socent

Venturesource is a free open-content community resource center to help social entrepreneurs plan, start, manage, and grow successful social enterprises.

"Thoughts on social entrepreneurship"

"about equilibrium capital group we are helping to build the leading companies that are defining sustainable commerce. our strategy is to invest in growth equity stage companies in the areas of green building, food shed, & resource management (in particular, waste and water management). sustainability trends are impacting both the cost structures and the product needs in each of these three sectors. the companies we target are not technology centric companies & are often overlooked. they have three common attributes: 1. brands that have created loyalty and reputation in their markets, but where their eventual value has yet to be harvested. what money can't buy is the authenticity of these brands and the degree that these entrepreneurs have build business models that execute sustainability throughout their product and business processes. 2. team/entrepreneurs that have a passion for these businesses. these are not in general people that have entered these sectors yesterday after reading about it in the Economist or the WSJ. these are pioneers and business people that are building lasting enterprises that serve these emerging market needs. these entrepreneurs see our work in the public policy of sustainability and in public service as value statements of our ability to understand them and their businesses. 3. operating in large & high growth market segment. our strategy is to partner with these entrepreneurs to unlock these levers, fuel enterprise value growth in these fast growing markets and create the leading companies in their sectors…while holding true to the values behind the brand. our goal is to build the leader in sustainability rooted investing. at the end of the day, it is about access and scope of opportunity. via our earned access in these sectors, we have surfaced and are gaining access to a significant number of these unique deals that fit this profile. "

"During the day, The Hub is a dynamic, collision-rich work and meeting space designed by its Members for productivity and value exchange. At night, The Hub transforms into an event platform for member driven collaborations, lectures, screenings, innovation labs, and some of the most compelling and imaginative minds from around the world. "

"We're a social enterprise with the ambition to inspire and support imaginative and enterprising initiatives for a better world. The Hub is a global community of people from every profession, background and culture working at 'new frontiers' to tackle the world's most pressing social, cultural and environmental challenges. We believe that there is no absence of good ideas in the world. The problem is a crisis of access, scale, resources and impact. So it felt vital to create places around the world for accessing space, resources, connections, knowledge, experience and investment. "

"Social Venture Planning and Legal Guidance for a Better World"

"This blog is about Social Enterprise and Social Startups, based on the things I'm learning through advising and working with charities and social enterprises. The posts cover topics related to Social Enterprise and Third Sector development, including Social Innovation, Sustainability, Collaboration, Tips for Social Startups, SROI and Social Trends."

"SVT Group provides impact measurement tools and performance management services so that you can do the most good with any amount of resources. "

"NewSchools Venture Fund is a venture philanthropy firm working to transform public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children - especially those in underserved communities - have the opportunity to succeed."

The Academies for Social Entrepreneurship creates training and mentoring programs for sustainable, mission-based businesses. Our core program is Social Enterprise Academies. The Academies for Social Entrepreneurship plays the role of convener and catalyst, connecting the organizations and people needed to create, grow and celebrate social enterprises. SOCIAL ENTERPISE ACADEMIES ABOUT THE ACADEMY A Social Enterprise Academy creates an eco-system of support that nurtures entrepreneurship and innovation in non-profit organizations. Its goals are to: * Enable non-profit organizations to develop the skill sets and resources that will enable them to attract growth capital and increase revenue from earned, rather than donated income. * Build overall organizational capacity. Academies enable non-profits to improve organizational performance by applying business practices and analytical thinking to their everyday operations. * Create community-based change in the broader local non-profit marketplace by promoting convergence between the best practices of business and philanthropy. IMPACT OF THE ACADEMY To date, our unique combination of training, mentoring & "fast pitch" plan competition has: * Expanded capacity in 126 non-profit organizations; * Utilized the mentoring talents of more than 100 business men and women ; * Produced millions of dollars in new investment and earned income streams. 90% of those participating in one of our business plan competitions say that it had a significant positive impact and 65% have launched or expanded ventures which generate new income for their agencies within a year. Academies are currently planned or under way in OrangeCounty and Los Angeles and San Diego counties (California) and in Las Vegas.

"The current African social entrepreneurship market is growing rapidly but it is still fragmented and opaque. Complication: Players active in the African social entrepreneurship space cannot find, learn and collaborate with each other. There are information asymmetries in the market. Solution: An online "living" platform created for members - by members. ASEN aims to provide Social Entrepreneurs with an opportunity to collaborate and access resources. "

"Neerja Raman Author and Research fellow in Digital Vision Program, Stanford University Focus: Social Entrepreneurship Neerja Raman is a recognized author and executive in management research. Neerja is former Director, Strategic Planning and Imaging Systems Lab, Hewlett Packard Labs and currently Senior Fellow at Stanford University where she is developing business and leadership models for social entrepreneurs. She is on the advisory committee for Cyber-Infrastructure, National Science Foundation and board member of several non-profits. She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2005 for global leadership and was recognized with a Distinguished Citizen Award by Federation of Indo Americans in 2006. Neerja's book, "The Practice and Philosophy of Decision Making" was featured in the category "Books that Empower Women" by WITI. Her research at Stanford has been published in various conference proceedings and as chapter "Eco-Stacking: A Strategy for Success in Social and Business Agendas" in the summer 2007 book "Innovative Approaches to Reducing Global Poverty". Neerja is a graduate of the Kellogg Executive Program, Northwestern University, and has Masters degrees from S.U.N.Y Stony Brook, New York and Delhi University, India. Neerja is active in the community. She has been a United Way Chair at HP. She serves on the advisory board of Maitri, a women's self empowerment organization, is a member of Indian Business and Professional Women and executive director of IWE. Federation of Indo-Americans has recognized her accomplishments as an author and technologist with an award of distinction."

