Blue Sky

VilCap/VentureWell - Louisville Agriculture & Cleantech Accelerator

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:05:19 -0400

The 2013 VilCap/VentureWell – Louisville Agriculture and Cleantech Accelerator is a program designed to equip entrepreneurs utilizing technology and innovative solutions to some of the worlds most pressing agriculture, energy and environmental concerns. The accelerator, Village Capital’s 18th program worldwide, is designed to provide opportunity to high-potential startups that deliver more than just an attractive bottom line. The experience, global networks, and capital resources of Village Capital and VentureWell, and other program partners: Blue Sky, Invested Development, Sustainable America, and Radicle Capital, will be utilized to prepare companies for investment and increase investor exposure.

The accelerator will consist of a cohort of 15 for-profit, commercially scalable companies operating in one (or more) of the following 2 verticals:

Agriculture
Clean technology / energy

The program consists of three skills-based workshops focused on training entrepreneurs to assume an “investor lens”, and culminates with $100,000 pre-committed investment, to be made with a twist: the investment decision is in the hands of the entrepreneurs. The first workshop starts on June 26 and end at the Idea Festival between 24 and 27 September. During this time, the program will provide infrastructure, business and investment related mentoring to the selected cohort of startups.

Throughout the program, participating enterprises engage in a constructive and fully transparent ranking process, designed to provide entrepreneurs with feedback and accountability systems designed to build investment ready businesses. After the final rank, the top two companies receive investment, and YES, the investment decision is solely placed in the hands of the entrepreneurs themselves!

The Road to Abundance: Identifying the Problems (Part II)

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:23:00 -0500

So what is abundance and how will we know when its been achieved? Peter Diamandis explains that “abundance is not about providing everyone on this planet with a life of luxury…ultimately, abundance is about creating a world of possibility: a world where everyone’s days are spent dreaming and doing, not scrapping and scraping.”

Described as such, abundance doesn’t seem so unattainable, right? After all, almost everyone in the developed world already enjoys a life of “abundance” as illustrated by Diamandis. The fact is that many of our lives are filled with so much abundance that we’ve become so consumed with “dreaming” and “doing” it is difficult to understand the plight of those who must “scrap” and “scrape” their ways through life.

Diamandis says the developed world’s comfortable existence is a reflection of our ability to satisfy most or all of Abraham Maslow’s famed five level Hierarchy of Human Needs pyramid. Diamandis believes Maslow’s pyramid is central to the pursuit of abundance because it identifies our most basic needs and arranges them into a graduated system in which each level must be satisfied before one can achieve the next.

If you are reading this blog post then you have probably satisfied the first three or four levels of Maslow’s pyramid: (1) physiological needs, such as water, food, and shelter; (2) safety needs, such as personal protection and law and order; (3) love and belongingness as received through friendships and family; and (4) self-esteem needs attained through personal achievement and self confidence. Reaching the pentacle of Maslow’s pyramid, self-actualization, is evidenced by “one’s devotion to a higher purpose and willingness to serve society.”

Diamandis uses the pyramid’s building blocks as a guide for identifying hindrances to progress, assessing the scope and magnitude of such hindrances, and formulating a strategy to eliminate these barriers so as to empower everyone with the tools needed to improve their lives and help others along the way.

As Diamandis acknowledges, global disparities in wealth and quality of life are quite staggering when viewed through the lens of Maslow’s pyramid. One might be surprised to learn that nearly one billion people have failed to progress beyond the pyramid’s first tier. It is easy to understand how illusive progress might be for people who spend the majority of their time gathering necessities such as clean water and food. Diamandis believes that abundance will remain a pipe dream until we can find solutions to our most pressing problems:

Water

The Problem: Water is body’s most critical input. Unfortunately, access to clean drinking water is a significant problem for approximately one billion people worldwide. Water-borne illnesses are so prevalent that they are responsible for half of the world’s hospitalizations. It is easy to understand why social progress is slow or non-existent for people who are perpetually sick and spend their entire day looking for clean water.

Potential Impact: Clean water is critical to leading a productive life, combats hunger by increasing nutrient absorption, and has been correlated with reduced birth rates.

