The Edge

Simple, Powerful Search Tool for Social Entrepreneurs

Jill Finlayson — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:45:00 -0500

Social Edge is proud to introduce and feature the Social Entrepreneur Search widgets. In collaboration with Social Actions, Exygy, and the organizations participating in the Social Entrepreneur API – Civic Ventures, Draper Richards Foundation, PopTech, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and Skoll Foundation – we are pleased to present these quick, useful tools for social entrepreneurs, funders, and finders (people who want to learn about and support do-gooders).

Here is how it works:

Funders, who are known for their successful efforts in finding, researching, and funding social entrepreneurs, have come together to pool the information on all their vetted social entrepreneurs in one place. This open source database is available to anyone who wishes to query, syndicate, or republish the data on their own websites. To make it super simple, we have created widgets so anyone can search and add a real-time list of social entrepreneurs to their webpage. Take your pick of Full Social Entrepreneur Search, Funder Fan Club, or the Instant Social Entrepreneur List.

Why is this a win?

For emerging social entrepreneurs:
“One stop shopping” through the Social Entrepreneur Search helps them find others in their field, issue, or region so that they may learn from other business models, find ways to collaborate and complement each other, and build coalitions for change.

For vetted social entrepreneurs included in the database:
Same as above, but additionally, inclusion in the database increases exposure for themselves and their organizations. Whether being contacted by others working on the same issue, being discovered by journalists, or being funded by family funds or other philanthropists, the database showcases their credibility and helps them be found and gain support so they can do more.

For funders:
Funders are hugely proud of their grantees and are committed to helping them scale their ventures and impact. By including their awardees in the Social Entrepreneur Search, they are helping their folks to be found and funded. Funders also invest heavily in finding and verifying the impact of these social enterprises. This due diligence effort is hugely valuable to smaller funds and philanthropists who may lack the time or staff to carry out this important work. Sean Stannard Stockton called it "following the smart money." By participating in the Social Entrepreneur Search, funders are helping strengthen the field of social entrepreneurship, and are also gaining broader recognition for their ability to identify successful social entrepreneurs.

For journalists and other writers:
Whether investigating a story on a major issue facing the world or a region, the social entrepreneurs search allows you to quickly find organizations on the ground that truly understand their issue and community. The discovered social entrepreneurs can be a source of information and referral. Including a list of social entrepreneurs alongside an article also gives readers a chance to connect with real people working on solving big problems. They may decide to donate or volunteer, or even become inspired to start their own social venture.

For researchers, corporations, emergency response…
Once data is aggregated in one place, the opportunity for learning is fascinating. Studying why are there more vetted social entrepreneurs in one country than a neighboring country could be enlightening and identify a gap in needed services. Corporations with employee giving programs wishing to expand options could add this list of vetted social entrepreneur organizations to their donor choices. In an emergency, rather than driving all donations to the Red Cross (as amazing as they are), the Social Entrepreneur Search could help interested donors give to social entrepreneurs already on the ground, with a vested in interest in both response and long term recovery of their community that they know so well.

That’s great you say, but could it be better? Yes!

Adoption: We need your help to show "proof of concept”. By adding a relevant widget to your blog post, Facebook page or website, we can see if inclusion in this database can really help social entrepreneurs and help donors save time and discover organizations they would like to support. We would like to show the value of bringing all the vetted social entrepreneurs into one searchable database, so any anecdotal evidence that discovery, funding, or some other impact (for the social venture or the sector) resulted from the Social Entrepreneur Search would be helpful and welcome.

Expansion: We would like to add more feeds, fields, analytical tools, and other ways of making the Social Entrepreneur Search useful, while still keeping effort involved in maintaining the database low and efficient. We will be adding The Tech Laureates and Global Social Benefit Incubator winners shortly and in breaking news: Echoing Green announced they will be adding their Fellows to the Social Entrepreneur Search API.

Other additions we have discussed include adding “finalists” who have been vetted but were not one of the few winners selected due to limitations of funding, fit, or stage of organization. Other field additions may be quite simple, such as representing the number of years the organization has been around, or number of paid staff, which could help investors and donors search for organizations at a specific stage. There is also interest in adding actions that people can take to support social entrepreneurs and giving social entrepreneurs access to updating this information directly.

