Seasoned social entrepreneurs – you know who you are – or you may be a social entrepreneur and not even know it! Please introduce yourself and tell why this event topic “lights your fire.”

· Do you see yourself as an agent of social change? · How do you relate to the community of social entrepreneurs? · What do you hope to learn in this meeting place?

sally osberg - Sep 22, 2003 10:09 am (#1 Total: 270)
CEO of Skoll Foundation


On behalf of Jeff, the Skoll Foundation and Social Edge, I want to extend a warm thank you for joining us for our first on-line event focused on social entrepreneurship! And a special thank you to Charles, J.B., and David for agreeing to moderate the event, and to all the remarkable special guest social entrepreneurs taking part as well.

At the Skoll Foundation, we believe social entrepreneurs are society's change agents, the pioneers of innovations that benefit humanity.

Like business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs see and act upon what others miss: opportunities to improve systems, to create solutions, to invent new approaches. Like business entrepreneurs, they are also intensely focused and hard-driving, even relentless in their pursuit of their visions.

Unlike business entrepreneurs, however, they operate within a social rather than a purely economic context, which means they have limited access to capital and traditional market support systems.

As a result, social entrepreneurs must be exceptionally skilled at mustering and mobilizing resources--human, financial, and political.

Ultimately, social entrepreneurs produce significant returns. The results of their efforts transform existing realities, open up new pathways for the marginalized and disadvantaged, and unlock society’s potential to effect positive change.

During these two weeks, the Skoll team and I look forward to learning with you—to sharing what we know, to discovering better and more effective ways of supporting this still emerging field, and to celebrating the courage and creativity of social entrepreneurs working in every corner of our world.

Event Guest: Pamela Hartigan - Sep 22, 2003 9:26 am (#2 Total: 270)


Dear Social Edge Colleagues

Kudos to the Skoll Foundation for spearheading this on-line discussion Forum – specifically designed for those of us who are passionate about the promise social entrepreneurship holds for finding innovative solutions to complex social problems.

I run the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a Geneva-based group founded by Klaus and Hilde Schwab to promote social entrepreneurship globally. We have been privileged over the last three years to select and bring together men and women who represent the most outstanding examples of social entrepreneurship worldwide. We are eager to share with all of you the lessons learned from our organizational development process, a process built together with our community of social entrepreneurs who have contributed directly to the ongoing evolution of our enterprise.

I will throw out several observations about social entrepreneurship, based on our experience. I look forward to gaining insights from the accumulated knowledge you all bring to the platform:

1. One cannot teach a person to be a social entrepreneur. However, families, communities and societies can facilitate- or stifle - the conditions that stimulate social entrepreneurship. 2. Social entrepreneurship is not the sole domain of non-profit organizations. Social entrepreneurs exist in the for-profit arena as well. The litmus test is whether their primary motivation in creating and running the entity is social value creation (if you doubt social entrepreneurs can be found in for-profit organizations, look no further than the Grameen Bank). 3. The definition of a social entrepreneur is an academic question. To paraphrase a famous quip from the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, “I don’t know how to define it, but I know it when I see it 4. The overall biggest challenge accomplished social entrepreneurs face is the issue of succession.

We can expand on all four – but look forward to hearing from any of you who have different or complementary points of view.

Pamela Hartigan

Event Guest: Christina Kirabo - Sep 22, 2003 9:31 am (#3 Total: 270)


I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the spontaneous combustion that I believe will be inevitable on this forum over the next 2 weeks. Does anyone else have butterflies in their stomach about how high we can reach when we really start channeling the energy in this industry?!

For the past 2 years, with support from Ashoka, I've been huddled away in my Think-tank Garage in Uganda, researching new ways to make existing Internet technology more understandable, desirable and sustainable in the African market.

It so happens that right now we're launching some highly innovative concepts, including a new self-employment opportunity in the social change sector, both in Uganda and worldwide. A viral marketing campaign to launch the "LiA4 Piece Train" is set to begin next weekend. Right now, I don't mind telling you all, I'm feeling more anxious and uncapable of greatness than I probably ever have!

But being here at this event with Dr. Yunus and all the other amazing guests and participants as we try to get such a huge undertaking off the ground, makes me feel God's special blessing on this work. Perhaps I speak for others when I say that what I feel I need most, as a Social Entrepreneur, is more opportunities like this for sharing, input and collaboration with others who are as impassioned about building a better future as I am.

Feel free to read more about my work and my life as a Social Entrepreneur in the "webbed" bio I've put online: http://www2.socialedge.org/?224@159.VJjna5Voa2C.91120@bf1bb1c@!posts=3

Welcome aboard, everyone! Thanks for being here!

Christina Kirabo Jordan
Conductor & Chief Engineer
The LiA4 Piece Train
http://www.LiA4.com
Kampala, Uganda

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 22, 2003 10:18 am (#4 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates

And already you're here!

It's my honor and pleasure to welcome you to this Social Edge online event, "What Does It Take to Be a Social Entreprenueur?" -- and to invite you to personalize that question, to make it your own.

How Do You Fit in the World of Social Entrepreneurs? is the question we ask each one of you as you join us in this forum -- and I'd just like to add that the way I see it, you yourself, your presence here, and the vitality you bring to this event are the real answers to that question. I hope you'll drop by frequently over the next days. I'm confident you'll find much to reward you here, and the more we all bring of ourselves, our knowledge -- and even those offhand remarks which turn out to be exactly the right words for someone else to overhear – the richer the experience will be for each of us.