Healthcare

The Problem: Tragically, many people die every year from ailments that have been curable for decades. For example, pneumonia is responsible for nearly 20% of all deaths for children five and under despite the existence of curable treatments developed nearly a century ago. While the availability of basic medicines remains a problem in many regions, the inability of local healthcare providers to properly diagnose illness and disease contributes significantly to many preventable deaths.

Potential Impact: Providing the means for underserved regions to identify, treat, and prevent disease outbreaks could save millions of lives each year.

Energy

The problem: Energy accessible factories during the industrial revolution allowed for increased productivity and division of labor, which allowed for creation of new wealth. Unfortunately, wealth is difficult to create for people like the average Nigerian, who lives in a single room dwelling with four other people and only 8.7 kWh of energy per day. Today, 3.5 billion people generate light and heat for cooking by burning biomass, a practice responsible for “36% of acute upper respiratory infections, 22% of chronic instructive pulmonary, 1.5% of all cancers.”

Potential Impact: providing a two-burner electric stove could reduce disease and illness caused by cooking practices import countries, which would produce global disease by 4%.

Education

The Problem: most education experts agree on two things: (1) literacy, mathematics, life skills, and critical thinking are the ingredients needed for self-improvement; and (2) that our education systems have failed to evolve along side advancements in technology and the skills needed to navigate 21st century life.

Potential Impact: Leveraging technology to educate children in the world’s most remote regions will give coming generations the tools needed to improve standards of living for themselves and their community.

Freedom

The Problem: The information age has increased the transparency of oppressive government and exposed human rights abuses that would have gone unnoticed one decade ago. While international pressure has helped reduce such abuses, there are still many who are refused the right to attend school, access the Internet, or move freely across regional and international borders.

Potential Impact: The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency insists, “Access to and the strategic use of [information and communications technologies] have been shown to have the potential to help bring about economic development, poverty reduction and democratization—including freedom of speech, the free flow of information in the promotion of human rights.”

Diamandis insists that, while such problems seem daunting, they are not insurmountable. Diamandis believes the only thing standing between us and achieving global abundance is our hesitation to dream big. Confidence in our ability to overcome seemingly impossible odds is so critical to creating change that Diamandis contributes a significant portion of Abundance to purging the reader’s mind of pessimism.

Diamandis identifies three recent phenomena he believes will ultimately catapult us toward his vision of the future: (1) the confident, do-it-yourself attitude found in many of today’s young entrepreneurs; (2) a surge of twenty and thirty something tech moguls that have made enough money to support a small country who wish to use their wealth and talents to make a difference; and (3) empowerment of the world’s “bottom billion” to compete in the global economy using recent technological advancements.

Is Abundance Closer Than We Think? (Part 1)

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:18:51 -0500

If you are like most people, you probably think Earth’s future seems pretty bleak. Between wars, famine, disease, and pollution, today’s problems don’t seem to give us much to look forward to. But is our planet really heading toward destruction as quickly as popular opinion suggests?

Abundance, Peter Diamandis’ acclaimed (and controversial) 2012 collaboration with bestselling author Steven Kotler, is the MIT and Harvard educated brainiac’s attempt to inspire the next generation of innovators to tackle our planet’s most pressing problems in spite of seemingly insurmountable odds. In support of his challenge, Diamandis offers a myriad of expert opinions and statistical data to mitigate the kind of pessimism that discourages the pursuit of solutions for seemingly unsolvable problems. Diamandis argues that solutions are not only possible, but that he and some of the world’s brightest minds believe that recent information and scientific advancements have made it possible to dramatically raise the quality of life for everyone on Earth…within the coming decades.

Diamandis defies popular opinion early by suggesting that life on earth isn’t as bad as most of us think. Diamandis points to statistical data, academic studies, and expert testimony that all seem to support his conclusion that, all in all, we humans are living a fairly cozy existence compared to our ancestors. But is that true? If life is so much better today, why do news sources like the New York Times and every grandparent to ever live suggest the world is heading to hell in a hand basket?

Diamandis believes that limited access to information throughout human history is central to understanding why our perception is often skewed toward pessimism and colored by inaccuracies. Diamandis argues that our misconceptions are partly rooted in evolutionary survival traits that trick us into giving disproportionate weight to information related to environmental dangers. This phenomenon, known as negativity bias, has been confirmed by academic studies that show humans give more credence to negative information and experiences than positive ones. While it’s true most of us do not have to worry about lions hiding in the brush, our cautionary system is evidenced every time we pass on a restaurant based on a single negative review despite disproportionately more favorable ratings.

