Recently in Social Entrepreneurship Category

The growth of social enterprise continues in spite of, or maybe because of, the recession.

Donna Fenn highlights The Unreasonable Institute, a new incubator formed in Colorado for social entrepreneurs, at her blog:

This year, the incubator's first, the founders vetted 33 candidates from 284 applications from 45 countries. Their criteria: "the ventures need to address the root cause of an environmental or social problem or need," says Hartung. "And they can't be donation or grant driven. They have to have a revenue mechanism that covers costs. We're also looking for those that can scale outside of their country of origin and eventually meet the needs of a million people." Tall order! According to Hartung, some of the candidates are for-profit, some are not-for-profit, and a few are hybrids. And their founders run the gamut from a former child soldier to an MIT engineer.

And there is a gathering of social entrepreneurs scheduled next month in San Francisco.  The Social Enterprise Alliance, the largest membership organization for social entrepreneurs in North America, is holding the 11th Social Enterprise Summit in San Francisco April 28-30.  This year it will be conducted jointly with the 3rd Social Enterprise World Forum.  The international three-day event will highlight social enterprise models and strategies from around the world.   They are expecting over 600 attendees.

When it comes to addressing social challenges, there is a grassroots movement based on the belief that markets work better than more large government programs. 

My colleague here at Belmont University, Jose Gonzalez, has been working with a group of students to assist honey farmers in Guatemala.

They all spent time in Guatemala over part of the Christmas break and are now back working on plans to help these farmers.  Toward that end they have entered their project in Dell's Social Innovation Competition.

Here is our students' entry into this competition to set up an entity to support these farmers and to expand a microloan fund:

Our plan is to support the creation of an independent venture that manages the production and commercialization of Fair Trade honey for small-scale farmers in Guatemala.

Background: Located in the mountainous department of Quiche in northern Guatemala, the town of Chajul suffered some of the most brutal violence of Guatemala's thirty-year Civil War. Its predominantly indigenous community continues to be one of the most economically distressed in Guatemala. Our team traveled to Chajul earlier this year and worked with the coffee farmers of the Asociacion Chajulense. This cooperative of 1,400 Fair Trade and organic coffee producers exports to the US, Canada and Europe, and provides techinical support and social services to its membership.

While the Fair Trade movement has improved the lives of Chajul's farmers, they continue to struggle with poverty, and recent climate changes have emphasized the urgent need for diversifying their incomes. With this in mind, the Asociacion Chajulense recently launched a venture to Fair Trade Honey production.  Honey is an ideal supplemental crop. For most of the year, beehives require only a small amount of maintenance, and the annual division of hives allows for a typical yearly increase in production of 50%.  To date, Chajul's successes with honey are impressive, as 100% of their production has made its way to the European market.

Our plan: To spin off the cooperative's honey project into a separate entity solely focused on the production and sale of honey. What started as a small initiative to support coffee farmers can become a highly impactful independent economic development initiative for the region. The potential is remarkable. The modest efforts so far have impacted only 50 producers who are involved in honey production activities. We estimate another 1,000 families stand to benefit from the implementation or our plan.  Resources would be invested in creating the necessary organizational infrastructure and capacity to manage the newly created social venture.  A portion of the funding would be allocated to the expansion of a microloan fund.

Over 85% of the population of Quiche lives on less than $2 a day. The lack of economic development opportunities is a significant detriment to the region.  By creating a more efficient opportunity for revenue growth for a cooperative that is a central part of the community, it will greatly improve the livelihood of the honey bee farmers, their families and the community.

Please go to the website and give our students your vote.

Registration is very easy.  You can find the Belmont idea here.  Just click on "Promote" to give them your vote.  Thanks!

With the growth in interest in social entrepreneurship, I am often asked about the status of the B Corporation.  B Corporations is a designation for a for-profit venture that has a social mission.

Here is the latest from Nonprofit Law Prof Blog:

The B Corp concept (B stands for social benefit) has not yet, so far as I know, been adopted by any states, but corporations can dedicate themselves to a socially responsible future by registering with B Lab, a nonprofit organization, and agreeing to comply with its dictates such as committing irrevocably to socially responsible business activities,taking cognizance of stakeholder concerns, and conducting an annual social benefit audit and report.  If the corporation complies, it receives what in essence a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from B Lab and can describe itself as a B Corp.

So as of now, this is not an alternative legal form of business entity like an S-Corp or LLC.  However, there is lobbying going on in Washington to set up a separate tax category or special tax break for B Corporations.  If this happens the states will surely follow and recognize this category of business as a new way to charter a corporation.

