Empowered communities upholding social justice, respecting integrity of creation, and realizing fullness of life
Mission
To provide social investments to enterprises through the 3BL strategy
VISION
HISTORY
A vigorous and sustained campaign by Filipino and European civil society organizations bannering the petition that “development needs debt relief” resulted in the creation of the Swiss Debt Reduction Facility (SDRF) in 1995. The SDRF was founded to aid poor nations that were indebted to the Swiss government. Debts were cancelled and counterpart funds were established by debtor nations to invest in poverty reduction programs. The announcement of the SRDF coincided with the 700 th anniversary ofthe Swiss Confederation. On 11 August 1995, the Foundation for a Sustainable Society, Inc. (FSSI) was established following a successful debt for development agreement between the Government of the Philippines and the Swiss Confederation. Switzerland cancelled the Philippine’s outstanding export credit debts amounting to 42 million Swiss Francs (approximately USD 34 million.) A counterpart fund, equivalent to fifty percent of this amount was put up and channeled to FSSI to finance sustainable development projects for the marginalized sectors. The FSSI endowment is a public trust. FSSI seeks to apply innovative fund utilization that will maximize both social and financial returns through valuable entrepreneurship, at the same time, ensuring continuing growth for the institution, equitable development and environmental sustainability in all its initiatives. The FSSI is a social investment organization committed to support the development of sustainable communities through social entrepreneurship. Since 1995, we have developed social enterprises with triple bottom lines in marginalized communities that are owned, managed and operated by the poor, economically sound and environmentally-friendly. Our organization promotes the triple bottom line (3BL), a term derived from the United Nation’s three pillars of sustainability, also known as the “Three E’s” of sustainability. These are environmental protection, economic development, and social equity. These were later referred to as three P’s or PEOPLE, PLANET, PROFIT.
PEOPLE – increasing economic participation in social enterprises and value chain and improving the welfare of target marginalized social sectors, namely, women, indigenous peoples, small farmers, small fisher folk, and agricultural workers, and,
PLANET – building capacities of social enterprises and local communities to contribute towards the sustainable management of local ecosystems, and the development of climate change adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk reduction mechanisms.
PROFIT – the growth of social enterprises, growth in sustainable production of commodities, and the development of local value chains, i.e., from production of raw materials to processing up to the development of markets;
We are a network of dynamic development organizations.