Diamandis also believes that limited access to information throughout history has contributed to our collective misperceptions about the world at large. From the beginning of time until the last decade or so, humans had access to very little knowledge from which to make daily decisions and form opinions. As such, humans made political decisions, opinions on racial and cultural differences, and when to harvest crops based on their limited understanding of the world and probability estimates from their life experiences.

Today, the Internet and mobile technologies have given us the ironic problem of having too muchinformation to consider when making decisions. While our relationship with information has changed, we still face the challenge of forming opinions based on the amount of information our brains can actually take into account when reaching an “informed” conclusion. What’s more, the information we doreceive comes from media outlets that are incentivized to push negative news stories that appeal to our evolutionary instinct to seek out information related to perceived dangers. When you factor in a handful of inherent biases at work in each of our minds (including: confirmation bias [“the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s perception”]; predilection bias [relying too heavily on one piece of information when making a decision]; and in-group bias [giving preference really treatment to those in our 150 person interpersonal relationship pool, which includes politicians and TV personalities we don’t actually know]), as well as cognitive limitations that inhibit us from organizing and making sense of all relative information, it is easy to see how our brains can become a hotbed of irrationality and half-truths.

While its true that Abundance spends a great deal of time trying to create a sense of optimism to inspire the reader, the book does not seek to trivialize the plight of Earth’s “bottom billion” poorest citizens or discount the challenges still ahead. Diamandis discusses at length the grim reality of life for the world’s poorest citizens, including many from Mercy Njima’s native Kenya who are,

“Forced to rely on burning poor-grade wood, dung, or crop waste to cook, suffering the effects of the potentially fatal toxic fumes given off by this fuel. Imagine being desperately ill and turned away from a clinic because it has no electricity and can’t offer even the simplest treatment. Imagine your friends living under the shadow of life-threatening disease because there are no vital vaccines, due to a lack of refrigeration. Imagine if you or your partner were pregnant and went into labor at night and had no light, no pain relief and no way of saving you or the baby if there were complications…[women and children] spend hours every day searching for increasingly scarce energy resources. They are at risk from wild animals and sometimes rape. And once they start burning biomass, the acrid smoke causes serious lung disease and turns kitchens into deathtraps.”

Ms. Njima’s account of life for many Kenyans is one of many narratives used by Diamandis to remind the reader that, while there is reason to be optimistic about the years ahead, many people will face a daily struggle for survival until solutions move from the whiteboards and laboratories into the regions that need them most.

The good news, as Diamandis points out, is the solutions the world has been waiting for appear to be just beyond the horizon…

L3C vs. B-Corps: What is Best for Your Social Venture?

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:29:00 -0400

Social entrepreneurs have the unenviable challenge of: 1) launching a sustainable business; 2) that solves or alleviates global afflictions; and 3) doing so while operating on a razor-thin profit margin. Severally, each of these elements create a difficult hurdle for all start-up to overcome; collectively, they yield what seems like insurmountable odds. Fortunately, start-up social ventures can avoid some of the classic operational and financial obstacles that come with such entities by choosing a legal designation that best promotes their vision.

Historically, federal and state statutes have viewed charitable and for-profit entities as mutually exclusive organizations whose mission statements rarely, if ever, overlapped. This legal distinction has been wholly rejected by a new class of up-and-coming entrepreneurs that believe companies can pursue profit while advancing social causes. In response to the need for a legal designation that straddles the line between for and non-profits, the US government and a growing number of states have recognized a new class of business entities that allows for the creations of such enterprises. The two most popular are low profit limited liability companies (L3C) and Benefit Corporations (B-Corp).

L3C is a newly recognized business entity that allows companies to achieve modest profits while operating under a business model that emphasized impact over profits. L3Cs were specifically designed to help social entrepreneurs raise capital from a much broader range of investors than are typically attracted to traditional NPOs.

