sustainable future for the organization. Through the facilitated discussions and workshop sprints, they were able to determine a new business model that would provide a steadier source of revenue that could feed into its impact fund for incubation work. Furthermore, they were able to refresh their Vision and Mission and develop adjacent strategies for brand and communications. A bright future ahead for the important work this organization does.