I'm British, and just a tad formal, so I'd like to bid you a warm welcome.

And I would particularly like to thank Muhammad Yunus for welcoming us all here, and for the great vision and gifts that he brings to our world.

gdees - Sep 22, 2003 10:43 am (#5 Total: 270)
Duke University


Hi everyone! It is an enormous honor to join a conversation opened by Muhammad Yunus, with such a distinguished panel of special guests. I see a number of old friends on the guest list and several others I hope will become new friends. It should be fascinating to see how the discussion unfolds over the next two weeks. My hat is off to the SocialEdge team and the Skoll Foundation for providing this opportunity.

We have been asked to describe our role in the world of social entrepreneurship. My primary role has been to establish a beachhead for this subject in leading U. S. business schools. I have taught entrepreneurship for nearly eighteen years, always with a special interest in the social side. That interest was born when I had the opportunity to teach a course on “New Ventures” in the Yale School of Management’s then unique Masters program in Public and Private Management. Yale encouraged attention to social issues. In 1989, I had the opportunity to move to the “West Point of Capitalism,” Harvard Business School, and I carried this peculiar interest with me. The initial reaction to social entrepreneurship at HBS was lukewarm at best. I worked a few social cases into my “Entrepreneurial Management” course, but was initially discouraged from doing any more than that. A few years later fate opened the door, and I had a chance to work with an incredible team (led by Jim Austin, Kash Rangan, and Bob Burakoff) to launch HBS’s Initiative on Social Enterprise. I was given the green light to develop and teach HBS’s first course in this area, “Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector.” This was the first major initiative in a leading business school (or any graduate school, as far as I am aware) to be organized around the topic of “social enterprise,” rather than the more familiar category of “nonprofit management.” We did not want to frame our work around a legal form of organization. Bill Drayton and others had been talking about social entrepreneurship for years, but the academy was slow to embrace these new concepts. The HBS Initiative was a significant signal to other schools.

In 1996, with the course solidly established and the Initiative gaining momentum, I took a leave from Harvard to work on economic development in Appalachia for a couple of years. My mother’s family had come out of eastern Kentucky, and a social entrepreneur I met from the region persuaded me to come work with him. This proved to be a humbling and very instructive attempt to appreciate the challenges of practice in the social sector.

At the end of that leave, I decided not to return to HBS, but to head west to join with David Brady and Dan Kessler in developing Stanford’s first “Social Entrepreneurship” course and creating the Stanford Center for Social Innovation. I was convinced that if we wanted this field to grow it was important for more business schools to develop courses and programs. Stanford was an ideal complement to Harvard. This gave social entrepreneurship a highly visible presence on both U.S. coasts. In 2001, Beth Anderson and I were offered the opportunity of bringing this new field to yet another leading business school. Just last year, we established a new Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. This move brought me closer to my wife and home in Louisville (KY), and it provided another opportunity to grow the academic side of this exciting emerging field.

As many of you know, the Harvard Initiative and Stanford Center continue to flourish, and the courses I developed at those schools are still alive and well. In fact, both efforts really took off after I left! I like to think that they have flourished despite my departure, not because of it, but a pattern seems to be emerging. The important thing is that more schools are devoting resources to research and develop courses about social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, and social innovation. I have been thrilled to see this and hope that my work at the three schools has helped move that process along. I also hope that my cases, writings, and research have helped practitioners. Building an academic field makes no sense if it does not advance practice.

In this event and though the SocialEdge meeting place, I hope first and foremost to stay connected with social entrepreneurs who are working in the trenches, the practitioners. Though I maintain contact through my case writing, research, speaking, and consulting, it is easy for an academic like me to get wrapped up in clever ideas and theory while losing sight of the needs of practitioners. We absolutely need to develop the theory if this field is to survive in universities, but we also have to make sure the theory is well grounded in practice. I am here for the grounding you all can provide.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 22, 2003 11:07 am (#6 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Thank you so much for your infectious enthusiasm! I chanced on your phrase about the spontaneous combusion which you see as inevitable hereabouts as I opened this page, and it served as my own personal welcome to this conference -- a very warm welcome indeed!

Thank you so much for that, and for reminding me of another person I should to invite to this event. I look foward to your posts over the coming days.

Cheryl Dorsey - Sep 22, 2003 11:10 am (#7 Total: 270)
Echoing Green


Cheryl Dorsey here. I am the President of Echoing Green (EG), a social venture fund that provides seed capital and technical assistance to emerging social entrepreneurs and the innovative organizations they launch (consider us the angel investors of the social sector). We've been around for over 15 years having funded close to 400 social entrepreneurs working in 30 countries around the world. I'm thrilled that Echoing Green has been invited to participate in this important event.

My entree to the world of social entrepreneurship came in 1992 when I was selected, along with about 25 others, as an Echoing Green fellow to start a public health program in inner-city Boston. At that time, we did not self-identify as social entrepreneurs. We were "public service fellows"; "social activists"; "community service fellows"; and "change agents." It's been interesting to watch this field grow and mature with all the semantic changes that come with such an organic evolution.

