System innovation in finance for the good of people and planet - everywhere!
Funding Strategy
The Investment Opportunity
The 'Bank' and the 'Fund Management'
Transform Global Investments
The SDG 360 Game-changer Fund
The Media and Technology Properties
BIGCrowd Sales and Marketing Strategy
What is a Sustainable Innovation and Development Bank?
Transform Global is a highly developed vision to create what we refer to as a ‘Sustainable Innovation and Development Bank’.
The structure includes important innovations to help people tackle pressing economic, social and environmental issues at real scale around the world.
The design of this 'profit with purpose/fintech for good' business is for an institution that is more flexible, inclusive and less constrained than many national or multilateral development banks. At the same time, the aim is to create something that is fit for purpose and more socially and environmentally focussed than conventional investment banks - but with some of the best components of both.
Another way to view or to understand the vision is as a 'Private Sector Development Bank' or an 'Impact Investment Bank'. All terms help illuminate the intent, but the descriptor with the term 'bank', which can be controversial - needs an explanation...
Unlike retail or combined retail and investment banks - we won't take deposits from the public to then issue loans backed by these deposits. We also will not do mergers and acquisitions, nor will we raise capital or deliver advice to generate financial returns on their own.
The Transform Global model for a 'bank' in our case will be a Sustainable Development Goal focussed corporate finance and investment management business, combined with a technology, media and marketing holding and operating company. In some ways it is a bit like an old fashioned 'merchant bank' but we hope to create something that is truly fit for modern times.
The aim is to create and operate our own aligned media and collaboration platforms, which when combined with the proposed fundraising and investment management activity of the 'bank' all can combine to enable talent and funding to flow efficiently and at real scale to deliver the greatest possible SDG impacts worldwide.
The first of the two platforms is a media and TV format to help discuss, raise awareness in, and promote positive financial innovation to help address the Global Goals FundingTheGlobalGoals.tv (FGGTV)
FGGTV will work closely with a mass collaboration and funding platform we are also creating - fittingly titled BIGCrowd.net. BIGCrowd will use incentive competitions to find what we call Big Impact Game-changers addressing the SDGs, and will fund and support them using powerful awards and prizes, each of which will be worth £3.6m over 3 years, and which are paid for with the help of the BIGCrowd subscribers and collaborators, donors and grant-making organisations.
Both platforms have innovative and complementary models that can deliver significant value in their own right - but they also underpin and make possible the more ambitious parts of the vision.
The aim is to then design, raise and deploy innovative impact investment funds and structures globally. The first fund we intend to launch, and that has already been designed, will be the target £9 Billion SDG 360 Game-changer Fund.
Yes, we realise £9 Billion is a big number that might seem optimistic to some. However, there are compelling features which mean this exciting fund could be raised and operational faster than many established and much smaller formats. These features are designed to be highly aligned with the needs of the largest institutional and sovereign wealth investors - whilst also appealing to governments and impact investors.
Further, in a post-Covid and SDG focussed world, the requirement for catalytic and innovative solutions - which this strategy provides - has never been greater.
The SDG 360 Game-changer fund will be raised with and managed by a subsidiary of Transform Global called SDG 360 Fund Management.
The kind of patient capital structure proposed aims to align interests and drive collaboration. The structure can best unlock innovation, development and roll out so the SDGs can be addressed and so that all stakeholders can get more of what they want - often for less risk.
The Transform Global vision is to create a model of what 'fair and progressive capitalism' could and should be - creating a strong and inspiring example for the world. The mission is about filling funding gaps and building investment capacity for a better world.
Read more about how we intend to do this on this site, or simply get in touch if you have interest in collaboration or investment.
What will Transform Global include?
Equity investors in
Transform Global Ltd
Transform Global will own BIGCrowd and FundingTheGlobalGoals.tv indirectly, through
its direct holding company, Transform Global Media - which itself is designed to be the in house communications agency. This is to group the media and technology ventures together to create separation from the regulated activity of Transform Global in a way that is deemed best for governance purposes. Management focus and incentivisation of personnel is also optimised. The structure is also flexible for raising capital or managing future exists. Transform Global will also wholly own SDG 360 Fund Management - a structure enabling the ideal management of the SDG 360 Game-changer Fund.
Fund Investors
The news site and YouTube channel designed to shine a spotlight on the positive financial innovation to best address the Global Goals, and to debate, discuss and support every
form of finance and policy required
to change the world for the better.
The crowd sourcing, funding and incentivised collaboration platform where subscribers can help find, fund and support important
Big Impact Game-changers with the
best ideas and projects that can best
address the SDGs they care about.
An Impact Investment focussed
independent fund management business, to be owned by and working alongside Transform
Global to first raise and then
manage the innovative SDG
360 Game-changer Fund
A £9 billion target, permanent
capital, innovative impact fund,
enabling investors to systemically
and intelligently revolutionise
the impact eco-system via the
Transform Global platform and its
fin-tech and impact investments.
