Merry Christmas from Gifts and Graces!

In this blessed season, we celebrate our many blessings and gifts - the gift of family and friends , safety and health; the triumph of having survived numerous trials and coming out stronger in mind and in spirit, in courage and in faith; the gift of everyday and the opportunity to do what we do. Most important of all, we celebrate the birth of Christ.

Thank you for being a part of Gifts and Graces in 2010. Here's wishing you a meaningful holiday season and more reasons to celebrate in 2011. Cheers!

Gifts and Graces is featured in Real Living's December issue

Thanks to the editors of Real Living magazine for featuring Gifts and Graces as supplier of the month. Featured are our candle-making kit in an herb-box inspired packaging, a lavender soy candle, and travel pillows from our Retaso Collection. Grab a copy today and check out our feature on page 16

Jessica Chittaphong's Summer Internship

When I first got the news that I was to be working with Gifts and Graces, I was a senior finishing up college. It was such an exciting opportunity and I was honored to be chosen from a large pool of candidates. I was extremely nervous because I felt inexperienced, but because of the tremendous support from my school and from Greg I decided to just jump in and do the best I can. There were two main activities that I was charged with. The first was focused on the incorporation and advocacy of fair trade within the organization and in the Philippines. It was exciting because I learned so much and I met so many people who are doing wonderful things for their communities. The second part of my assignment was to try and calculate something called the Social Returns on Investments for Gifts and Graces. Like many people this was my first time hearing of the term. It is a ratio that tries to estimate per peso invested how much social good was generated. Before I left for the Philippines I tried to read everything I could find about it. I hit so many walls and was discouraged many times, but I pushed through and came up with an acceptable estimate in the end. I knew it would not be 100 percent accurate, but I was ecstatic none the less because I had created a useful tool that would help Gifts and Graces in the future.

I feel that my time in the Philippines was the perfect way to finish this chapter in my life. I had graduated from university with good overall book knowledge, but I was still lacking in real life experience. I am forever thankful for the staff at Gifts and Graces for showing me a glimpse of Filipino society and making my stay unforgettable with their generosity and quirky personalities. As I begin a new chapter in my life at the London School of Economics, I know I enter it as prepared as possible.

All the best,

Jessica Chittaphong

Visiting Hardin ng Kalikasan with volunteer Jessica Chittaphong

This year, Gifts and Graces and the University of the Pacific partnered for the university’s Global Ambassador Corps Program. Through this partnership, one of Pacific's top students Jessica Chittaphong, was selected to work with Gifts and Graces for over two months as an intern. Jessica worked on developing a fair trade scorecard, developing a template for measuring Gifts and Graces’ Social Return on Investment (SROI), and developing material on fair trade. Jessica also worked to develop a program of activities for a fair trade festival as well as a medium term plan for Gifts and Graces to build a strong community of fair trade advocates. While in the Philippines, Jessica visited Gifts and Graces communities and even helped man the booth at the Philippine Franchise Expo. Here Jessica joins the G&G team on our visit to Hardin ng Kalikasan, a group of women in Kiloloron, Quezon. Jessica is now a student at the London School of Economics taking graduate studeies. Thanks to Jessica for all the hard work and to Spencer Ton, and Jerry Hildebrand of the University of the Pacific for this innovative program that fosters learning on social entrepreneurship across the globe. The Global Amassador Corps Program integrates interdisciplinary education in the social sciences, business, internal relations, education, and many others, to the fields of social entrepreneurship and sustainable development.

Gifts and Graces monogram notecards in Rustan's

Gifts and Graces in Rustan’s Gifts and Graces’ monogram notecards are now available at the different Rustan’s branches. The beautiful off-white cards are made out of handmade paper while the dark brown letters are made out of banana bark. The gold stitching on the card gives it an elegant look. The cards come with kraft envelopes and come in sets of 6. These notecards are proudly made by the women of Hardin ng Kalikasan, a women’s cooperative in Quezon. The monogram notecards are a throwback to a time before text messages, emails, and social networking. However, we believe that a handwritten note on a beautiful card, never goes out of style. Check out our cards and add them to your list of perfect gifts for the coming Christmas season. Erratum: We apologize to Ateneo Graduate School of Business Professor Mars Balgos for misspelling his name in the last newsletter.

Magis Seminar in Ateneo School of Business

All over the country, there are many livelihood programs that are organized in order to help disadvantaged groups earn more income. These groups have a lot of potential but many lack several essential ingredients for success. While producers may have the skills, they lack the eye for creating great products that the market wants. Many also are challenged by the lack of technical and business know-how. Gifts and Graces recognizes the needs of these livelihood groups and partners with them to help them become viable livelihood enterprises. The importance of building the capabilities of livelihood groups is even more urgent now as these groups strive to reach their goal to reach mainstream markets and to become reliable suppliers in the supply chain of corporations, wholesalers, and retailers. To address this need, Gifts and Graces designed an on-the-ground capability building program for its partner communities. The Business Basics and Beyond workshop conducted by the Ateneo Graduate School of Business through its MAGIS program, is the first step in the on-the-ground capability building program. 


The MAGIS Program is AGSB’s capacity-building program specifically designed for small and medium enterprises as well as NGOs. This is a follow up to Gifts and Graces’ lecture successful series last year. This year, in partnership with Hands On Manila and the Ateneo Graduate School of Business (AGSB) through its MAGIS program – Managing for Growth, Innovation, and Sustainability, Gifts and Graces rolls out a more intensive capability building program. The workshop is the first step in a capability building program for Gifts and Graces partners that focuses on enterprise growth and community building. The program carries with it the Ateneo quality of education. Participants greatly benefitted from the learnings, life-long strategies and values adhered to by the university. Aside from Gifts and Graces, four of Gifts and Graces’ partner communities participated in the workshop. They were The Learning Center, Hardin ng Kalikasan, Kapitbahayan Candles, and FCED Foundation. 