"Social entrepreneurship involves the marriage of good business principles with the desire to solve social problems, improve the environment, and empower communities. It's all about creating double- and triple-bottom line companies that do well while doing good. In these Social Innovation Conversations educational podcasts, hear how pioneers and innovators from all regions and walks of life are helping our world through socially motivated businesses ranging from the smallest and most localized efforts to large and ambitious enterprises. Fuel yourself with inspiration and sophisticated advice as to how you can make social entrepreneurship a part of your own life."

While social entrepreneurs have emerged in every sector and nearly every market, they often lack the high-level business, management, and strategy skills that have propelled the private sector to its remarkable growth. We aim to leverage our expertise in management education and training to develop and deliver the world's best executive training for social entrepreneurs. Our pioneer ISEP program, launched in 2005 and running annually in both our Fontainebleau and Singapore campus, has established itself as the most valuable for program for leading social entrepreneurs and the entry ticket into a valuable life-long network of support and knowledge sharing. More fundamentally, we aim to organize our faculty and bring our academic expertise to bear upon the unique challenges faced by social entrepreneurs. Our research agenda aims to foster a two way dialogue: advanced management thinking is applied to the challenges of social entrepreneurs while the innovative approach of social entrepreneurs is leveraged back into business research and corporate practice. The social entrepreneurship initiative is housed under both INSEAD's Social Innovation Centre and the Rudolf and Valeria Maag International Centre for Entrepreneurship. The Social Innovation Centre is a premier hub for research and learning on the connection between business and society. The Maag Centre is the catalyst at INSEAD for innovations in entrepreneurship research, teaching and outreach.

"Creates and shapes brands for the 21st century. Hand in hand with the world's greatest businesses, we develop strategies for global brands to do well by doing good. We are thinkers and doers, strategists and creatives, change-makers and movers. * We believe innovation is more powerful than responsibility. * We believe investment shapes the world more than charity. * We believe impact can be measured over more than one bottom line. Business is run by people and people are inherently good. We exist to let that shine. Like a Lovely Day. "

Vision To enable entrepreneurs to realize their dreams while benefiting the lives of people at the base of the economic pyramid. Mission To deploy needed financial and human resources to high impact social ventures addressing the needs of large, underserved populations.

"About For Impact We transform "nonprofits" through training, ideas and strategic coaching based on 30+ years of experience and $1Billion+ raised. "

NextBillion.net is a website and blog bringing together the community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers and academics who want to explore the connection between development and enterprise. It is a discussion forum, networking space and knowledge base for individuals and organizations interested in the "next billion". Our goal is to highlight the development and implementation of business strategies that open opportunities and improve the lives of the world's approximately 4 billion low-income producers and consumers.

"Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a nonprofit organization that creates and evaluates solutions to social and development problems, and works to scale up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors. Primary Objectives Innovate: Develop innovative solutions to poverty and policy problems worldwide. Use frontier knowledge from economics, psychology and public health. Evaluate: Conduct randomized controlled trials to evaluate public policies. This provides the highest quality and most reliable answers to what works and what does not. Our evaluations seek to generate insight into why particular strategies work -- not just whether they work -- so as to make the findings useful for scale-up and replication in other settings and countries. Replicate: Replicate evaluations in multiple settings. We can learn from one evaluation, but we can learn much more about what to do after seeing replications of similar interventions in multiple settings, and learn when ideas work best, and when they do not. Communicate: Communicate lessons to donors and implementers. The ultimate aim of IPA is to help resources be allocated to effective programs and policies. IPA's communication strategy targets both donors, to help guide them to programs and ideas that have been proven effective, as well as to organizations, to help guide their programming decisions towards more effective ideas and implementation strategies. We do this through non-technical communication on individual studies and sets of studies, as well as through synthesis articles and conversations that frame key policy issues and present reliable evidence to help guide development practitioners, policymakers, investors and donors towards better decisions and allocation of resources. Scale: Scale-up of effective solutions. This includes hands-on technical assistance or direct implementation if appropriate, as well as extensive communication and advoc

"The Center for Global Development is an independent, nonprofit policy research organization that is dedicated to reducing global poverty and inequality and to making globalization work for the poor. Through a combination of research and strategic outreach, the Center actively engages policymakers and the public to influence the policies of the United States, other rich countries, and such institutions as the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization to improve the economic and social development prospects in poor countries. CGD was recently ranked among the world's top think tanks (number 15 out of several thousand such research organizations) in an independent survey-based ranking published in Foreign Policy magazine."