Directing capital towards institution-building of small and mid-sized non-profits and impact-driven enterprises

Social Synergy Deutschland e.V. (SSD) aims to contribute to the creation of steady, consistent, and durable impact over time through institution-building of matured, small, and medium non-profits’ and enterprises by enhancing their intangible (institutional) capital. We invest patient capital and on-the-ground technical advisory to impact-oriented and social enterprises as well as mature non-profit-organizations, supporting them in developing and streamlining their business models to leverage their potential.

Our mission builds on the unique and proven approach called ’Investing at Margin’ as developed and continuously refined since 2013 by Social Synergy Foundation (SSF), based in Mumbai, India. SSD was launched in December 2018 and registered in Freiburg, Germany, as a not-for-profit charitable organization ("Verein") under German Law.

Our Services

We offer Advisory Services & Partnership Support to philanthropic institutions and impact investors.

Our services include:

Investment Strategy & Governance

  • Re-evaluation of existing portfolios
  • Program & portfolio design for funding expansion
  • Impact strategy & impact governance structures

Implementation & Partnership Support

  • Partner identification & partner structuring
  • Co-Creation & Local capacity strengthening

Ecosystem & Field Building

  • Network & platform development
  • Knowledge exchange formats
  • Long-term ecosystem strengthening

Implementation, Learning & Adaptation

  • Monitoring, reflection & learning
  • Adaptive management in complex systems

Who we work with

A large number of organisations and donor portfolios we work with possess these common characteristics:

  • 30+ years of operating history

  • Clear community and geography-specific approach (unlike sectoral)

  • Elements of advocacy, capability-building or grassroots engagement being central to their models.

  • Working with issues and questions that are either not of interest to or cannot be resolved alone by governments and/or market-forces

  • Bold solutions based on ideas that are not necessarily mainstream or popular

Key lessons from our experience

  1. More money doesn’t mean better outcomes.

  2. Infusion of technology and excessive formalisation of systems and processes don’t guarantee higher fund absorption.

  3. Many of the things that you can count don’t count, many of the things that you can’t count really count.

  4. Log-frame type thinking: solutions of today only hide problems of tomorrow.

  5. Be careful to not confuse scale (put in more, get more out) with scalability (get more out with less put in).