As Founder and CEO of Social Founders, I've been privileged to spend February and March 2025 back in Japan, building our network in this fascinating country with its combination of innovation and tradition woven into every element.

Below are just a few of the founders and organisations I've met up with in my first few weeks back in Tokyo.

It’s been a joy to be back in Tokyo for Japan Social Founders, to meet up again with social founders from our 2019 Tokyo launch, to connect with new social founders, and a range of innovative support organisations.

Big thanks to Venture Cafe Tokyo for hosting a lively Social Founders ‘round table’ in their impressive space high up in the Toranomon Hills Business Tower, attended by a fascinating mix of social impact founders and entrepreneurs at all stages of their founder journey.

Social impact activity and interest across Japan is growing. There’s a keen desire among both young people and older people to create impact by setting up Not-For-Profits (NPOs), social enterprises, for-profits with social impact, plus community groups and networks.

There is good collaboration between the founders and some dedicated impact intermediaries, including the Japan Association of New Public, set up by a small group of social founders, with a growing membership of 180+ social ventures, and Impact Shift, who are expecting 2,000 social entrepreneurs and young people to attend their March conference. Below I feature Mio Yamamoto, founder of World of You, and I loved meeting up with Zebras and Company, who are at the cutting edge of social impact accelerators and investment.

Japan still has a strong statutory infrastructure, via national and local government, across health, environment, transport, education, social care and much more. But the gaps are there and growing, and the founders I met are passionate about creating social change and social innovation, in Japan and in other countries..

As you know, it's the social founders themselves that inspire and impress me, and below are just a few of the founders I've met up with in my first weeks back in Tokyo:

Sayaka ‘Jess’ Watanabe founded WELgee ten years ago, then in her early 20s, to support refugees and asylum seekers in Japan.

We had a fascinating meeting in a Tokyo cafe, and a week later Jess was a key speaker at our Venture Cafe Tokyo ‘round table’, where she talked about her founder journey, including testing impact support models, pivoting, until finding the ‘sweet spot’ of support that would ensure income from corporates and foundations, direct impact for WELgee’s refugee clients including jobs, training, housing, money, visas and language support, alongside growing policy impact with Japan's government.

WELgee now has 15 staff, a strong board, and high level corporate support.

Jess has also recently been elected as Co-President of the new Japan Association of New Public, and is widening her horizons to inspire and support other social impact founders across Japan and wider.

Daichi Konuma

is co-founder of Cross Fields. We first connected through INSEAD’s impact entrepreneurship programme, which he attended back in 2015. Daichi founded Cross Fields in 2011, and core to their mission is to engage employees in the corporate sector in the non-profit world through a range of pro bono and volunteer secondments. They have placed corporate volunteers in NGOs across Asia, and now increasingly in Japan itself.

Last week I met up with Daichi at his central Tokyo offices, where he talked in depth about the trends and challenges for Japan social founders. He explained that there had been a surge of new social impact founders after the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami, initially to support local communities in the cities, towns and rural areas affected, and then growing in reach and impact across Japan. However, Daichi believes that a challenge for the non-profits is that both ‘big business’ and for-profit start-ups want to create social impact, and to link, even if at a token level, to the SDGs. This makes it harder for the non-profits to compete for funds, to stand out, and to ensure financially sustainable impact models.

Daichi is particularly interested in the concept of ‘social prescribing’, and how best to grow this practice in Japan. He would love to connect with UK-based organisations working on social prescribing, to share experience and learnings.

Daichi has also set up Shinkoren, the innovative Japan Association of New Public, where he is Co-Director, alongside Jess Watanabe. With a growing number of 180+ member organisations they aim to promote collaboration, innovation, and higher profile for the social impact sector. In their words:

"The New Public Interest Federation aims to contribute to the promotion of the public interest by creating action teams of NPOs and social enterprises, reforming systems to solve social issues, collaborating with various sectors, and strengthening the management capabilities of the social sector, thereby empowering people suffering from social exclusion, oppression, poverty, injustice, etc. and making Japan a society where more examples of solving social issues continue to be created."

Kaoruko Ishigari is the creative and high energy choreographer and dancer who thirty years ago founded the dance charity, Api-Lucky, that supports people with learning disabilities to change their lives through dance, movement and collaboration with others, including volunteer professional dancers.

Now in her late 60s, Kaoruko has been running this programme and small charity for many years, alongside her mainstream TV presenting and choreography work, and is keen to scale the charity's impact to reach more people and share her learnings and model more widely. I was privileged to attend one of their dance events, and then the following week have an intense and exciting planning meeting with Kaoruko and her colleagues.

We look forward to connecting Kaoruko with similar charities and founders across our global network to share learnings.

It was a joy to meet up again with Makoto Goda, Founder of Nippon Bio Fuels, and Aiko Odachi, Makoto’s CEO, and herself a founder of the Green Image Film Festival, and a rural horse-logging charity.

These two driven and innovative impact entrepreneurs had both spoken at our 2019 Social Founders Tokyo event, and 5 years on, their social enterprise is going strong including a ground-breaking investment partnership with the main Japan shipping company, who plan to use their Madagascar-produced bio-fuels in the future.

For Aiko it was important to show me the central Tokyo Meiji Shrine, which is at the heart of the Shinto beliefs and values that drive her work as a social founder and impact entrepreneur.

Among the many partnerships we are building in Japan, I look forward to growing our work with World in You, co-founded initially as a local support charity by Mio Yamamoto after the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami. Mio has since grow the organisation to provide support to social enterprises, businesses and individuals across Japan, and in partnership with the World Economic Forum. Mio is keen to collaborate with Social Founders to provide founder support to a range of other social enterprises.

I'll be in Japan until late March, and look forward to ongoing gatherings and meetings and connections.

Do share this blog with anyone who might be interested in connecting with our Japan Social Founders network.

Thank you to all the many Japan-based founders, funders and supporters who have shared their time and knowledge with me - we have so much to build on together to create a powerful movement and social founder support network.

Caroline Diehl MBE, 12 February 2025 caroline@socialfounder.org