L3Cs are structured under a “tranching” system that appeals to investors ranging from risk-averse entities like NGOs to aggressively managed hedge funds. Tranching allows a flexible ownership structure that allocates risk unevenly among its members based on their risk tolerance and ROI requirements. L3Cs will typically offer three levels of tranches designed to accommodate variations in investor needs. The lowest tranch is reserved for contributors like program related investments (PRI) that are willing to be junior claim holders and absorb below market rates. Investors placed in the lowest tranch provide the ability for L3Cs to attract the significant capital needed from larger, profit-driven investors placed in higher tiers. The middle tier, or “mezzanine” tier, provides L3Cs with access to socially conscious investors that consider the realization of social impact a component of their expected ROI and, as such, are willing to accept returns slightly below market rates. Lastly, offers an attractive investment opportunity for endowments and other contributors wishing to fund socially conscious projects while receiving market rate returns. Most importantly, the senior tier allows L3Cs to gather the substantial contributions that are typically unavailable to traditional NPOs.

Under Treas. Reg. § 1.501(c)(3), L3C designated entities must: 1) significantly further the accomplishment of one or more charitable or educational purposes identified under 26 C.F.R. § 170(c)(2)(B); 2) have been formed for the purpose of furthering said charitable or educational purposes; 3) not strive for the attainment of revenues or property as their primary purpose; and 4) not be organized to further any legislative or political purposes. Some states have passed legislation recognizing L3Cs and several more are considering following suit. Kentucky and Indiana’s state legislature failed to pass L3C bills introduced during each state’s 2011 legislative session.

Lastly, it should be noted that L3Cs operate as a “pass through” entity for federal tax purposes, allowing the tax burden to be pass along to its members and paid as personal income tax.

A popular alternative to L3Cs for companies wishing to operate under a standard of social accountability is the increasingly recognized Benefit Corporation. Benefit Corporations are distinct from L3Cs because they are required to operate under specific standards set forth by B-Lab, a non-profit organization founded by Benefit Corporation visionary Jay Gilbert. Benefit Corporations are required to draft or amend their articles of incorporation to include the following five provisions:

Purpose — shall create general public benefit defined as the material positive impact on society and the environment, as measured by a third party standard shall have the right to name specific public benefit purposes the creation of public benefit is in the best interests of the Benefit Corporation.

Accountability — directors duties are to make decisions in the best interests of the corporation directors and officers shall consider effect of decisions on shareholders and employees, suppliers, customers, community, environment (together the “Stakeholders”). Shall have an independent Benefit Director accountable for statement in annual Benefit Report whether Board acted consistent with obligation to create general and any specific public benefit purposes, and considered effects of decisions on stakeholders.

Transparency — shall publish an annual Benefit Report in accordance with recognized third party standards for defining, reporting, assessing social and environmental performance, including assessment of successes and failures in achieving general and specific public benefit purpose and in considering effects of decisions on stakeholders. Benefit Report delivered to: 1) shareholders; 2) to public website with exclusion of proprietary data; and 3) Secretary of State with exclusion of proprietary data.

Right of Action — only shareholders and directors have right of action. No third party right of action if Benefit Corporation is a subsidiary, >5% owners of parent have right of action. Right of Action can be for 1) violation of or failure to pursue general or specific public benefit; 2) violation of duty or standard of conduct.

Change of Control/Purpose/Structure — shall require 2/3 majority vote.

Companies that operate under these standards are legally protected and obligated to pursue social benefits before profits. This obligation guarantees to investors that management will operate the business in a way that furthers their interest in social improvement.

Until recently, Benefit Corporations were merely voluntary certifications that provided investors peace of mind and a set of standards for management to pursue. This changed in 2010 when the state of Maryland became the first to recognize Benefit Corporations as a designated legal structure, thus conferring legal protection for company officers to make decisions that seek to provide social benefits over profit.

Today, Benefit Corporations are a recognized corporate structure in 10 states and the District of Columbia with an additional 16 states considering similar legislation. Unfortunately, the Kentucky and Indiana legislatures do not have statutes recognizing B-Corp entities or proposals for enactment of such legislation. Companies created in states like Kentucky that do not recognize Benefit Corporations are limited to voluntarily conforming their company to the standards set by B-Lab to receive Benefit Corporation Certification, which is periodically renewed contingent upon the company’s conformity with B-Lab standards.