Not Forgetting the Governance Vehicle!
The Transform Global Trust is being set up to deliver and maintain intelligent governance for Transform Global and its subsidiary businesses - and of course, the funds which are raised and directly or indirectly managed.
The vision is collaborative, inclusive and fair. It also takes a holistic outlook to achieve a balance between commercial viability, responsibility and its impact priorities. While enabling healthy returns over time - governance aims to ensure that no stakeholders can dominate with a short term agenda.
The focus is on the longer-term but urgent objectives of swift, sustainable and scalable impact towards the Sustainable Development Goals - which in turn helps address the worlds BIG risk and resilience threats.
Great governance as described needs to be fair for all - though influence within ESG boundaries is commensurate with a long term approach to leadership, performance, value-added, capital provided, and contribution. It is critical that the important stakeholders which many ignore are also included in this equation. Thus, future generations and nature are considered and included in the structure and decision framework.
The Foundation is designed to help Transform Global create and maintain a culture that is fit for purpose and to safeguard the founding aims of the profit with purpose enterprise for the long term. This includes in the event of any change of ownership or public listing of the businesses or funds.
Within 2 years, the aim is for the foundation to have an executive management team and a rotating 15 strong board of trustees selected from 5 key stakeholder groups. These groups include investors, a diverse set of NGO’s representing civil society, respected social business innovators, the Big Impact Game-changers for whom the model is there to support - and Transform Global personnel.
A critical requirement is transparency. As the venture develops to size, we intend to have a 150 person observer board (with 30 from each of the five groups above), strict impact measurement and reporting requirements - and a public forum for discussion and debate on key issues.
Background, Why and How?
The reason for Transform Global is simple. The Founder believes passionately that the world needs to dramatically increase the rates of innovation, development and roll out for positive and truly important
economic, social and environmental activity.
It's not just that more capital is required to address specific funding gaps, but its vital that capital flows in ways that can both incentivise,
and help create the kind of positive culture organisations needed to best deliver long term impacts - and do so to a meaningful degree.
The design of our profit with purpose venture aims to fill these important funding, capacity and culture gaps - and inspire others to do the same.
The 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) were ratified by the UN in 2015 as a more complete replacement for the Millennium
Development Goals. The SDGs are perhaps the best framework yet to illuminate the issues we all need to face around the world.
Rather than simply 'nice to have' goals, the SDGs also have a flip side. By not adequately addressing these goals, we are leaving ourselves open to the consequences of serious 'risk and resilience threats.
Though people disagree widely on which of the SDGs are most important, few disagree we are moving at a snail's pace (or that we are moving quickly in the wrong direction) when it comes to addressing these truly important issues. Just as we have witnessed with COVID 19, the consequences of this can be dire for so many of us. The bottom line is, we believe Transform Global is a model that is fit for modern times. Its exciting, and we welcome you to learn more and get involved.
The potted history to the 15 plus year journey that led to the development of the model for Transform Global as it currently exists is detailed in this blog post.
As one might expect, the journey has had many twists and turns. Though now with the strong foundations of maturity, depth of thought, and the ever increased motivation of the founder - in many ways the vision has come full circle.
As it was from within the first few months, the vision is still to:-
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To source the best people and ideas
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To attract and give access to capital
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To offer great returns and unique investment opportunities
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To raise public awareness on a massive scale
The original purpose articulated in the four bullet points above (from early 2007) remain current. However, we would now add:-
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To drive system innovation to Scale Up and Speed Up how people everywhere can help deliver sustainable innovation and roll-out development - to create a better world.
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To be inclusive fair and intelligently governed.
Through FundingTheGlobalGoals.tv we will be explaining more about the back story and the many lessons learned on this journey - which we hope might be useful for others on theirs.
Status and Execution
In order to launch this bold, exciting and much-needed venture we are raising £3m of equity to set up the team and core infrastructure.
Initially, this will be focussing on FundingTheGlobalGoals.tv and BIGCrowd.net. There will also be considerable stress testing and preparation for the full vision as described on this site.
This positions for and then enables a much larger follow on funding round so these cornerstone and capacity building ventures can scale, and also put in place the talent to deliver the next stage which is the combined equity and pre-commitment to the SDG 360 Game-changer fund.
All parts of the combined 'Sustainable Innovation and Development Bank' business model shown have comprehensive business plans.
Initial management and advisory teams are lined up. When the initial equity is raised, the team will be added to in order to position for and to raise subsequent investment rounds.
Get in Touch
We would love to hear from you - to know what you think of the vision for Transform Global - and how you might like to be part of it going forward.
The focus is very much about raising funds for Transform Global itself and putting in place the talent and partners so this 'New World Bank, but Better' can come to fruition in the fastest and best of ways.
However it is also good to know about the projects and ventures that can be supported by Transform Global itself or by BIGCrowd or the SDG 360 Game-changer Fund. If you want to send more than a brief message, please fill in the form and we will be in touch.