Back to Innovative Finance: Hacking finance to change the world
University of Cape Town

Innovative Finance: Hacking finance to change the world

To address global poverty - do we really not have enough resources or do we not have the right tools to allocate our resources? The tools of finance, when applied correctly, can be an enabler of social and environmental outcomes. This course is designed to give you the ability to build innovative financing strategies that work towards outcomes such as financial inclusion, access to energy, and access to education. The innovative finance process has five key components. It starts with identifying the outcomes you are looking to achieve and next moves on to due diligencing your issue area using techniques like design thinking to make sure you are designing with the end user. Next, you must map all of the resources available for your outcome and then discover opportunities to augment these through business model innovation, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and innovative financial structures. Finally, the last step is to put all of these pieces together to design an innovating financing strategy. Each week dives into a component of the process using examples and real case studies from social entrepreneurs, non-profits, development funders, impact investors, governments, foundations, and more. Over five weeks you’ll learn about new types of revenue creation, financing approaches, business models, and partnerships. By the end of the course, you’ll have the ability to hack finance for social change.

Status: Financial Inclusion
Status: Risk Management
BeginnerCourse19 hours

Featured reviews

Reviewed Sep 26, 2019

Excellent course with good case studies, reference materials and active learners participation.

Reviewed Nov 16, 2021

I highly recommend the course as it give a much broader understanding in terms of social investment and impact measurement.

Reviewed Nov 17, 2024

I have taken the course and finalized all the terms and conditions for certification. But, I couldn't get the certificate. Please, Is there any way out?

Reviewed Aug 27, 2020

Very much structured and precise contents. Learned a lot of new concepts. I'm grateful to the team. Thank you!

Reviewed May 18, 2020

This course fulfilled my expectations on learning some finance aspects to reach funds for a social enterprise I am heading for. Totally recommended!

Reviewed Oct 17, 2018

I loved this course! I learned so much about innovative financing and strategy formation around social entrepreneurship.

Reviewed Feb 27, 2020

Nice course for understanding the social responsibility as a tool to enhance the financing activities in the current scenerio.

Reviewed Jun 15, 2020

this was a really great course full of usefull information which i can use for so many things in the business and finance sector.

Reviewed Jan 8, 2018

I thoroughly enjoyed it, great content and graphics. Thank you for sharing the the knowledge and insight

Reviewed Mar 27, 2023

Strongly recommend this course. The content and delivery are well-designed.

Reviewed Mar 1, 2025

The course is very good and throws a different facet of finance to help our sisters/ brothers, who belong to the god of poverty, universally

Reviewed Nov 2, 2023

Excellent and practical delivery of lessons to help learners grasp the core content in a relatable manner.

All reviews

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