However, one constant has been the critical nature of community to all our endeavors---our ever-growing community of EG fellows and alumni; the community of social change agents that work across sector and geographic boundaries, all for the common good; and the institutions like EG that support and promote the work of these civic pioneers. That's why events such as this are so needed. They contribute to the vital work of community building and remind social entrepreneurs engaged in arduous and often lonely work that they are not alone.

I look forward to sharing thoughts, encouragements and even concerns with everyone over the next few weeks. Again, I am honored to be part of such an august group and can't wait to hear from everyone!

Keely Stevenson - Sep 22, 2003 11:13 am (#8 Total: 270)
Royal Bafokeng Economic Board


Thanks for the warm welcome Hipbone, Greg, Cheryl, Sally, Pamela & Christina. What a great honor to be here learning and sharing with each of you. My name is Keely Stevenson, and I am Social Edge Community Manager. My passion for social change is rooted in a love for international development and a belief that everyone has the potential to contribute powerful things to this world. I personally find great inspiration in connecting with each of you here.

This event is open to everyone, so please feel free to post a message introducing yourself and invite friends. Lots of us are new to the term "social entrepreneurship," so don't worry if you have never heard it before. We are here to explore this field together!

Adelante!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 22, 2003 11:19 am (#9 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


I'm curious about your reference to succession as the major challenge facing accomplished social entrepreneurs, and wonder whether that's to do with the idea that vision can be caught but not taught (or something along those lines)?

I once watched someone turn the greatest failure of his life into an impressive program for success. He was an exceptional teacher, and those he taught certainly gained a technique that helped them a great deal -- but they could never quite reach his level, because for them his technique was useful, whereas for him it was his life's necessity, pure and simple. He could live his vision, but all that he could teach them was his technique.

london calling - Sep 22, 2003 11:50 am (#10 Total: 270)


What a fabulous panel we have here for this discussion. As web developer for social edge, my hats off to all the members that helped shape this community into what it is today, and what it will become. Charles, I had no idea you were British, so my greetings to you as a fellow countryman sir.. ;)

Social Entrepreneurs are renowned (in my eyes) for really taking things to the next level and developing their areas of change at a remarkable rate. I would love to see new people inspired by this event and perhaps see those that are creating change, actually recognize themselves as entrepreneurs.

sghosh - Sep 22, 2003 12:11 pm (#11 Total: 270)

I work with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a global non-profit that has worked on developing and defining the profession of social entrepreneurship for 23 years. In order to be true partners with the social entrepreneurs whom we select into our global fellowship, we have had to design a truly entrepreneurial institution, because (as Pamela implies), it takes one to know one, and entrepreneurs don't really choose to engage with slow-moving bureaucracies.

What I would love to learn from this very impressive group of opinion leaders is -- what would be some key characteristics of institutions that social entrepreneurs create or partner with?

C Kirabo - Sep 22, 2003 12:19 pm (#12 Total: 270)
Webbed Strategist, Life in Africa Foundation


Pamela,

Indeed, the issue of succession is a tough one. As Charles noted, it may just be that a vision can be caught but not taught. It may also be that we Social Entrepreneurs are often afraid to let go and let others do what we've discovered can be done.

At the end of the day, though, if sustainability and impact are our goal, then our work cannot be dependent on us. Perhaps it's that which creates the largest burden on any social entrepreneur. We must be able to realistically see the vision accomplished in the absence of ourselves, and so must others around us. It's the latter that seems to be the most trying for me.

jimfruchterman - Sep 22, 2003 12:35 pm (#13 Total: 270)
Benetech


It's a pleasure to join this conversation. I was doing this for almost ten years before I found out I was a social entrepreneur: until then, I thought I was just the weirdest entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley! And that's our challenge as a community, one that Social Edge is trying to address: making social entrepreneurship less unusual. Social entrepreneurs need a community to be part of!

In my case, three people had told me to talk to Jed Emerson. I drove up to San Francisco in 1999 to meet with him. I found out that there were lots of people like me, especially in social service agencies. Jed suggested that I attend the Gathering, an annual meeting of social entrepreneurs. After attending the Second Gathering in Miami in 2000, I joined the board of what is now the Social Enterprise Alliance, http://www.se-alliance.org. It's a great group, and I recommend people interested in the field come to the Fifth Gathering in San Francisco in March 2004.
As time as gone on, more and more technologists have joined the ranks of social entrepreneurs (or were already doing it and found others doing the same). I think that technology is particularly well suited to social entrepreneurship, both from temperment and from ease of replication.
I'm very much looking forward to learning more about the folks joining this event!

Ladyelizabeth (Maureen) - Sep 22, 2003 12:52 pm (#14 Total: 270)


Greetings!

It's incredible to be here with so many leaders in this field! I represent the other side (or at least an other side) of the spectrum in many ways. I'm an early career professional with a background in Arts Administration and Community Arts Organizing. I look forward to learning more about the work of Social Entrepreneurs in other fields and discovering new ways for the arts to serve community.

On the subject of succession, Community Arts Organizations face a similar problem. Many of them die when their founders leave. This is an especially big problem now as many of these organizations were started in the 60s and 70s and have been run primarily on the will of their founders to make their vision a reality no matter how hard they have to work or how little money they make. In some ways, this is an incredibly noble undertaking, but it also means that very little time was spent building an organization that could be run by someone who wanted to have other interests, or wanted to make enough money to raise a family. It also means the structures that were built were bound to a particular person, not to a position. When the person leaves, there is no one willing, or perhaps even able to take their place, and so the organization dies.