Innovation: We would love to have developers start pulling the data directly and creating their own value added layers to the data, such as creating a seamless interface to facilitate donations. One of our beta-testers is looking at other ways of displaying the data including visual representation on a global map.

Inclusion: This data specifically leverages the research and vetting done by funding organizations to demonstrate credibility and effectiveness of social entrepreneurs. However, someone could take the same template used in the Social Entrepreneur Search and create a database of self-identified social entrepreneurs. They could come up with different ways of demonstrating credibility that could be showcased such as testimonials from beneficiaries, references from board members and influential people linked through social media, as well as credentials such as 501c3 status or independent verification of organization budget, management, and/or impact.

We are very proud of this essential first step in creating a searchable database of social entrepreneurs. Through thrifty and selfless management by Social Actions, initial support of the Peery Foundation, and the forward thinking participation of Civic Ventures, Draper Richards, PopTech, Schwab, and Skoll, we have created this open source aggregation of social entrepreneurs. The widgets created by Exygy and funded by Skoll Foundation make this data even more accessible.

But with so much more we would like to do, it does raise the critical question of who funds projects that help the whole. We are looking for supporters who understand the importance of investing in “actionable knowledge” and want to see this resource grow. We are ready to build from this substantial accomplishment, but need to find financial support to take the Social Entrepreneur Search to the next level and truly demonstrate the potential of this rather incredible collaboration. If you would like to be part of the visionary leadership that takes the Social Entrepreneur Search and open philanthropic data to the next level in 2010, please contact Social Actions by email or review the funding proposal online.

Comment here or join the discussion on the web:

PopTech : The New PopTech Social Innovation Widget
"Happy social innovation searching!"

Skoll Foundation : See the Funder Fan Club widget in action on the Skoll website and their comments on their blog.

Take Part : The Power of Search: New Social Entrepreneur API Encourages Collaboration
"I'm personally invested and interested in innovation in education, and want to find people working in North America. A quick search brings up three... with one more click I can donate ... it's a perfect match."

Echoing Green : Announcement they will be adding their fellows to the Social Entrepreneur Search API -"we’d love nothing more than to see this spread"

Tipping Bucket : Social Entrepreneur Search
"The project gets plenty of “cool” points in and of itself, but here are some reasons I find it truly remarkable...collaboration...catalytic capital...the potential to raise the profile of social enterprise..."

"The search may also inadvertantly reinforce what Charles Light calls the social entrepreneurship “cult of personality”..."Still, the search is undeniably a step in the right direction–and may well provide both a solid foundation and a jumping-off point for genuine collaborative efforts that will help expand the field and magnify the impact of social entrepreneurship in this next decade."

Exygy talks about why they were thrilled to build the Social Entrepreneur Search widgets: “our true passion lies at the intersection of technology and social innovation”

A. Fine Blog by Allison Fine, author of Momentum - Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age says, "A group of funders working together to share their databses of people and organizations in whom they’ve invested is a welcome development. Making the database sharable through the widgets is a great idea. And enabling social entrepreneurs to connect with one another by geography or issue area is an important step in the creation of a more cohesive field."

Share and tweet this post: http://bit.ly/edgyblog
Go to the widget store: http://bit.ly/SEsearch

A Great Service to Humanity

Victor d'Allant — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:18:46 -0500

Wonderful comment about Social Edge from community member John Piermont Montilla in the The Fetishization of Metrics discussion:

Social edge is an outstanding and unselfish online reference and knowledge sharing center I have ever encountered. It is part of my life as a social entrepreneur and changemaker. Everyday, I should not miss reviewing discussions and blogs and reflecting with other's comments and knowledge sharing as well as updating my participation at the GSBI.

Social edge is my online text book and mentor as I spend almost 16-18 hours a day in my small non-profit office here in southern Philippines. In fact, when I got my brain drained and stressed with my work to the extent of having a burn-out, I just read articles at Social Edge.

