Social Entrepreneurship

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:

1. Go big – Get started today and ask for more than you think you need.
2. Make sure your project is a good fit - sometimes you can bend language to make it work, but that only goes so far. Don't waste your time on grant opportunities that are not geared to your project.
3. Enroll the best writers on campus – go to the English dept. or school newspaper, find out who had an internship as a grant writer. These people are crucial.
4. Create your template – once you've got this, you're gold.
5. Follow-up - make sure to thank your funders and send them updates. This will lead to more help down the road.

Here's how it worked:

I stumbled upon a grant opportunity that asked for a two-page overview of a summer research project (I was a graduate student at the time). Now, I wasn't planning on working in a lab or spending the summer in the library, but by launching the CLYV Social Innovator program I would learn about social entrepreneurship and could establish best practices for the future, so I called that "research." (Note: grant writing is about aligning the goals of the grantor with that of the grantee, so you've got to make sure it's a good fit. Sometimes that includes getting creative with language.)

When I finished my rough draft, I made a decision that was the secret to my success: I sent the proposal to writers who are much more talented than I am. These are people who won awards in the English department, wrote for their school newspapers, or have grant writing experience (professors have a lot of this!). We emailed drafts back-and-forth, until it was time to submit the proposal. I asked for $6,000 and won $4,000. (It's rare to get the full amount that you request, so keep that in mind!)

The next night, around 9pm, I saw another grant opportunity. This one was for $1,000. At first I thought I didn't have enough time. Doubt kicked in and I told myself, "There's no way I'm going to get this, I shouldn't even try." When I realized that if I didn't work on the grant proposal I'd have to do my homework, I started typing. Then I realized I had a perfectly good proposal saved on my computer, so I pulled up the winning proposal, changed the name at the top, adjusted my budget, and emailed it in. That hour of effort won me the grant, and earned $1,000 for Conscious Lifestyle.

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:

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!

To read more on the Global Micro-Clinic Project, which has set up community-based micro-clinics to help empower people in their treatment of diabetes in Palestine, Jordan, and India, please visit http://microclinicproject.org/ and The International Diabetes Federation

-Matt Werner

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.

The more I use greywater the more I realize how nonsensical our normal water system is. Think about it. Our bathroom sink is located a few feet from our toilet, but instead of using water from the sink to flush the toilet, the water from our sink is sent miles away to be purified, then sent miles back to our toilets. This is crazy. Why do we need water that is pure enough to drink for our toilets? As someone who loves efficiency (like any good social entrepreneur), I couldn’t stand for this normal water system, so I put a bucket under my sink and collected the water used for washing my hands, shaving, and brushing my teeth to flush the toilet. I do the same with water used to wash dishes. I also collect water that is normally wasted while it heats up and use it to water plants. By doing this, I save gallons of water everday and am more mindful of the global water crisis that is affecting billions of people.

There are a lot of great resources about greywater where you can learn more about the subject, as well as how to get started. Make sure to search for “greywater” on Goodsearch.com to support your favorite charitable organiation. Thesimpleway.org has a post on greywater that is short, sweet, and convincing. The greentime video mentioned above is a perfect introduction to the subject. And there are other videos that range from washing machine greywater system to ways to use greywater to irrigate your backyard.

If you are a student leader who wants to learn more about living a conscious lifestyle and get support for your student venture, apply now for a Conscious Lifestyle social entrepreneur grant.

Picture from thesimpleway.org

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.

In two consecutive nights this past May I found myself at a pair of annual fundraisers hosted by nonprofits, one dedicated to family justice, the other to housing. Both causes were innocent enough, but the spacious SoHo office, the trendy Chelsea event center, the open bars, the caterers, the expensive suits, the models, the pricy gift bags and the unmistakable scent of cash made both agencies come off as more hypocritical than a god-fearing atheist. If these types of organizations want to contribute to the common good, so be it, but let’s stop bullshitting around. They are semi-businesses at best, certainly not pure charities, and I’m glad that at least one supremely wise court in Minnesota is beginning to make the distinction.

Most of the nation’s 1.6 million nonprofit organizations enjoy 501(c)3 certification, a rectangular piece paper allowing them to claim large tax exemptions each spring, something for which most American homeowners would likely sell the family pet, a nice heirloom, or perhaps a third or fourth-born child. In return, say the states, these same agencies are expected to perform utterly altruistic services in the name of public wellbeing.