Are there any thoughts out there on how organizations can be built by passionate people, retain their visionary drive, but also be sustainable beyond the tenure of a visionary founder?

I look forward to our conversations,

Maureen Carruthers

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 22, 2003 1:31 pm (#15 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


I'm going to have to welcome you in two posts, as it happens, because I want to welcome both you yourself and the almost magical name of the organization your work for – and I need to keep my posts brief!

I'm very impressed that Echoing Green takes its stand "as close to the source" as it does, working to support the good where it is not yet obvious and recognized. I loved your statement that you were one of the few funders willing to provide seed and start-up capital for new projects and organizations, and your frank admission that taking risks ensures certain failure but also promises spectacular and surprising successes!! Your approach reminds me of that of Donella Meadows, whose Places to Intervene in a System gives a classic description of different levels of risk and the impact they can have – culminating in her remark:

The highest leverage of all is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms .. It is in the space of mastery over paradigms that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, get locked up or burned at the stake or crucified or shot, and have impacts that last for millennia.

Your work at Echoing Green seems to breathe in that spacious spirit (no need to get burned at the stake, though) and I thank you for it. I'll post a copy of Places to Intervene in the Social Edge library.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 22, 2003 1:36 pm (#16 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Cheryl again:

I hope you'll forgive me if I wax lyrical for a moment:

Echoing Green? I thought it was a wonderful-sounding name, but then I found out where it came from… and I have to admit, my innermost heart goes out to anyone whose organization takes its name from a poem by William Blake! I've loved his work, his engravings even more than his poems perhaps, since I was young (a vague memory, that!), and loved too his sublime cheekiness in asserting that he had painted masterpieces in eternity before he was born, which the archangels themselves studied. And I've loved him too for that wonderful remark of his, Opposition is true friendship -- the whole of democracy is in those four words, and conflict and reconciliation too I believe, if we ponder them.

Another British poet, Shelley, once wrote that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Was this his 19th definition of "visionaries" as "public service fellows," "social activists" and "change agents" perhaps?

Wellington - Sep 22, 2003 2:26 pm (#17 Total: 270)
DOUTORES DA ALEGRIA (DOCTORS OF JOY)


Hi, all! Olá, queridos!

Wellington Nogueira here! I am founder of Doutores da Alegria (Doctors of Joy ), an organization devoted to bringing joy to hospitalized children, their parents and healthcare workers through the art of clowning. It is a great honor to join this conversation! Muhammad Yunus, thank you for the inspiration! SocialEdge team and the Skoll Foundation, standing ovation to you already, for providing us with this opportunity! I always get the feeling this is all so new that we are constantly building references, so, to stop and exchange for a while is a great way to look at what we have built, and get inspired for the next challenges. I look forward to a very productive and, by all means, fun discussion with all of you! We have been around for 12 years here in Brazil, but I learned my first steps at The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit, in New York, where I lived for eight years. Yes, we all have a past and I went to NYC to study acting and hopefully become a Broadway superstar, but it all went out the window the day I walked into a hospital as a clown doctor and learned about the social role of the artist. I understood innovation with every cell in my body: artist meets audience of one at unexpected place and together build a scene on the spot, having their lives forever touched by the power of that encounter. More thrilling than a standing ovation at a packed Broadway house. From then on, I felt the need to uncover more knowledge about this "thing" and put it to use. That led me back to Brazil in 1991. In the 12 years we have been around, a lot of room has been made for changes in the hospital environment and now we are discussing such changes in more delicate areas, such as the curriculum of health care professionals and how to rescue the art of treating to it. Right now I am working to help turn this initiative of hospital clowning into a profession of the future, so, I always go back to the "establishing " of this new profession of social entrepreneur as an example! I thought I was an actor who liked to do different things, but when I learned about social entrepreneurship, I understood what I am and why we do what we do.

tomwhite - Sep 22, 2003 2:27 pm (#18 Total: 270)
Social Enterprise Reporter


Thanks to the Skoll Foundation and the Forum moderators for hosting this exciting discussion. I'm an independent consultant to nonprofit publishers and have been involved in social entrepreneurship since the mid 1980's when I managed an earned income program for the San Francisco AIDS Program.

Thanks too for posting Greg Dee's great article on Social Innovation. My perspective is that social entrepreneurs must have both the drive to find innovative solutions to social problems, and the business skills that increase the sustainability of their organization. With only one or the other, the venture won't succeed.

In reply to Maureen's query about sustaining the vision of entrepreneurial founders, I would direct her to a group that supports community choral organizations--ChorusAmerica.org. I'm on the Board of an organization that faces a similar problem and at a CA workshop they recommended that we plan the governance transition while the founders are living and keep them involved in an emeritus role.

Best success to all.

Tom White

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 22, 2003 2:56 pm (#19 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Welcome. In an earlier post on Social Edge, you wrote

trust is earned more readily by people who don't try to earn it, but simply live their values

That's a remarkable statement, it seems to me, because it goes beyond "best practices" and whatever can be contained in a course-book to touch authenticity itself – a quality that can be known but not easily described. You cited Gandhi as an exemplar of this approach, and I've often wondered how something so idiosyncratic can be taught: by contact, I think, and the passing of a spark. Isn't that what happened to Vinoba Bhave?