Conversely, businesses created in states that recognize Benefit Companies can register their company as such and must operate in accordance with the state’s applicable statute(s). While such legal entities are not required to maintain “Benefit Corporation Certification” from B-Lab per se, nearly all require the Benefit Corporation to meet similar third party standards.

While both L3Cs and B-Corps offer solutions important to emerging social entrepreneurs, both designations fail to address the challenges addressed by the other — L3Cs do not offer the transparency and legal protections of B-Corps, while B-Corps will not receive the broad capital market access enjoyed by L3Cs. Ultimately, the decision must be made by weighing the importance of generating capital (L3C) or the legal obligation that demands management make every operating, financing, and investing decision based primarily on pursuit of a social cause (B-Corp).

Check out the links below for more information on L3Cs or B-Corps:

L3C:

http://www.intersectorl3c.com

http://www.americansforcommunitydevelopment.org

B-Corps:

http://www.benefitcorp.net

http://www.bcorporation.net

Sources:

Treas. Reg. § 1.501(c)(3)–1

http://www.socialenterprisetrust.org/pdf/legal-structure-and-social-enterprise.pdf

Practical Tax Strategies, THE L3C LOW-PROFIT LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY: INVESTMENT OPTION FOR SOCIETAL IMPACT, 86 PRACTXST 66

http://www.bcorporation.net

http://www.benefitcorp.net

INFOGRAPHIC: Start-up Hubs Across the US

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:00:31 -0400

It may surprise you to learn that Silicon Valley isn’t the only startup hotbed in the U.S. In between Silicon Valley and Route 128 there are many pockets of growth and expansion in the startup world. We take a look at where startups are growing and where they are burning out.

See the full INFOGRAPHIC here from @columnfive

INFOGRAPHIC: Where is the Next Generation of Innovators?

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:10:32 -0400

(via @GOOD.is)

http://bit.ly/TwNBD5

Village Capital & Venture Well Team Up to Launch an Accelerator Focused on Clean Tech and Mobile ICT

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:41:34 -0400

Village Capital and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance’s (NCIIA) Venture Well have joined to offer early stage IT and cleantech entrepreneurs the opportunity to win $100,000 in seed money. Teams selected from across the nation will take part in a two and a half month competition beginning with a conference for selectees the weekend of November 29, 2012 in Boston. The competition’s opening weekend will include intensive workshops and offer participants the opportunity to engage leading entrepreneurs and experts in their respective business sectors. After the conference, participants will be required to share their progress and receive coaching sessions during weekly conference calls. The competition will conclude in Boston the weekend of January 30, 2013 with each enterprise presenting their proposed innovation to their peers and challenge sponsors. The cohort will select two enterprises as the winners, each of which will receive $50,000 in convertible debt to launch their proposed innovations.

The selection committee is accepting applications from university-based enterprise teams nationwide for proposed innovations that meet the following criteria: 1) must have a for-profit, commercially scalable business model; 2) must demonstrate customer validation and market potential; and 3) must address IT, energy/environmental sustainability, or a combination of both. The committee will accept IT proposals related to enterprise and mobile solutions, ideally focused on serving low resource populations in the U.S. or emerging markets. Energy or environmental sustainability technology solutions must be capital efficient and appealing to current or future global markets.

This competition is an example of Village Capital and the NCIIA’s ongoing efforts to support social development. Village Capital has sought to empower young social entrepreneurs through an education process that connects like-minded peers for support and constructive peer reviews. To date, Village Capital has launched thirteen programs in nine locations (U.S., India, Brazil, China, Kenya, U.K), supporting over 150 companies and funding 28. The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) is the leading private grant funder of technology based student innovations with scalable market potential and social impact. We have supported the launch of over 100 ventures that have collectively secured almost $200M of investment and whose products are being used worldwide.

Village Capital and Venture Well are planning to offer a similar opportunity in the spring of 2013 for medical technology innovations. Additional information on the competition, Village Capital, and Venture Well can be found at HERE.

Review of Bornstein & Davis' book on Social Entrepreneurship

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:41:57 -0400

David Bornstein and Susan Davis’ Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know offers an insightful look into the field of social entrepreneurship and the critical role it will play in tackling the most significant challenges of the 21^st century.

