Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss how regulatory environment can be a fundamental constraint or lever in defining the scope of operations of a social innovation. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews with top-level executives of pioneers of crowdfunding were run in India and France, two of the three leading countries in this field. Findings – Four main issues rise: choice of legal status, constraints for the operations model, compliance with anti-money laundering measures and challenges in marketing and sustainability. Originality/value – This paper contributes to knowledge advancement in the field of this new funding actor that could challenge the banking system. This is the first paper to explore these regulatory issues and their impact on marketing practices.

Financial institutions, be they cooperatives and operating through crowdfunding, have to pay attention to the identity they create and disseminate through their communication.

PurposeSocial entrepreneurship is gaining increased attention from academia and practitioners worldwide. Owing to its financing challenges, academic pedagogies are seeking methods to strengthen the social financing dimension of this emerging discipline. This paper bridges the gap in social entrepreneurship education by portraying diverse perspectives on this topic from multiple actors in two cross-cultural contexts.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative case analysis was conducted to explore financing aspects of social entrepreneurship in France and the United States. The authors interviewed academicians and practitioners to learn about their current experiments and thoughts on integrating finance into the curriculum for social entrepreneurship.FindingsThe authors found multiple facets of the social entrepreneurship finance construct, focused not only on specific financial skills but also on a general approach to venture designs. Multidisciplinary knowledge is sought not just on the topic of finance but also in other disciplines that can broaden its scope of financing to a larger investor domain. While in France, this came out as a need for integrating the financial communication skills to personify the social value creation process; in the US, it was pointed out as the need for having a contractual knowledge to differentiate investment opportunities and comprehend their risks levels.Originality/valueBy bringing perspectives from multiple actors who have had experience in social entrepreneurship financing in regions with the fastest development, this paper is seminal in bridging the financing skill gaps that exist in social entrepreneurship discipline. The main theoretical contribution of this article concerns the skills, financial and otherwise that are useful in social finance.

Au lendemain de la crise économique, un nouvel acteur du financement a pris son essor, le crowdfunding. Sans concurrencer la finance traditionnelle, il se positionne comme un complément au financement des entreprises. En s’associant aux professionnels de l’investissement, ce secteur montre qu’il est en pleine évolution. Dans un domaine encore neuf et innovant, il est intéressant d’approfondir le modèle des plateformes d’ equity crowdfunding afin de déterminer si certaines se démarquent du modèle classique et dans quelle mesure elles peuvent contribuer à l’élan du financement de l’économie. Pour ce faire, le modèle d’Osterwalder et Pigneur a été retenu afin de procéder à une analyse concurrentielle des plateformes françaises d’ equity crowdfunding . Les plateformes se caractérisent principalement par leur ancrage national et le caractère général des activités financées. Elles présentent les mêmes éléments d’attractivité respectivement pour les entrepreneurs (gouvernance et accompagnement) et les investisseurs (ticket d’entrée et rendement).

After the boom of microfinance, we witness boom of crowdfunding. Thus, it is interesting to study their interactions. Benefiting both of a rich historic heritage, these two notions, even though non-synonymous, aim at similar goals. Funding of the economy for the latter poverty alleviation and financial eradication for the former-in its welfarist definition-make it quite logical that these two notions meet to serve each other. Indeed, they stand to be a major lever for entrepreneurs, for whom fundraising has always been an issue. Microfinance has become a tool of democratisation of entrepreneurship funding, while crowdfunding potentially opens entrepreneurship funding to masses. Combining both crowdfunding and microfinance can lead to an acceleration of poverty eradication.