Q: I am interested in knowing about the working aspects of city-based Community Foundations that are created exclusively to address local issues through mobilisation of funds from the community members themselves. Can you help? Are there success stories or papers researching on their efficacy aspects?

Ruth Norris, Senior Program Officer with the Skoll Foundation, responds:

You may want to start with two websites with information and research about community foundations:

• Community Foundations of America

• The Monitor Institute and Blueprint's site on emerging philanthropy

Q: My organization is thinking of financially supporting some Entrepreneurship Development Centers in universities. The model (a very ambitious one) is ready and some seed funding is also available. We are thinking of providing funding to a private enterprise (a VC fund in a perfect world), which would setup the Center in universities and run it by generating its own operational funds through different means.

Has anybody heard of this kind of model or knows of investors/social entrepreneurs, who have done it or would be interested in doing it, especially in Pakistan?


Patrick O'Heffernan responds:

Many US universities have a similar model.  Often the university not only provides funds, but also provides office space, accounting, legal and other support services. This model works very well in engineering schools where the products of the entrepreneurs are patents and patented products and services that can be licensed, with a percentage of the license fee going to the university. The center is usually started with a grant or an investment from a VC or a number of VC's who see the Development Center as a way to get a first look at developing technologies to invest in - often a valuable asset.

These development centers are managed by the university but have a board made up of VC's who review proposals and recommend those that should be granted access to the Center.  These VCs also invest and often put up the first funds for the Center.

I don't know of any similar centers in Pakistan, but I would check with LUMS in Lahore (Lahore University of Management Sciences); PASTIC; WBiC - the Women's Incubation Center, also in Lahore; and SMEDA, the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority of Pakistan.

Q: I run an environmental grant program for a local government agency -- the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks in Seattle (USA).  Most people I know in the government grant world are not familiar with social entrepreneurship.  It is too often a command-and-control world: "We have the answers and we want you to compete for our money in order to deliver the things we know are good for the environment / the poor...." Have you come across government grant programs that use the new paradigm of social entrepeunrship?


Ruth Norris, Senior Program Officer with the Skoll Foundation, responds:

Social entrepreneurship can rear its head in any sector - nonprofit organizations, business enterprises, government, academia.  Thinking just about government grant programs, the World Bank's Development Marketplace comes to mind as an example of social entrepreneurship, as does the network of national environmental funds established throught the world in the 1990s following the Rio Earth Summit. 

In the US, there are many social entrepreneurs who have partnered with government agencies as a means of delivering their innovations to larger service audiences.  Herb Sturz's organization, ReServe, honored by the 2006 Purpose Prize, is just one example from this group of honorees who have migrated social entrepreneruship into government agencies.

YouthBuild is another example of an organization that found an innovative way to solve a set of interconnected social problems, and then worked with government to create a set of funding "pools" where other organizations desiring to implement the program could apply directly for federal funding.

If you browse social entrepreneurship Web sites -- Ashoka, the Schwab Foundation, the Skoll Foundation's own site as well -- I think you will find quite a few more examples.  Good luck!