Elsewhere I've described how my own mentor, the Anglican monk Trevor Huddleston, raised his hat to a lady in a shantytown outside Johannesberg one day -- an act which puzzled the lady's son, since this was at the height of Apartheid, Trevor was a white man and the body's mother was black… Anyway, a spark was passed, a contact made. I believe that simple gesture "gave us" the extraordinary personality called Desmond Tutu -- into which that young man grew.

simon parisca - Sep 22, 2003 3:22 pm (#20 Total: 270)
Eureka A.C.


Hello everyone...

My name is Simon Parisca, I am a Mechanical Engineer turned social entrepreneur. I have been, for the last ten years, Director of a venezuelan non-profit called Eureka dedicated to promote innovation and the search for new solutions, to old a new problems, in all areas of human activity. I have been an Ashoka Fellow since 1997.

I expect this to be a warm and elightening exchange on subjects of the greatest importance in present times. I know that it will be most useful for me and hope for all of you too.

¡¡¡ Let’s get started !!!

Regards

Simon Parisca

Anne McCarten-Gibbs - Sep 22, 2003 3:28 pm (#21 Total: 270)


Good afternoon, everyone! Thanks to the Skoll Foundation for creating this space, and to Mohammed Yunus for his thought-provoking opening comments and for the inspiration he has been to me and so many others.

I am the cofounder of an organization dedicated to changing the world by educating American youth about the developing world. Not just the facts on critical issues (like HIV/AIDS), but about why what happens in the developing world matters, and about how they themselves can, in respectful partnership, make a contribution through philanthropy and service. It’s really civic engagement on a global scale. We want to create materials and methods that can reach large numbers of kids through partnerships with national organizations that serve youth. My ultimate goal is to help ensure that, in the not-so-distant future, the US electorate will understand and care about the developing world, and have a say in our foreign policy, instead of tuning it out.

Am I a social entrepreneur? I’m not sure. I certainly can relate to Sally Osberg’s comment in an early post about the difficulty, and importance, of “mustering and mobilizing resources--human, financial, and political.” I think I’m recognizing some of the constraints and limitations of the nonprofit form. But I don’t have a background in business, and, honestly, I sometimes don’t understand the terminology used in conversations about social entrepreneurship. But I know I need to build my understanding and skills in this area, because it is clear to me that to make a real difference, we must partner with others to achieve a large scale. Thanks for giving me the chance to learn from others in this forum!

mtuan - Sep 22, 2003 7:34 pm (#22 Total: 270)
REDF


Hello old friends and greetings to new ones!

I am grateful for this opportunity to connect with you all since I just moved to Philadelphia from San Francisco. Working from a home office can be somewhat isolating after having the rich interaction of the REDF staff and portfolio for the past seven years. Thanks Skoll (Hi Sally!) for creating this venue for discussion.

I cofounded The Roberts Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) along with Jed Emerson and our donor George Roberts back in 1997. We've had age-old debates with our esteemed colleagues such as Greg Dees about what the "true" definition of social entrepreneurship is...Our work at REDF has been so long at the edge (although moving more into the mainstream) in funding nonprofits that run social purpose enterprises that employ low-income and homeless individuals. I confess I've never thought of myself as a social entrepreneur but felt privileged to support the nonprofits in our portfolio that really were bringing about social change through innovative applications of business to the lives of the disenfranchised.

I look forward to tracking this conversation, connecting with others, and to learning more about social enterprise activities and opportunities on the East coast.

KAllen - Sep 22, 2003 8:27 pm (#23 Total: 270)


Hello to the group!

I am a new comer to this group. I am looking froward to getting to know each of you and learning from the discussion.

Mtuan, I also recently moved from the Bay Area and am checking in on the discussion from my home office. I am glad to have the opportunity to make new contacts and keep up on the conversation, even though I know live out in the country.

Steve Rudolph - Sep 22, 2003 10:49 pm (#24 Total: 270)
Director, Jiva


...To boldy go where no nonprofit has gone before...

It gives me great pleasure to introduce myself as a social entrepreneur, mostly because I can now describe to people who I am in 2 words rather than have to explain who I am through a long-winded description of the activities I am involved in.

To find out more about me, click on my head over on the left (watch the eye). To learn more about my organization, Jiva Institute, pls visit http://jiva.org.

In a sentence, Jiva is a social enterprise that I co-founded in India in 1992, which produces innovations that improve pratices of education, health, and enterprise.

To answer Hipbone's questions:
Yes, I see myself as an agent of social change. In the decade I have spent in India, I have helped establish new standards in educational learning materials through our ICOT program-- http://jiva.org/icot, and am working to make the content freely available to over 50 million underprivileged learners. In Health, I have inspired the world's first Ayurvedic telemedicine programs-- http://ayurvedic.org and for Indian villages, the very cool Teledoc initiative--which I like to call the Domino's Pizza of rural healthcare: http://jiva.org/teledoc).

I think Jiva is an an uncommon type of nonprofit in that it sustains itself mainly through earned income activities. We have never done fundraising (and receive less than 5% of our income from donations).

From this event, I hope to

1. let more and more people know about our organization, Jiva Institute: http://jiva.org.