It's a relief at the same time increasing my understanding of the intricacies of being a social entrepreneur. My peers too are exposed to social edge but they need the understanding why they should learn.

Knowledge is free and connecting local knowledge to contribute to the global body of wisdom and greater principles of life is indeed a great service to humanity. Great job!

The Edgy Team is blushing!

Best Innovation Blogs

Victor d'Allant — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:32:32 -0500

We are usually quite shy at Social Edge about our accomplishments. We rarely mention our traffic numbers (booming!) or our ego-pleasing nominations, like the Webbies Honoree mention for Global X.

But we couldn't help but blush when Social Edge was named one the Best Innovation Blogs (along with IDEO!) by Five for Friday, an informal roundup of some of the best things on the Web. These are the reason they chose us:

Thinking about starting your own NGO or jetting off to personally end
hunger? Read Social Edge first. [...]

Social Edge furthers innovation among social entrepreneurs through its
collection of blogs, discussions, and resources dedicated to the “pioneers
of innovations that benefit humanity.” No matter what your plan to solve
the world’s problems, you’ll probably find a blog from someone who’s been
there before. [...]

Though lots of members, like Kiva founder Matt Flannery, are well-known and successful, the site is intended to help social entrepreneurs share common experiences, positive or disastrous.

Thank you to our community that has been helping Social Edge become the practical, global network for social entrepreneurs.

10 Reasons to Apply for the GSBI

Social Edge — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:00:00 -0500

In "Twitter-concise" language, here are 10 reasons to apply for the Global Social Benefit Incubator. For more information on the GSBI, you can read the full press release or find the copy in Spanish, Portuguese, and French in our press area.

Reason # 10 to apply to #GSBI Scale your impact & change the world faster! http://bit.ly/gsbi10 What is your reason to apply? Let us know.
Reason #9 to apply to #GSBI Special opp for orgs helping communities off the grid or suffering frequent disruptions in their energy supply
Reason #8 to apply to #GSBI Be the next #Kiva. @mattflannery attended along w/other successful #SocEnt frm around world http://bit.ly/5LyokM
Reason #7 to apply to #GSBI Make trusted connections "I now work w/a GSBI participant I met there & have partnered w/another" Matt Flannery
Reason #6 to apply to #GSBI @robertkatz http://bit.ly/7QDEd1 & @fjnoguera @nextbillion think it's a good idea http://bit.ly/5FjJOF
Reason #5 to apply to #GSBI Mentoring by Silicon Valley veterans "help open doors for funding opps..& cont to be avail as a sounding board”
Reason #4 to apply to #GSBI "Typically results in major "ah-ha" moments" "you don't often get chance to step back, look strategically @ org"
Reason #3 to apply to #GSBI It forces you "to step back & assess current market & competitive landscape.." Hardika Shah http://bit/ly/gsbi10
Reason #2 to apply to #GSBI Application has "tremendous value" RT @socentex Global Opps for Active Social Entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/8GUu8N
Reason #1 to apply to #GSBI Incubators are great! Business Week: "triple-bottom-line biz encounter unique challenges" http://bit.ly/5HpYHo

There are many more reasons to apply, but starting right now, you can get free feedback on your Value Proposition. The mentoring will help you explain "Why you" and distill your "mission essence" into a concise statement that will help people understand what you do and how your solution will change the world.

Don't delay. The first deadline is January 15. Then you can get help with defining your target market and business model... and that's just for entering. Can you imagine the value of being one of the 20 selected for a full scholarship to the incubator?!

Imagine, Connect, Act

Social Edge — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:26:30 -0500

Life is complicated, says our Idealist friend Ami Dar. He wonders whether we could start looking at the world from a different point of view to "quickly build a network of people and organizations that will allow us to make the most of what each of us has to offer, online and in person."

He just published a vision for this network, a path and a timeline to get there, and an invitation to be part of this movement from the very start.

Will you join them?

Sally Osberg contributes to Intrepid Philanthropist

Victor d'Allant — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:39:03 -0500

Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg is contributing thought-provoking blog posts to the Intrepid Philanthropist blog, a new initiative at the Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. You can read those here.