Bornstein and Davis describe social entrepreneurship as “a process by which citizens build or transform institutions to advance solutions to social problems” by developing tools all people can use to become change makers. Social entrepreneurs represent a departure from the charity-based model used by many nonprofit organizations; instead, social entrepreneurs seek to create sustainable, for-profit businesses that provide tools for impoverished societies to become self-sufficient.

The book credits the advent of limited liability corporations for providing the original vehicle through which people could improve their quality of life by pooling the resources of several individuals to create new wealth. Bornstein and Davis acknowledge that, while such tools created benefits that had a spillover effect on the rest of society, they also created new social problems, including abusive labor practices, population displacement, and environmental disasters. It is these problems and others that social entrepreneurs of our time seek to alleviate by offering the tools and services needed to raise the living standards of the world’s most desperate regions by creating public value, building avenues for the pursuit of opportunities, and creating a framework for innovative solutions.

Bornstein and Davis trace contemporary social entrepreneurship to the dissolution of authoritarian governments and the consequential explosion of new middle-class citizens over the past half-century. Such changes brought improvements in education, healthcare, and communication that spread prosperity and gave birth to a new breed of world citizens that wished to make an impact on those less fortunate. Such convictions were amplified during the 1980s and ‘90s as the global media broadcast images of political oppression and wealth disparities many did not know existed.

The world’s private sector began to address these problems through the creation of nongovernmental organizations that established programs designed to create wealth and improve healthcare. Bornstein and Davis point to Mohammed Yunus’ Grameen Bank and Fazel Abed’s Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee as examples of early social entrepreneurs that transformed their native Bangladesh through micro-financing programs that expanded social and economic development.

While Bornstein and Davis offer many examples of successful social entrepreneurs, they also acknowledge that most social entrepreneurs fight an uphill battle solving complex global problems while “overcoming apathy, habit, incomprehension, and disbelief while facing heated resistance from those with vested interests.” Ironically, Bornstein and Davis opined that the largest challenge facing social entrepreneurs today is the same challenge facing those they seek to serve: a lack of financial resources. Raising capital can be difficult for many social entrepreneurs because they cannot raise money through debt and stock offerings like businesses, relying instead on moderate donations from governments, philanthropists, and charitable foundations. Fortunately, recent innovations in web-based intermediaries, social venture competitions, and impact investors have helped to alleviate the financial constraints that too often prevent worthy projects from gaining any momentum.

Bornstein and Davis argue that business entities that benefit from treatment as “people” under the law should take the same measures as human citizens to reduce their contribution to social hardship. Bornstein and Davis credit consumer and investor demands for social responsibility with sparking the evolution of companies from a pure profit business model to a strategy that considers the social, environmental, and physical implications of their business tactics — a consideration that has come to be known as the “triple bottom line.” What’s more, newly formed “social stock exchanges” have given added transparency to corporate social efforts by evaluating and ranking companies based on their socially conscious practices. Companies are also beginning to hear the demands for corporate responsibility from socially conscious college graduates whom increasingly identifying corporate responsibility as a major consideration when seeking employment.

Bornstein and Davis insist that our success in overcoming challenges of the 21^st century will lie in the ability of our institutions to prepare children to recognize and a eliminate problems before they become systemic. The book suggests that schools can nurture social innovators by exposing students to real challenges and asking them to develop their own creative solutions. Bornstein and Davis contend that this will encourage students to practice change now while planting the seeds for social entrepreneurship down the road. Likewise, America’s universities can cultivate social entrepreneurs by blending traditional business courses with contemporary social problems that encourage students to look for business opportunities normally overlooked by entrepreneurs. Bornstein and Davis identify universities as particularly important because they have the unique ability to legitimize new fields and careers focused on creating social impact.

Bornstein and Davis also encourage businesses and social entrepreneurs to recognize their common goals and leverage one another to maximize profit and social impact. Bornstein and Davis said social entrepreneurs could benefit from a company’s production and capital resources to bring products to market in a scalable way. Similarly, businesses could benefit from a social entrepreneur’s knowledge of market dynamics at the ground level and their access to distribution channels.