2. find funders and individuals who are interested in working with/backing an extremely progressive social enterprise--helping us get social investment, or get access to capital markets (not for covering operating expenses, but rather, to enable us to increase our scale and impact)

3. locate foundations and nonprofits who are interested in exploring nonprofit collaboration that can generate a high degree of social value.

Feel free to drop me a line!

Best,

Steve

Roshaneh - Sep 23, 2003 1:39 am (#25 Total: 270)
Kashf Foundation


My name is Roshaneh Zafar and I manage a microfinance programme in Pakistan which currently caters to 50,000 female clients. I certainly see myself as a catalyser for social change, since I founded an organisation which particularly caters to the financial needs of female entrepreneurs from low income communities - a concept which was unheard of in my society before we began our work. I am very thrilled to be part of the wider community of social entrepreneurs and hope to learn and gain from the experience of others through this interaction.

connellh - Sep 23, 2003 1:42 am (#26 Total: 270)
Univ of CA, Berkeley - MBA


Greetings all! Warmest thanks to Social Edge and everyone posting and/or reading along - this is a beautiful use of the Network and technology. The ability to create communities, networks, and harness energy without geographic boundaries is one of the amazing potentials that are just barely being tapped.

I will put some deeper thoughts into this conversation over the coming days but just wanted to introduce myself for starters.

I have been focused on changing the world in positive ways for years but have meandered, trying to find my place. From the music business to socially responsible investing and currently into UC Berkeley's MBA program at the Haas School of Business. Although still in a process of exploration of my place(s), I believe the descriptor of social entrepreneur will be apt once I emerge on the other side of school in 2 years. I'm leaning in directions of technological and business solutions to improve the lives of the world's poor (base of the pyramid, etc.) as well as social venture capital (for profit, not venture philanthropy.) I plan on working closely with some of the technological and engineering research going on at the university that could be the solutions of tomorrow for many issues we face.

I know some of you already but look fowrard to starting and continuing the conversations.

Warmest Regards,

Howard Connell

Ganesh Neelam - Sep 23, 2003 2:30 am (#27 Total: 270)
SRTT


Hello, I am Ganesh neelam working with the rural communities for their livelihood upliftments through various projects. I am happy working with the communities of India.

this is a great forum to express my feelings of interactions with different behaviuoral nature of communities residing in 6 states of India. I have been very closely associated with a few

erkink - Sep 23, 2003 6:36 am (#28 Total: 270)

My name is Erkinbek Kasybekov and I am from Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia, Counterpart office. We just started to implement new USAID funded project where social entrepreneurship plays an important role. First of all as the tool to diversify the source of income for NGOs, which are now heavily critisized that too much depended on grant support from outside of the country. I think that social enterprises my play certain important role in order to change such image and be as one of the pillars of Kyrgyz NGOs sustainability. Our NGO law allows NGOs to undertake entrepreneurial activities. The matter is how do it successfully as a matter of business, from other hand how to avoid the threat that successful in business NGOs will become a real business and forget about the mission statement. I am interested to know how these challenges were overcome in other developing countries.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 23, 2003 7:54 am (#29 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


I'd like to welcome more people than I can quite keep up with without drowning this forum in posts, and I'd like to do it because I want each of you– Wellington, how terrific to have a clown here, Ladyelizabeth you're not alone in thinking the arts are important -- to feel engaged in the conversation here. Engaged enough, specifically, for you to post back, somewhere in this forum, at least once.

And then twice. By now, Tom, you're on your third post, London Calling – here's a wave back from the Brit in LA – you've laid out some background and you're zeroing in on some specifics. And as you and one or two others open up into a rich and satisfying exchange, and we're now at post four, some other poster -- am I right, Steve? – gets a glimpse of you that's unexpected and unintended, and triggers a whole new way of understanding a problem they've been grappling with for weeks…

And I want this to happen because if your need, Anne, meets your technological resources, Jim, it may be on the third or fifth post – and by then you're both given yourselves into this community in a way that rewards you with enhanced interest in, and warmth towards, the other members whose posts you read – even, perhaps, the beginnings of trust, that most vital of commodities for real accomplishment in our "no man is an island" world.

So it's your fourth or fifth post that I'm after, here, as I greet you, not because five is the magic number, but because the possibility exists here – generously furnished by you, Sally, and you Keely, and others – to create what I call a "neighborhood of the like-minded" in which one person's remarkable gifts get multiplied by the remarkable gifts of another.

Again and again. And that – Eureka, Simon, its great to see you here! – that's the general idea.

netclift - Sep 23, 2003 7:57 am (#30 Total: 270)
Democracies Online/Publicus.Net


Good day. This is Steven Clift. I am a founder and chair of E-Democracy.Org. I care deeply about citizen participation and the capacity of society to meet the public challenges before it.

Over ten years ago I combined my political experience with the Internet. I decided that this medium would be incredibly powerful. In 1994, E-Democracy created the world's first election-oriented web site in Minnesota. Over time we have discovered our role as a neutral host of online dialogue on local public issues that matter. More: http://www.e-democracy.org

To support my non-profit activities I currently speak and consult about e-democracy around the world (23 countries so far). I share information via my Democracies Online Newswire with 2500 people in over 75 countries <http://e-democracy.org/do> and via my many articles on my own web site <http://www.publicus.net>.