Yet, as I witnessed first hand, the term “nonprofit” can be wildly deceiving, conveying an image of selflessness and goodwill, when in reality a whole host of largely undeserving organizations are blessed with the 501(c)3 holy water and then turning their backs on the priests.

Under the Rainbow could be the least nefarious example, a daycare that charges all families the same market-rate price regardless of their clients’ ability to pay. It may be not-for-profit, but what does it do for the public good that a for-profit daycare does not? Nothing. Certainly not $16,000 worth of good.

And on the other end of the rainbow are the large, private universities. Sure, their students occasionally volunteer in nearby communities, but the institutions themselves offer far less, preferring instead to ignore local residents and gobble up surrounding land like a bunch of Israeli settlers. Try explaining without sounding insane how Harvard, boasting an endowment bloated past the $30 billion mark and yearly returns of fifteen percent, is a “nonprofit” institution dedicated purely to public charity.

To the relief of Cambridge and Boston residents however, Massachusetts officials are tackling the issue by earnestly debating a bill that would levy a 2.5% tax on any university with endowments in excess of $1 billion, a sum deemed adequate for an organization supposedly devoid of profit. Should it move forward, the legislation will take nine separate ivory towers by the ankles, including Boston College, Boston University, MIT, Williams, and others, and shake them down for a fraction of the spare change they’ve been hoarding for years under the nonprofit moniker.

But in between the lowly daycares and the powerful universities are a slew of other non-profits where the line between pure charity and sinister deception isn’t so stark and the threat of government intervention far less severe.

Consider a private elementary school where New York’s richest pay $22,000 each year for me to teach their five-year-old kids. Or a mental-health advocacy agency that compensates its executives with six-figure salaries and throws wildly lavish parties each May. Are such organizations really deserving of their nonprofit status and a comfortable tax shelter when so obviously not in need? When does this perverse game end?

Indeed, not all non-profits are so questionable. Certainly groups like the NAACP and the ACLU contribute immensely to our collective wellbeing and ought to be rewarded for doing so. So too should the thousands of smaller organizations (ahem…Conscious Lifestyle) that sincerely struggle for the greater good.

As for the others, the essentially for-profit, sometimes ostentatiously so, businesses hiding under the fluffy 501(c)3 sheepskin? The Under the Rainbows and the Harvards? Well, if Minnesota and Massachusetts are any accurate barometer, soon they’ll all start dreading and loathing April 15th like the rest of us.

The following is a guest post written by Nick Fuller-Googins, a 25-year-old Brooklynite tasked with the well-being and edification of 17 six-year-olds in Manhattan. Nick will be hopping on the next train west. You can find all of his ramblings at his blog, thirteenam.

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. You register your group on the Web site, tell your prospective buyers to visit it and make their purchases, and your group gets a check in the mail.

LetsGoGreen.biz and Greenraising.comoffer groups the opportunity to earn between 25% and 40% of the price on each eco-conscious product their friends and relatives buy. This percentage is not as high as on traditional fundraising items—typically 50% to 75%--because traditional items are mass-produced, often overseas, thus cheaper to produce, making it easier to pass on a greater percentage of the profit. But green fundraising contains an educational and pro-environmental aspect—for both buyers and sellers--that can make up for the lower profit.

And if consumers like the products, they can keep on buying through the fundraising websites, generating additional income for the group after the initial drive is over. So if your group can operate with a steady stream of income instead of a one-time payment as in the traditional model, green fundraising may be something to think about.

Now if only there were a way to keep on buying Girl Scout cookies…

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.

GreenCareers was developed in partnership with ecoAmerica, a consumer research and marketing environmental nonprofit, and is sponsored by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit organization linking science, economics, and law to find solutions to environmental problems.

For more information, visit
GreenCareers

Happy hunting!

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.

At the most recent Conscious Lifestyle skill-building workshop, Nick Cuttriss discussed his early experiences as a co-founder of AYUDA (American Youth Understanding Diabetes Abroad). His stories showed how passion and hard work can lead to commendable success. This month another accolade was added to AYUDA's story. Youth Venture Reports:

"Venture Team AYUDA has just been granted United Nations Special Consultative Status with Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. So what exactly does that mean? AYUDA can now designate official representatives to the United Nations, participate in Economic and Social Council meetings and conferences and collaborate in the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations. Not bad for one of Youth Venture's first teams - Congratulations AYUDA!!"

Check out AYUDA's Youth Venture profile.