Lastly, Bornstein and Davis identified government inefficiencies and the conflicted interests of policymakers that channel important funding to ineffective government programs as roadblocks to social improvement. To sidestep this problem, the book suggests that governments should support promising social entrepreneurs that “possess a ground-level view of problems and a mountaintop vision” while having the freedom to experiment. Bornstein and Davis argue that lasting social change can only be achieved through long-term trial and error processes that are not conducive to the pressures faced by politicians.

Social Entrepreneurship is a well-written, thought-provoking book that identifies the challenges facing social entrepreneurs today and offers compelling suggestions for attacking our most pressing social problems. Social Entrepreneurship argues that the technological innovations of the last two decades have created the tools for individuals to make a difference on an unprecedented scale. However, social entrepreneurship cannot reach its full potential without a concerted effort of cooperation by individuals, businesses, educational institutions, and governments.

In Its 5th Year, SOCAP12 Convenes Social Enterprise & Impact Investing Community Oct 1-4 in San Francisco

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:07:28 -0400

In Its 5th Year, SOCAP12 Convenes Social Enterprise & Impact Investing Community Oct 1-4 in San Francisco:

The convener of the social entrepreneur and impact investing community in the U.S., will host its annual gathering October 1-4 in San Francisco. The sector was recently estimated at $650 billion in marketplace potential – almost five times its estimated potential just two years ago. SOCAP, now in its 5th year, will focus heavily on the many aspects of impact investing, convening more than 1,000 key investors, entrepreneurs, foundations and business leaders who are doing business within the sector.

“In the past five years the impact investing space has gone from a nascent movement to an emerging global reality,” said SOCAP Founder, Kevin Jones. “The maturing of the sector reflects a growing desire and expectation among investors and the public, that business both help solve the world’s most pressing problems and be accountable not just for financial performance, but societal impact as well.”

I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!

Impact Capital Is The New Asset Class (via @Forbes)

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:20:42 -0400

Impact Capital Is The New Asset Class (via @Forbes):

One of the highlights from the Forbes 400 Summit On Philanthropy was the panel ‘Impact Capital Is The New Asset Class,’ and not just because I was the moderator (entire video below).

It was thanks to the intelligent panelists we brought on stage: venture capitalists Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz and Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, and social venture investor Cheryl Dorsey of Echoing Green. They took turns underscoring how different (and similar) are the world’s of social venture and traditional venture capital.

Seven ways mobile phones have changed lives in Africa (via @CNN)

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:13:41 -0400

Seven ways mobile phones have changed lives in Africa (via @CNN):

“A little over a decade ago there were about 100,000 phone lines in Nigeria, mostly landlines run by the state-owned telecoms behemoth, NITEL. Today NITEL is dead, and Nigeria has close to 100 million mobile phone lines, making it Africa’s largest telecoms market, according to statistics by the Nigerian Communications Commission.

Across the rest of the continent the trends are similar: between 2000 and 2010, Kenyan mobile phone firm Safaricom saw its subscriber base increase in excess of 500-fold. In 2010 alone the number of mobile phone users in Rwanda grew by 50%, figures from the country’s regulatory agency show.” (via @CNN)

INFOGRAPHIC: Why Startups Fail (via @businessinsider) Startup...

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:32:23 -0400

INFOGRAPHIC: Why Startups Fail (via @businessinsider)

Startup Genome analyzed 3,200 high-growth technology startups to answer this daunting question:

Why do startups fail?

It came away with this beautiful, informative infographic.

VilCap Recap on Impact Investing in Action Conference Last Week in Atlanta

Thu, 31 May 2012 13:51:44 -0400

VilCap Recap on Impact Investing in Action Conference Last Week in Atlanta

Success and Social Value

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:24:47 -0400

Success and Social Value:

Check out this great post on #socent from @Forbes. I would love to hear your thoughts on Drucker’s quote as well: “success is maximizing shareholder value, and social value would result.” What does this position presuppose?

Check out the new promo video from @NadusFilms. They recently...

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:30:03 -0400

Check out the new promo video from @NadusFilms. They recently returned from India and a scouting trip and have launched a kickstarter campaign to complete their project: “B Boys for Life” which is about the breakdancing community of Guatemala City as an alternative to gang life. Check out the campaign and consider donating.

