Public Administration and the Impact Economy is a recent academic article that discusses social innovation, the emerging impact economy and the world of opportunity presented to public and private sector professionals to develop innovative solutions to social problems.
Now accepting applications for the 2013 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship. The deadline for applications is March 1, 2012.
The selection process is very competitive: fewer than ten Skoll Awards are anticipated for this year. For detailed criteria and deadlines please visit the Skoll Foundation website.
Echoing Green will award twelve to twenty two-year fellowships to social entrepreneurs around the world in 2012. The fellowships provide start-up capital and technical assistance to help new leaders launch social enterprises and build the capacity of their social enterprise.
Ok it is not a huge number... and is mostly through voluntering while at big cororations... but the WSJ says it is a trend, and that is a start! The Wall Street Journal.
The Skoll Foundation in Palo Alto, California, has announced the recipients of the 2012 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship.
The annual awards provide unrestricted funding to further extend the reach of organizations that have achieved significant impact in tackling the world's most pressing problems through social entrepreneurship. Each of the four awardees will receive a three-year grant and be invited to join the growing global network of Skoll social entrepreneurs, now numbering ninety-one individuals from seventy-four organizations.
This year's awardees are Gawad Kalinga, which works with two thousand communities across the Philippines and in other nations where poverty exists to help transform slums into peaceful and productive communities;Landesa, which works to support land rights internationally, particularly for women; Nidan, which advocates on behalf of workers from the informal sector in the north and east of India; and Proximity Designs, which designs, builds, and markets affordable products and services that benefit rural families in Myanmar.
The Rockefeller Foundation, Deloitte, and Prudential Financial have contributed a total of $9 million in funding, products, and services to accelerate industry adoption of the GIIRS ratings and analytics platform. You can dowload the article here Ratings and Analytics Platform for Impact Investing Launched.
2009-2010 Beyond Grey Pin Stripes
This study by the Aspen Institute ranks the world's top business schools for their work in creating tomorrow's leaders by training them in social, environmental and ethical issues
1 York (Schulich) Canada
2 U. of Michigan (Ross) USA
3 Yale School of Management USA
4 Stanford Graduate School of Business USA
5 Notre Dame (Mendoza)
HBS has released a study of 15 years of their student-entrepreneur annual Business Plan Contest. "Here is what they have learned about success, failure, and themselves."
Opinion: Social Entrepreneurs Must Pay Heed to Politics . The new generation of business-school graduates flocking to social enterprise too often ignores the role politics plays in the problems they set out to address, according to an International Herald Tribune opinion piece.
Google Ideas, "either amounts to a bold attempt to stretch the boundaries of corporate social responsibility, perhaps even to rewire the entire role of business in today’s world – or, with its brief to find solutions to some of the world’s most intractable problems, the ultimate expression of new tech bubble bravado." Great piece in the Financial Times
But many in the article are critical of this approach, saying businesses should focus on the bottom line - not the double or triple bottom line.
"... a growing number of states — including Michigan, Illinois and Utah — have approved the establishment of low-profit, limited liability, or LC3, companies that are run like normal businesses except that making money is secondary to the goal of delivering social benefits. Most important, the structure allows such business to tap into traditional capital markets and attract private investors, which nonprofits cannot do."
You can read the piece here
The Advanced Leadership Initiative, is a yearlong fellowship for people with 20+ years of leadership who are sick of golf want to start "socially conscious ventures" ... and they are willing to fork over $50,000 each to get help! Read about it in the Boston Globe.
Hitachi Foundation Seeks to Fund Young Entrepreneurs Creating Opportunity for Low-Wealth Individuals
The Hitachi Foundation, which seeks to discover and expand business practices that create tangible and enduring economic opportunities for low-wealth Americans, their families, and the communities in which they reside, has opened the application process for the foundation's Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs Program. The program seeks to identify five entrepreneurs, awarding each $40,000 over two years, and providing technical resources to strengthen their businesses.
Eligible applicants must be at least 18 and no more than 29 when they launched their business. Businesses must be one to five years old and have been generating revenue for at least the past twelve months. The award is open to businesses organized as either for- or nonprofit with an earned-income revenue model. In addition, the enterprise must create jobs, supply goods or services, or use internal management practices that offer low-wealth individuals in America an opportunity to improve their economic mobility.
In addition to the cash prize of $40,000 over two years, Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs will benefit from a partnership with Investors' Circle — a nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to catalyze the flow of investment to support entrepreneurs that address major social and environmental issues. Investors' Circle will match an IC member mentor with each of the Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs, creating relationships based on entrepreneur needs and mentor expertise.
Complete program information and application materials are available at the Hitachi Foundation Web site.
Contact:
Link to Complete RFP
Homeboy Industries has started a new social venture - chips and salsa. Homeboy's businesses — such as a bakery and a silkscreen company — aim to provide jobs for its clients, but the chips and salsa are for now strictly a foray into a new revenue stream.
Read about it in the LA Times. The organization has struggled in the recession, let's hope this revenue generating idea creates not only jobs, but sustainability for this awesome agency.
(Full disclosure... the father of the foundation's Executive Director is helping to start this company....) From the Maine Times! Fish Pies saving communities! (Maine Fresh is the actual brand, but this is what they were called until the marketing people stepped in. Good thing...) Here is the article. If you want some call the foundation, We have an in!
Like many nonprofit organizations, the Cobscook Community Learning Center in Trescott Township saw a gap between what it wanted to achieve and the money necessary to make it happen.
The focus of the learning center is advancing education, arts and music programs in Washington County, one of the most economically challenged parts of Maine.
Sensing that fundraisers and grants would not be a sustainable means of generating money, the learning center is collaborating with a local fishery to create a for-profit business and a new product.
Cobscook Bay Co. is set to begin distribution of Maine Fresh seafood pies to grocers this fall. The goal is not just funding the learning center’s programs, but generating jobs and bringing money into the community.
You may have read about controversy surrounding the selection and transparency regarding the national Social Innovation Fund. Here area few articles for the Chronicle of Philanthropy that go through the issues.
Sharing What Works: Applications for the Social Innovation Fund
In response to the controversy over the Social Innovation Fund, The Chronicle invites winners and losers to share their proposals for everyone to see. Already, New Profit has posted its application online.
Social Innovation Fund Acts to Fend Off Bias Charges
The Social Innovation Fund over the weekend posted 10 of 11 winning proposals on its Web site as it seeks to fend off charges of bias in the grant-making process.
Technology disasters from around the globe competed for 'worst use of technology' for a non profit or social venture, The winner? The infamous " garish green-and-white child’s computer nicknamed the O.L.P.C. — for One Laptop Per Child — a program that MobileActive members regard as the emblem of the failure of technology to achieve change for the better."
Feel better, read this. Ad you'll get a laugh, too.
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