Greetings to all.

klong - Sep 23, 2003 8:07 am (#31 Total: 270)
Global Deaf Connection


Hello everyone, thanks joining in on this discussion and a special thanks to Social Edge for getting this together. Anytime a group of Social Entrepreneurs get together (on-line or in-person), it is always a beneficial gathering.

I am Kevin Long, Founder and CEO of Global Deaf Connection and proud recipient of a 2002 Ashoka Fellowship. I worked for a number of years with some small business ventures but always had a passion for the social sector. After a ‘work-vacation’ at a Deaf school in Kenya, I founded Global Deaf Connection (GDC) This mission of GDC is to develop self-sustaining, successful cycles of deaf education and leadership skills through multi-cultural exchange, support, and mentoring programs. This cycle will assist Deaf people around the world to increase their social and economic self-sufficiency. To learn more about GDC, please visit our web site at www.deafconnection.org

During this on-line discussion, I would like to learn about other result-driven organizations and share idea about income-generating ventures.

RobinGood - Sep 23, 2003 8:13 am (#32 Total: 270)
Ambassador of Change Through Communication Skills and Social Networking Tools

My most gentle greetings to all of you.

I am Robin Good from Sharewood. I am an independent reporter, and social change agent. I work with new media technologies and communication skills. I take from the information- and technology- rich for which I have long worked and I bring my free expertise and communication skills to individuals, small companies and non-profits the world around.

http://www.masternewmedia.org

I am also a self-defined Social Nurse as I provide an extensive amount of now-how, technical support and free quality tools to people in need of communicating and learning more effectively through these new technologies.

I wish to empower the information-poor and to support the talented paladins of deep social change.

See some of their work generated by my social initiative called the Communication Agents Initiative at:

Communication Agents http://www.communicationagents.com/
Health Supreme http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/
Share The Wealth http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/
Grillo Parlante http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/ivangrilli/

I am here to humbly listen, look and learn as much as I can from each one of you. I hold no flag and I defend no position. My goal is to explore and create opportunities for more open understanding.

If there is a space for such a crazy nut-head in this space, I would love to sit next to some of you.

With my warmest regards to all,

Robin Good

Stop surfing, Start Making WAVES !!
http://robingood.typepad.com/

olopade - Sep 23, 2003 8:22 am (#33 Total: 270)
project assist


am a student of architectural technology and digital inovation.i am a agent of social change,and i would want to be linked with people who have been there before me.

tonigary - Sep 23, 2003 8:54 am (#34 Total: 270)
nonprofit resource institute


I have always been a social entrepreneur- doing well, doing good,and there is nothing new under the sun, just new labels- if only the folks with the long money can get 'it' and use that money to support creative people/ideas that are not tied to a bottom line- we'd all be better off- look at the Gates' Foundation.

But time and effort cost money in this real world, and that is the one ingredient that is missing in the scheme of social ventures.

Joni Podolsky - Sep 23, 2003 9:04 am (#35 Total: 270)
Social Edge Moderator


Hi Everyone,

My name is Joni Podolsky and instead of being "Wired for Change" like Steven Clift in his introduction, I am "Wired for Good." That is, I am the author of "Wired for Good: Strategic Technology Planning for Nonprofits," (Jossey Bass 2003) a book sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits in San Jose, CA, based upon their program of the same name (which I directed).

I am currently using my social entrepreneurial skills as a consultant, project manager, and trainer to help nonprofits strategically implement technology, build community relationships, and develop partnerships between the private and public sectors.

I am excited to be a part of this forum so that I can learn more about the practical tools, ideas, and resources that will strengthen us all as social entrepreneurs.

I look forward to the lively discussions!

With kind regards, Joni

Nick Moon - Sep 23, 2003 9:06 am (#36 Total: 270)
ApproTEC


Hi my name is Nick Moon, one of the "Schwabbies", social entrepreneur award winner for 2003. With my colleague Martin Fisher we founded and run ApproTEC, a non-profit that specializes in developing and promoting technologies that Base of the Pyramid investors in Africa and other places can use to set up profitable enterprises. I firmly believe that public good and private profit can go together and that there is a lot of room for public private partnerships. I see an enormous reservoir of talent, skill, expertise and motivation lying underutilised in the rural and peri-urban areas of Africa just waiting for the right stimulus to come along and activate it. I'd like to gather more ideas about how ApproTECcan move from positive cost recovery as Mohamed Yunus puts it to complete cost recovery/sustainability but without slowing down expansion of our program or detracting in any way from its social impacts.

Elizabeth Kennedy - Sep 23, 2003 9:07 am (#37 Total: 270)
Consultant


I was relieved to be welcomed to this energetic event by Muhammed Yunus, who sets a brilliant example for social entrepreneurship, aloowing that "anybody who is offering their time to address a social or economic problem is a social entrepreneur." I'm a volunteer in the social sector, but certainly wouldn't hope to fancy myself a social entrepreneur. Surfing along the surface of social entrepreneurship, I hope to learn even more about how to dive in, by participating in this event!

philk - Sep 23, 2003 9:10 am (#38 Total: 270)




Hi all,
My work has focused on software development for nonprofits to build the community information infrastructure. I see a network of community professionals whose knowledge and solutions to civic problems can flow efficiently and naturally to others who could benefit from those.