The Design of Business

Victor d'Allant — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Debra Dunn just wrote a fascinating review of Roger Martin’s new book, The Design of Business (Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage), in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

As they grow, many organizations tend to become driven by an analytical approach to management that is incompatible with exploration of new and innovative ideas. "This is the crux of the conflict between innovation and scale," writes Debra Dunn.

She adds a personal comment: "As someone who wears the scars of many battles fought for innovation during 22 years at Hewlett-Packard, a company that succumbed to the natural bias toward scale, I’d give most companies poor odds of achieving the balance Martin espouses, but they will be better for trying."

Note that Roger Martin didn't directly address the social entrepreneurship sector in his book, but the ideas are equally applicable.

Jeff Skoll a Leader in Effective Philanthropy

Victor d'Allant — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Barrons' Magazine this week has a cover story on effective philanthropists. The 25 Best Givers doesn't look at just levels of giving by philanthropists, but instead focuses on factors like "innovation, quality of alliances with other groups, the ripple effects of their giving and the extent to which their successful projects can be replicated."

Jeff Skoll is second on the list of 25 (just behind fellow eBay Pierre Omidyar). The article also mentions Jeff's founding of the Skoll Centre at Oxford and his work with Participant Media in making movies that both entertain and inspire people to action on social and environmental issues. Jeff Skoll also launched Social Edge in 2004.

The 2009 Purpose Prize

Social Edge — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:05:00 -0400

This year’s winners of The Purpose Prize, a $100,000 award for social innovators in their encore careers, are ordinary people using a new stage of life to do extraordinary things. They include:

* A former telecom executive who helped wire an Appalachian county and brought laid-off factory workers back to profitable farming;

* A professor who invented a way to transform toxic fly ash into green bricks;

* A psychiatrist who helps saves soldiers’ lives by offering free mental health treatment;

* A former NASA exec who works to treat alcoholism in Native American communities by reviving old customs and traditions; and

* A couple who honor their son, killed on 9/11, by helping to bring mental health services to countries ravaged by terrorism, violence and war.

These people – and five other $50,000 winners – are social entrepreneurs over 60 who are using their experience and passion to take on society’s biggest challenges. Now in its fourth year, the six-year, $17 million program is the nation’s only large-scale investment in social innovators in the second half of life.

The Purpose Prize is a program of the Encore Careers campaign run by Civic Ventures, a national think tank on boomers, work and social purpose.

SXSW panels

Jill Finlayson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:15:00 -0400

Here are 20 topics that caught my eye...

First Batch of Panel Announced for SXSWi - see all that made the cut http://bit.ly/myGgD

Clay Shirky will be there too. Which sessions caught your eye?

ANDE New Grants

Victor d'Allant — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0400

Fifteen international economic development organizations have received grants in support of their work to expand small and growing businesses in developing countries.

The grants, which total US $447,000, were the first awarded as part of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) Capacity Development Fund, a US $1million effort to increase the productivity and effectiveness of organizations that provide investment, training and other resources to small and growing businesses in developing countries.

Funding for the grants was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Lemelson Foundation and Shell Foundation.

BBC World Challenge 2009

Victor d'Allant — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:31:31 -0400

Our friend Bunker Roy at Barefoot College just found out that out of 1,000 entries in the BBC World Challenge 2009, the Barefoot Women Solar Engineers of Africa were selected as one of the 12 finalists.

Help them win by voting today!