Venture Philanthropy - Risky But Rewarding

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:00:06 -0400

Venture Philanthropy - Risky But Rewarding:

“Venture capital takes financial capital and expertise and provides it to high-potential, high-risk, startup businesses. Venture philanthropy uses the same approach and applies it to philanthropic donations in the nonprofit or social enterprise sector. Both VC and VP involve a commitment of time and resources, carry a high degree of risk and can produce outsized returns.” READ MORE…

(via denverpost.com)

Where Did Social Enterprise Come From, Anyway?

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:33:50 -0400

Where Did Social Enterprise Come From, Anyway?:

“Businesses, even those outside the realm of greedy corporate drones, are designed to earn a profit. Other priorities, like environmental sustainability or job creation, are reached only through happy accidents or marketing ploys to help companies make more money. Surely, if you’re raking in the dough, you can’t be making a difference—at least not on purpose.

This outdated vision of commerce has multiple origins, but if asked, most students of social enterprise will point an accusing finger at Milton Friedman’s 1970 New York Times Magazine essay “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits.” Friedman’s point (though slightly more nuanced than the title or its interpretation might suggest) was that corporate executives have a responsibility to maximize profit. Frittering away money on other objectives—say, fighting poverty—would cheat stockholders, employees, and customers out of cash that is rightfully theirs.”

(via @GOOD)

(via Give to Get Jobs)

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 08:37:02 -0400

(via Give to Get Jobs)

VaxTrac Update: An Overview of their Benin Objectives

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:04:19 -0500

VaxTrac Update: An Overview of their Benin Objectives:

VaxTrac is “working to provide developing countries with the technologies and services they need to maximize the effectiveness of their vaccination programs. They envisions a world where every child, regardless of background, has equal access to life-saving vaccines.”

There latest project takes them to Benin to perform a field test funded by The Blue Sky Foundation. The actual project will run for the next six months, though we will only be on the ground for the first three weeks. The overall goal of the project is to install a system in each of 24 health clinics, to train health workers on the use of the system and to capture six months of data on which we can run analyses. Once we get the systems installed and the workers trained, we expect that the systems can operate independently (i.e. without hands-on intervention from us) through the end of the project.

Objectives

Determine biometric reliability rate.One of the key novel features of our system is a biometric algorithm specifically designed for infant and young child (<5 yrs) populations. We can run computer simulations with old collected data sets, but there is no substitute for analysis run on hard data captured in the field. In fact, our reliability rate–as calculated through simulations–is over 99%. In other words, how do issues seen in the physical world (dirty or damaged fingerprints, missing fingers, health workers being responsible for acquiring the fingerprints) affect the reliability?
Evaluate the system from a human factors perspective.The success of our system is ultimately defined by the extent to which front-line health workers welcome and champion its use in their everyday work. To ensure complete buy-in from those health workers, we need to make the system easy to use. We also need to make sure it does not put any increased burden on already overworked individuals. As it is designed, it should actually make the health workers’ jobs easier, by reducing the amount of time required to gather and record information on each patient.
Evaluate our training materials and processes.We face the difficult but necessary task of training nearly 150 health workers on how to use the system. These health workers represent a wide array of skills and capabilities. Some will be professionally trained doctors with proficient English and computer literacy. Others will be teenagers with no formal medical training, no familiarity with computers and a complete lack of English. Everyone on this spectrum of ability and training needs to be able to use the system capably.
Identify the obstacles we might face and the resources we will require to scale up.It is not overly difficult to deploy 20 or so systems (although you may want to ask us again near the end of this project). A small team can install all of the units and train the health workers. However, serious issues arise when we start thinking about how to scale up to 200 clinics or even 2,000 clinics. Do we need full-time, local staff to manage the network of systems? Is the large financial commitment of putting a computer in every clinic more than offset by the financial benefit from reduced vaccine wastage?

(via @vaxtrac)

What Africa's Entrepreneurs Can Teach the World

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:24:15 -0500

What Africa's Entrepreneurs Can Teach the World:

“In a sense, African entrepreneurs run profit ecosystems rather than business units. These ecosystems interact with other ecosystems in a culturally elaborate manner that can produce extreme robustness, resilience, and flexibility.”

(via @HBR from @echoinggreen)