The Social Stock Exchange – under the regulatory ambit of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for listing voluntary organizations and social enterprises have become a reality. Through the SSE framework CSOs can raise capital / funds as equity, debt or as units like a mutual fund. This appears a paradigm shift for the social sector eco-system at this time when Resource Mobilization has become a major constraint for our work.

Keeping this in mind, a dialogue of Civil Society on the Social Stock Exchange Framework was organized by CYSD on 23rd March 2023 in Bhubaneswar on the eve of its 41st Foundation Day. Dr. R Balasubramaniam, Founder of GRAAM and Chair of the SSE Advisory Board, currently Member of the Capacity Building Commission, Govt. of India who joined this dialogue assisted the Odishan CSO representatives in clarifying various aspects of the SSE framework. Moreover, a few senior officials like,  Mr. Jeevan Sonparote from Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI)  and Mr. Avik Gupta from National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) also joined the workshop and guided the delegates on how their NPOs can be registered with SSE before initiating fund raising: eligibility criteria for Social Enterprises including Disclosures, Process overview and Value Proposition.

The dialogue, in true sense, paved a new path to the CSOs towards generating resources through Social Stock Exchange platform during this critical juncture.