Gains & Gaps at SoCap ReCap: Post 3 of 3: Gaps

Jill Finlayson — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:20:00 -0400

As we look forward to the SoCap10, let's hope in the coming year we can make progress on greater collaboration and sharing of data. As we seek to hold social enterprises to higher standards, we will need to work together to hold all companies to higher standards, to increase knowledge and awareness among donors and investors alike, and to achieve much greater transparency of data in order to enhance efficiency of the social entrepreneurship sector. Here are the gaps aka opportunities for the coming year:

For-profit SROI metrics
Much has been said about the heavy metrics focus of SoCap. Kevin Jones, SoCap09 Convener, said the market for social enterprise needs sizing and he asks “How big is the opportunity? A string of anecdotes is not measurable.” But perhaps lost in the metrics discussion, is now that social enterprise are being held to the same standards as for-profits (indeed they are expected to out-perform not only in financial returns but to have the social returns to boot) – Then the for-profits must be held to the same standards and report their social impact as well as their financial returns. It’s only fair. Then you can really compare and contrast to your heart’s content. After all, the "rules between customer & company are going to be rewritten & this time—caveat venditor” according to the article Meaning-Driven Business. (Not to mention Virgance who is also driving this home with their CarrotMob concept and other consumer driven power plays to incent businesses to be better and do good.)

Education gap
If you are going to bring social ventures up to speed so to speak, then you need education, training, and how-to guides and curriculum materials so that social entrepreneurs can understand these new reporting expectations. Likewise, whose job is it to educate brokers and clients on the returns and benefits of social investing? Right now both education efforts are ad hoc and labor intensive. There is an opportunity for an association or group to step up and create the teaching materials, open source them, and assist with rapid dissemination. Check out Sean Stannard-Stockton on transferring knowledge to major donors. Then read Money and Meaning where an optimistic Nathaniel Whittemore declares "people have capacity to shift their values and recognize gaps between values and action"

Uber-solutions and databases
Charles “hipbone” Cameron asks who will step up to make whole social entrepreneurship sector more efficient rather than solving only part of the problem for only their own organization? Which brings me back to the Social Entrepreneur API and the Make the Maps, Mind the Gaps, Build the Apps session. The model that we drafted includes 5 components: Raw materials (participating organizations that will solve their own problems through the collaborative app), tools (the process for managing the development of the solution), glue (funding – and this is both small amounts of seed funds and/or sweat equity), workers (the expertise to build the database/apps), and riders (the adoption and use of the data by the community). This concept works well, but keep in mind a caveat by Peter Deitz, "participating organizations are not like bricks – designed to fit together” so it takes an effort to bring people together even for their mutual benefit.

Let me leave you with the three quotes I used to wrap up our session:
Here's "Why It's Smart To Be Optimistic" as a recent BusinessWeek article explained, you need to "Prepare yourself for all possible outcomes, including highly positive ones." In other words, don't be afraid to start or overthink what could go wrong - instead, think about what could go right.

In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, they introduced the concept Catalytic Philanthropy and the 4 key tennants are: "Take responsibility for results; Create "conditions for collaboration and innovation"; " Use all available tools"; "Create Actionable Knowledge" Sharing data and building collaborative App solutions, like the Social Entrepreneur API, create knowledge that will benefit many players in the field of social entrepreneurship, and they provide value, often in ways that you did not even anticipate.

And finally Skoll Social Entrepreneur Martin Von Hildebrand in speaking with Global X reminds us “Don’t go in with the answers. Answers need to be built.” Instead, get your collaborators together and ask right questions.

We look forward to continuing the discussions that were begun at SoCap and hope that many of you will step up and collaborate on Maps and Apps to bridge the Gaps that are slowing down social entrepreneurs.

Gains & Gaps at SoCap ReCap: Post 2 of 3: Gains

Jill Finlayson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

At SoCap09 we did see that gains had been made since last year. That's not to say we are done and in the home stretch, but rather that new doors are opening. Here are some of the gains I saw this year:

Government
As Vanessa Kirsch of New Profit said, “Government was not part of our equation.” In past years, social entrepreneurs deliberately worked around government. Now government is seen as a potential funding source and even partner. Kirsch went on to say that “We (social entrepreneurs) have to change our own behavior. We have to ask ourselves - Do we have a policy team?”

Kirsch is not the only person adjusting to the new government role. Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation Sonal Shah talked about their new innovation strategy and pointed out that their initiatives "might seem like common sense, but for the government it's a new way of doing business."

And Andrew Wolk of Root Cause reflected on the evolution of the responsibilities for government – what was a role of program developer, became outsourcer, and is now becoming an enabler. Still to be answered, though, is how government can encourage innovation, reward success, create a conducive environment for social ventures, and foster metrics.

