Artist Olufar Eliasson is known for using his work to push audiences beyond museums and galleries and into our social and physical spaces. One of his signature works, The Weather Project, put Eliasson on the map for his ability to re-create the essential human relationship to the sun. It was out of that relationship that Eliasson found the inspiration to launch Little Sun, a social enterprise that brings solar-powered LED lamps to places where affordable, reliable electricity still isn’t the norm. With a bold vision, but questions about how to communicate it and make it sustainable, Little Sun engaged Synergos Consulting Services.

The Little Sun business model was simple: sell lamps in the Global North to make them affordable in the Global South where they’re most needed, thus promoting the idea of sustainable energy everywhere. With two adopted children from Ethiopia and experience living and teaching art there, Eliasson, together with co-founder and engineer Frederik Ottensen, decided to focus Little Sun in East Africa, where just a third of the population has reliable electricity access.

Bringing Clarity and Vibrancy: Synergos’ Role

Little Sun had a strong product and business model, but communicating the vision proved more challenging. Underlying the product was a laundry list of values—sustainability, equal access to energy, poverty-reduction, education and literacy, artistic expression—all important, but cumbersome to explain. Felix Hallwachs, Board Director at Little Sun noted, “It used to be that if we had half an hour to talk to you, you would love us, but if we had two minutes, you might leave confused.”

Part of Synergos’ role with the Little Sun team was guiding a filtering process to distill the vision into a single, communicable statement that anyone could easily connect with. Using an iterative process and asking questions like “At what point would you consider your work done?” Synergos helped the team uncover its core goal: to achieve clean, affordable, reliable energy for all. From that top-line mission, it was easier to derive sub-mission statements that explained all Little Sun products. And it’s making a difference: the crisper articulation helped Little Sun secure a grant in 2017 to expand operations.  

Synergos’ unique emphasis on unearthing purpose through ‘inner work’—for both individuals and the organization—brought not only greater role definition for individual team members, but emotional definition, which helped focus the values that in turn gave Little Sun’s mission more clarity. This emotionally supportive approach fostered a more stable, whole environment in which the team could more effectively hone its mission and fundraising strategies.

Bridging the social enterprise and philanthropic worlds

Synergos brought its diverse relationships and insights across the philanthropy, corporate, and nonprofit spaces to help Little Sun meet partners they hadn’t considered before. Synergos’ could bridge sectoral divides that most groups aren’t comfortable crossing, enabling Little Sun to diversify its pool of funders.

“We work between worlds, and Synergos understood that and helped us do that more effectively,” observed Hallwachs. “Other contacts in the business consultancy space could help with numbers-based, data-driven goals, but stopped short at impact-driven work, because it was simply outside their expertise. They couldn’t help us there, but Synergos was well-positioned to translate between those worlds.”

Another salient aspect of Synergos’ role with Little Sun was that it didn’t feel imposed or external. In Hallwachs’ words, “Synergos was very closely co-thinking with us and approaching the team in a sensitive way. It felt like friends coming alongside us who had followed our work for a long time, instead of executive-level contractors that would drop in, make changes, then leave.”

Making the time and effort to fully ‘get’ its partners and cultivate deep trust with them is a foundational Synergos value that permeates our consulting work. It’s a prerequisite to reaching new levels of collaboration that unlock game-changing breakthroughs.

Growth on the horizon for Little Sun

With a clearer vision and budding relationships with potential new funders, Little Sun is excited to continue growing its product line and pursuing a more robust fundraising strategy, which may include expanding to the United States. Another top priority will be establishing an on-the-ground presence in at least one East African country, most likely Ethiopia, where Synergos retains a deep-rooted network that can offer support and connections.

Achieving all of this will require new partnerships and more of them, says Hallwachs: “Our work is all about relationship building.” To that end, the Little Sun team is ready to launch a next phase of growth with Synergos. “We feel that Synergos is now part of our extended Little Sun family and well-equipped to help us build more relationships across the world as we grow.”

Founded in 2010 as a division of Synergos, Synergos Consulting Services draws upon the organization’s experience, relationships, and approach to enable clients to generate sustainable economic and social value through their core businesses, CSR, and philanthropic efforts.