Recently I've been working on a software tool for eRiders (consultants working with ngos on technology and organizational issues), on TechAtlas http://techatlas.org , a tech planning tool and recommender system for nonprofits, and on community information and referral systems.

I consider myself a social entrepreneur because I've always sought innovative solutions to community information problems that nonprofits face, always try to increase the number of organizations that can benefit from my work, and take a highly collaborative approach to work with organizations.

I'm glad to see there are many unique people on this list, which should make for good discussion.

dstrauss - Sep 23, 2003 9:20 am (#39 Total: 270)


THe IT Resource Center is Chicago (tech assistance for nonprofits) has been operating for nineteen years. With a mission emphasizing effectiveness, accountability, and communication for our members, we focus on bringing appropriate business disciplines and methods into npo administration, and we try to behave that way ourselves.

We have always made earned income an important part of our revenue, believing that it proves the need for our services and shares the cost of them among many organizations.

The language of social entrepreneurship feels very comfortable, but it's perhaps less new than some believe.

dnitterhouse - Sep 23, 2003 9:30 am (#40 Total: 270)
DePaul University


I'm Denise Nitterhouse, a tenured associate professor in the School of Accountancy & MIS at DePaul University, Chicago, IL. My formal education is all in business, as is most of my current teaching, but I've been involved in nonprofit and governmental accounting and management since the early 1970's. My research spans the three sectors, and I believe that social entrepreneurship will be a powerful force in this century. But I don't want to found or manage an organization, so I'm not sure where and how I fit. I'm hoping to learn more and get some ideas from this discussion.

KimL - Sep 23, 2003 9:38 am (#41 Total: 270)


My name is Kim Lau, and I am not yet a social enterpreneur, although I've been working with nonprofit organizations for most of my life. The organizations I've worked with have mostly been concerned with short term survival strategies rather than being profitable, so I guess I have a lot to learn. I've worked for Beyond Baroque, a literary center that emphasizes creative ideas rather than practical business measures. As a result, it's a wonderful place to work in and get together with other people, but there's very little monetary benefit for its participants.

GordonSt - Sep 23, 2003 9:41 am (#42 Total: 270)
One Economy


My name is Gordon Strause

My background includes a number of years in the non-profit world (mainly helping to start and work with services programs like City Year, Hands On Atlanta, and Citizen Schools) and a number of years in the technology world (Firefly, Well Engaged, and eCircles).

Now I am living in New York and working for a (DC based) national non-profit called One Economy (http://www.one-economy.org), whose mission is to use technology to help low-income families improve their standard of living and connect to the economic mainstream.

One Economy is a very entrepreneurial organization by nature, and I am very interested in exploring a number of earned income opportunities that I believe exist for us. So I look forward to both learning and contribution to the discussion here.

eleland - Sep 23, 2003 9:41 am (#43 Total: 270)
Leland Design


Hi,

I have been working as a consultant for nonprofit technology needs. My particular interest has been to assist international human rights and human services groups with technology needs, from distribution of computers, to network/internet setup, database and website design, and strategic technology planning. I am currently the technology director for Forefront (forefrontleaders.org), a human rights organization in New York, a consultant for CompuMentor in San Francisco (compumentor.org), and running my own consulting company Leland Design (lelanddesign.com).

My long term goal has been to devise a way to sustain a practice of providing technology services to international human rights groups, which I have largely done by having other jobs pay for my human right work. I am interested to share other folks experience in developing sustainable models for social change work.

Thanks!

Eric

cbmuller - Sep 23, 2003 9:46 am (#44 Total: 270)
MentorNet


I will only briefly join this discussion, because as a social entrepreneur in these challenging economic times, my time must be spent in developing partnerships, developing the skills and abilities of our board of directors and advisory board, recruiting and training volunteers, and raising funds and visibility for our work. MentorNet offers a nearly six-year-old online mentoring network for women in engineering and science. Our principal One-on-One, large-scale e-mentoring network pairs thousands of professionals and students in structured, email-based mentoring relationships, linking people across the continent and beyond. I would like to suggest that description and implementation of useful activity, however, is not enough. To be successful social entrepreneurs requires establishing measurable objectives, and then assessing progress toward reaching them. All entrepreneurs are accountable in some way (if only to their families and friends, but more often to venture capitalists, investors, sponsors, funders, benefactors, employees, clients, etc.). What are the ways in which you measure your success? In our work, some of our longer term objectives are very difficult to measure -- lack of control groups, too many variables, self-selection bias, self-report bias, lack of comparison data, low response rates, etc. But we do collect data, and do use it both for continuous quality improvement, and for evidence of outcomes benefits. How are others measuring the results of their work, and the value it brings?

amaryllis - Sep 23, 2003 9:49 am (#45 Total: 270)

Hello everyone! The event is off to an exciting start. It is such a pleasure to join this conversation and I would like to thank the co-sponsors--Ashoka, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Skoll Foundation for this opportunity to gather, share, learn and inspire. I am excited to be a part of this forum and looking forward to sharing ideas, resources, and learning from everone over the next two weeks!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Sep 23, 2003 9:55 am (#46 Total: 270)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Your mention of working with Beyond Baroque caught my eye -- I'm guessing in Venice, CA? -- caught my eye, because I gave a poetry reading there once, many years ago, and attended a couple of others. Welcome, anyway, to this event, and a warm thanks from this poet for the work you do.