I think this would be a bad move.  Many social entrepreneurs who choose to set up their venture as an S-Corp or LLC and by-pass non-profit status do so to avoid the hassles of setting up and running non-profits.  If we turn the government and specifically the IRS loose on a new form of legal business entity called B-corps, they will become part of the morass that makes up the 70,000 pages of IRS code.  I would predict that in a few years we might see thousands of new pages of code dedicated just to B-corps.

I recently blogged about our MBA team, but Belmont University actually has three groups who have entered the Dell Social Innovation Competition. http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/ 

 

They need your help to make it to the next round of the competition.  

 

All you have to do is:

1.  go to http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/

2.  go to register now  http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/ideaSiteRegister

3.  Create a username and password

 

Some of you have had problems navigating the site using their search feature.  If you type in "Belmont University" our three team submissions come up.

 

You can vote for more than one idea, so please give all of them your support!!

 

Thanks for your help!  If one of our groups win they get $50,000 to help launch their concept.

We have a group of our MBA students who have the Dell Social Innovation Competition. http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/ 

 

Their social venture implements and manages bike sharing programs for cities, businesses and universities (you can find more on bike sharing programs here).    

 

They need your help to make it to the next round of the competition.  

 

All you have to do is:

1.  go to http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/

2.  go to register now  http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/ideaSiteRegister

3.  Create a username and password

4.  Search Ideas by typing We-Cycle

5.  VOTE for for We-Cycle

 

Thanks for your help!  If they win we get $50,000 to help launch their concept.

 

Dell has announced their 2009 Small Business Excellence Award.  This award offers small businesses in 13 countries a chance to win $50,000 in Technology Solutions. 
For more information see their website. 

 

Dell is also running a competition for social ventures in partnership with the University of Texas.  It also has a $50,000 prize.  For more information on the Social Innovation Competition see their website.

 

 

We launched one of the first undergraduate majors in Social Entrepreneurship in the country here at Belmont this fall.  Dr. Bernard Turner is our new faculty member who is leading this program.  We already have a large group of students who have either declared the new major or are seriously considering switching to it.  I am co-advising these students with Dr. Turner.  What an amazing group of young people looking to channel entrepreneurial skills toward creating social change.

Belmont University alumnus Nathan Baker wants to help tackle the issues of homelessness in Nashville, but he isn't having a canned food drive. He is having a viral marketing campaign for clicks.

"Too often we click Perez Hilton or Facebook. I want to work with like-minded individuals that want to click homeless," Baker said.

Baker said he is developing a network of homeless and non-homeless that supports the blogging efforts of the homeless and chronically homeless, starting in Nashville.

The network would help design and maintain blogs for homeless writers, try to get laptops in the hands of the homeless, pursue sponsorships with food spots with free Internet access, and advocate that people "click homeless."

Baker's goal is to raise $10,000 from Ideablob.com by the end of the month. You can offer feedback and vote for his idea at ideablob.com.

The perspective we are hearing from our social entrepreneurship students is that they want to tackle one social problem at a time.  They are not interested in massive solutions to problems, as they believe that all this does is create big, inefficient bureaucracies. 

MakeZen's Weblog offers an interesting take on this perspective.  The post challenges how we have conceptualized our past approaches to solving social problems in this world.  It clearly echoes what we are hearing from our social entrepreneurship students:

It struck me soon after how peculiar it was the way the question was formulated: would I like to join them to FIGHT against women violence? Why do we use the word "fight" that implies violence to get rid of violence? FIGHT against poverty, injustice, war etc. is something that we normally hear in the news, in the mission statements of some NGOs, and indeed in the life mission of some social entrepreneurs as well. It surely carries a negative energy and it will strengthen the other opposing energy. I believe it more and more that true and LASTING changes can never take place from a negative state of consciousness because ignorance will grow stronger when it is being attacked!

So don't fight against war, poverty and injustice- rather- work for peace, for fairness and let peace flow through all your actions in order to create true changes! It's possible, even in the most despair situation!

The Social Equity Venture Fund (SEVEN), just launched a competition to develop new indicators and models for investment in emerging market small and medium-sized enterprises.  The competition is open to everyone, and is offering $50,000 in funds awarded for the best ideas.  Entrepreneurs in developing markets often cite a lack of financial capital as the biggest barrier to growing their business.  This competition, and its results, are one concrete step in demonstrating the power of entrepreneurship, and business, as a sustainable solution to world poverty. 

To participate, contributors may submit their ideas until November 15. Here is a link to the submission site.  The second phase of wiki-based collaboration takes place between November 16 and December 15. The online VINE community will select finalists and a jury of experts will award the grand prize.

This competition was funded through a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Here is a link to get additional information about the S.E.VEN Fund.