Taking time to step out of your business to look at it from a higher vantage point may feel like a luxury but is a necessity. Gifts and Graces and our partners had the opportunity to do that at the Business Basics and Beyond workshop. The workshop was designed to meet the participants where they are at, surface their pressing concerns about their organizations, businesses and communities, and create plans that are responsive to their unique needs. Among the needs surfaced from the workshop are a business plan, strategic plan, and community development plan for Gifts and Graces’ partners. The workshop took off with highlighting the importance of the purpose and objectives of organizations as well as the critical elements that contribute to its success. 


On the first day, Prof. Bago’s discussion of the customer value discipline struck the participants. Looking at each organization through this framework was eye opening for everyone. On the second day, each team had to assess whether their customer value discipline permeated all aspects of their value chain. The groups also stretched their minds and imaginations by focusing on opportunities based on the socio-political, cultural, economic, and technological landscapes. Atty. Noli Tibayan facilitated during the second day. Other topics covered were The Nature of Organizations, Business Strategies, Stakeholder Analysis and Management, Business Skills, and Business Coherence. 


At the end of the second day, Ateneo Graduate School of Business Dean Alberto L. Buenviaje gave the closing remarks. Ms. Greg Perez, Executive Director of Gifts and Graces responded by thanking Dean Buenviaje in behalf of the class, saying that the AGSB’s mission to build the country through their work impacted the grassroots level through this MAGIS workshop for Gifts and Graces and its partners. Afterwards, each participant received a certificate of attendance. The workshop was very helpful because it helped the organizations look at their enterprises and from a fresh perspective. We were also given tools and a framework with which to analyze the business environment. Following the workshop, Gifts and Graces will coordinate with other institutions who will provide on-the-ground training and mentorship for its partners. This is to help them set goals and milestones for them to become viable livelihood enterprises. 


 Helping make this workshop a reality was Gifts and Graces’ partnership with Hands On Manila who in turn was partnered with the Ateneo Graduate School of Business. The workshop is a continuation and strengthening of the lecture series Gifts and Graces conducted last year. As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility Program, Globe Telecom sponsored both last year’s lecture series and this year’s workshop. This is in line with Globe Telecom’s commitment to support community-based enterprises through capability building. Eastern Twinstars Foundation, a social investment enterprise that supports asset acquisition, also sponsored attendees to the lecture series and workshop.

Defining Social Entrepreneurship

Last Friday, I received an invitation from the British Council to represent Gifts and Graces at a Round table Discussion on Social Entrepreneurship with Cliff Southcombe, a social entrepreneur and head of Social Enterprise Europe Ltd. Other organizations present were PBSP, Kids Foundation, Soup of the Day, Jollibee, Starbucks, SAGE Philippines, Messy Bessy Cleaners, Green Renewable Power Producers, Rags to Riches, and SEDPI. The RTD was facilitated by Arnel Casanova. One of the objectives of the RTD was for the British Council to have an idea of social entrepreneurship in the Philippines in order to determine how they can come in and help build social entrepreneurship in the Philippines and in the region. Cliff Southcombe shared that the UK experience has been more on cooperatives as social enterprises. In the Philippines, aside from cooperatives, other innovative social enterprises have sprung up as evidenced by the composition of the RTD participants. For a country with a lot of NGOs established to fill the gaps of government service, social entrepreneurship is a natural step. Much of the discussion however centered around the definition of social entrepreneurship. Being a "new" field the definition has not been well established. One view of social entrepreneurship is focused on the social entrepreneur who finds a problem and sets out to solve it with an innovative solution. My own definition of social entrepreneurship is more limited and was greatly influenced by J. Gregory Dees' Enterprising Non-Profits. For me a social enterprise is an enterprise with a social mission - the mission is the raison d' etre. Most social enterprises are non-profit organizations with specific advocacies such as education, health, access to water, access to electricity, and in Gifts and Graces' case providing livelihood support. One of the main differences between social enterprises and regular enterprises is that social enterprises invest in different interventions that regular enterprises don't regularly invest in. For example community organizing, capability building seminars, values formation talks. For social enterprises this is an integral part of their mission. One of the main challenges of this model is finding the funding for these interventions which go beyond operations. This is the challenge of financial sustainability, another hot topic at the RTD. Cliff defined sustainability as sustainability of the the of the social enterprises' impact. For me sustainability of impact and financial sustainability are not mutually exclusive though financial sustainability may be a medium term goal. To this I add looking at organizational sustainability which means that the enterprise has in place policies, structures, and systems that will ensure its survival and sustainability beyond the social entrepreneur that founded it.  In my view, in order to help grow and foster social entrepreneurship in the Philippines there must be an enabling environment which requires the involvement of government, civil society, and corporations. An enabling environment means just the right amount of regulation from the government, support in terms of tax breaks or exemptions, availability of funding for capability building interventions, fostering dialogue and cooperation, measuring impact, recording results for duplication and scalability. To this end, the British Council's and Starbucks support are very much welcome.  Thanks again to Felix Golez and Nanette Mercado for setting up the Round table Discussion.  Thanks for Cliff Southcombe for sharing his insights and experiences. I hope our paths will cross again as we all work together to promote social entrepreneurship in the Philippines. Cheers!