Need for New Tools
This may be seen as a gap, but in reality, it is a gain – people have gained the realization that it is not enough to work with, bend, and renovate existing rules and tools. There is a real need to develop new tools and rules. With this is mind one can understand why some at SoCap could say with a straight face “I would rather give you a grant – it is too risky to give you a loan.” With the current set of tools, this dichotomy makes perfect sense – if you expect your loan to be repaid with interest in a short term, then the risk is very high that you won’t be repaid. But if, for example, you can guarantee a low or no interest loan (to make it less risky for the lenders and back it up with a potential grant) then you can do more with less money and foster sustainability.

This requires redefining risk and offering more ways to provide patient capital. Kim Smith of New Schools Venture Fund pointed out “No-one has the teachers guide" and it’s not going to be easy but we need to innovate completely new tools rather than just continuing to find new ways to adapt the existing ones.

And Dan Crisafulli of Skoll Foundation emphasized this in his blog post where he said, “Change the rules of the game. … some social entrepreneurs are creatively engaging with business and government to …one day change the equilibrium of how business is done and, in effect, put themselves out of business.”

Measurement and Iteration:
Metrics "were indeed sexy topics throughout the first days of #SoCap09. Believe it," says Jake Samuelson who added they were "sexy, but contentious." There is still a way to go in building consensus but advances have been made and there are lots of fascinating tools emerging including Pulse, IRIS and GIIRs to name a few.

Aaron Sklar of IDEO pointed out that “You get what you measure, so measure what you care about.” IDEO also came out with the human-centered design toolkit that promotes prototyping as “a methodology for making solutions tangible in a rapid and low-investment way. It’s a proven technique for quickly learning how to design an offering right and for accelerating the process of rolling out solutions to the world.”

And in a joint project of IDEO and Acumen called the Ripple Effect, Sangeeta Chowdhry explained two additional keys to success: 1. A short deadline (2 months) prompted participants to start and complete projects in what would have taken over a year and 2. Rapid iteration led to both faster & better solutions. Learn more about seeding Innovation and the Ripple Effect.

Check out my next post for GAPS remaining despite measurable gains.

Gains & Gaps at SoCap ReCap: Post 1 of 3: Social Entrepreneur API

Jill Finlayson — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Gaps are on my mind having just led the session “Make the Maps, Mind the Gaps, Build the Apps” at SoCap09. Our session, which included insights from Curtis LeFrandt – a BYU graduate student who is writing his thesis on mapping the field of social entrepreneurship, and Peter Deitz of Social Actions and Social Entepreneur API fame, was a buzz-worthy favorite that also sparked and contributed to a number of follow-on conversations on the final day of the Social Capital conference.

How do social entrepreneurs journey from idea to break-through ventures? What routes work? What routes should be avoided? What is slowing social entrepreneurs down? We discussed the barriers to growth, and then talked about the collaborative apps that could be built to reduce friction. As an example of apps to bridge gaps, we introduced the Social Entrepreneur API http://socialentrepreneurapi.org , the first open source database of vetted entrepreneurs. This tool helps social entrepreneurs find each other, helps funders and the media find social entrepreneurs, and helps more people discover the innovative solutions of successful social entrepreneurs. The press release launching the public beta was released at SoCap.

Check it out http://search.socialentrepreneurapi.org – play around with it – search for “water and Africa” or “youth in Cambodia” and you will quickly see the social entrepreneurs working in those areas and the innovative model they are using. This is early days but you can already see how hugely valuable and time saving it is to have one search engine for vetted social entrepreneurs from several different funders. We’re working on widgets so you will be able to “drop” lists of relevant social entrepreneurs onto your site. Please let us know how you might use the social entrepreneur data so we can build the tools to make it possible.

And then check out our map of the field, possible filters, and model for building collective apps like the Social Entrepreneur API.

Gaps were seen at more than just our session, though. Check out my next two posts on on take-aways from SoCap – featuring three gains made and three gaps remaining.