Festus Goziem Okubor, Business Development Director, Shell Foundation

West Africa Acumen Fellow 

Hi, my name is Goziem Okubor. I'm the business development director for West Africa at Shell Foundation. We're a clean energy investor focused on enabling people to increase their income sustainably through the use of clean energy.

How can social entrepreneurs reach investors?

Social entrepreneurs can find investors and funders by focusing on the power of storytelling.

One of the best things of social entrepreneurship is that you're working for people and to improve their lives. So understanding the impact that you're having, understanding your mission, understanding the lives of the people that you're working to serve, and telling those stories, either through blogs, through videos, or narrative.

Harnessing the power of content creation is a very important thing.

Also, networking. Your network is one of the most powerful assets that you have. 

Most investors have thematic focuses and they're focusing either on clean energy or healthcare or education. Their communities are about those things. So finding a community, whether it's on Twitter or it's on LinkedIn, on Slack, or Slack groups. 

Finding and joining the community and telling the story about your work, being out there, and putting the impact that you have and the mission that your company is working towards. Selling yourself, talking about your work, following the people that you're working for.

That's one of the most important things that founders can focus on to attract investors and position themselves for thought leadership and as experts in the fields that they're building a business.

Key takeaways 

Proactive ways to connect with investors:

• Share stories of your mission and impact through blogs, videos, etc

• Participate in communities and platforms where thematically aligned investors are active