Social Entrepreneurship

Through a recent conference call with our innovators we were able to gather some useful information regarding good ways to build and strengthen ventures. Here are some tips we hope will spur your desire to start a venture or further develop one in progress.

Before I started the CLYV Social Innovator program, I committed to providing up to $1,000 in seed money to each venture that we launched. There was only one problem: Conscious Lifestyle didn't have any money to give. We were a new organization and had done almost no fundraising at all. Nonetheless, I knew that if I were going to do this program, I had to give it my all. So I committed to providing seed grants of up to $1,000. There were two things that prevented this ambitious goal from becoming a disaster. First, Conscious Lifestyle formed a partnership with Youth Venture, which co-funds each venture. Second,

I learned how to make $5,000 by writing two pages.

Here are the takeaways from that experience that you can apply to your grant writing:

Jeff Skoll, who you may or may not know as the co-creator of eBay, is also the founder of the Skoll Foundation, which gives grants for communities to build banks, schools, and other institutions.

Skoll is the owner of Participant Productions. P.P. is dedicated to creating documentaries and films about social and political issues to make change in our society. Participant Productions created North Country and helped produce An Inconvenient Truth, among various other films and documentaries.

Watch this video for Skoll's description of his goals and upcoming Participant Productions films:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-RQ6i0_qRw

Friend of Conscious Lifestyle, Daniel Zoughbie, founder of the Global Micro-Clinic Project has been awarded the 2008 Do Something Award for his outreach to diabetics in developing countries. The UC Berkeley graduate and Marshall Scholar is currently up for the $100,000 Do Something Award grand prize for people under 25 helping change the world, which will be given out at the Teen Choice Awards. If you are under 20 years old, please vote for Daniel by doing the following:

Please go to http://www.teenchoiceawards.com/, Click on TC Partners, then Click on DO Something.org, and then Click on Daniel Zoughbie in the bottom row of videos. Please Click Vote Now below the videos, and enter your e-mail address and date of birth.
(Note: you must have a birthdate after 1988 to vote). And you can vote everyday!

What is greywater?

Water that’s kinda dirty because it’s been used once, but clean enough to be used for something else.

Examples: Water from rinsing fruit that can be used to then water plants; or water from washing hands, laundry, or dishes that can be reused to flush the toilet.

Why I use greywater:

Last year I saw this Greentime video and began using greywater in my apartment. I was amazed by how easy it is to save lots of water.

Last Christmas was Michelle Finholdt’s worst. Shortly before the 2007th anniversary of Christ’s birth, Minnesota’s Supreme Court ruled that Finholdt’s nonprofit agency was too much like a for-profit business, meaning that come April 15th, she would be expected to cough up $16,000 in property taxes for the first time since founding the Under the Rainbow Child Care Center in 1994. She probably prayed for a holiday miracle, but even St. Nick isn’t foolish enough to go flying around with that much cash on hand.

As the New York Times dutifully reported last week, nonprofits are becoming increasingly business-like across the country, and the questions are piling up like dorm room laundry. Are these agencies doing anything for the pubic good? For the ones who are not, should they really be given a considerable tax-exemption for doing so? And festering underneath the questions is growing pressure for some non-profits to start anteing up.

Although I don’t think the Girl Scouts are going to be selling boxes of CFL lightbulbs instead of cookies any time soon—why change a good and delicious thing?--groups of other stripes are always looking for creative ways to raise money for their organizations. Now your group can choose to sell recycled paper goods, green home cleaners, energy-efficient showerheads, and yes, low-energy lightbulbs through several Web-based green fundraising organizations.

MonsterTRAK, an online career and recruitment Web site, wants to help you out with that major decision. It has developed GreenCareers, a site for college students and recent graduates listing environmentally responsible jobs and internships. GreenCareers includes entry-level, part-time, volunteer, and internship opportunities at organizations of all sizes that positively impact the environment. These are both "green jobs" and jobs at "green companies." The site also features career advice and articles on living green, green activism, and related news.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RwW10k9nlPE

Check out more videos and resources for social entrepreneurs at socialedge.org.

In a recent editorial in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote:

"I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be. I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be."

Do you argree?

Read the rest of the article on the NY Times Web site.