CyTunes – download music, downsize cancer

I’m readying a series of posts about CyTunes - a great example of social enterprise, community, fundraising and innovation.  I’ll let you know up front that I’m biased, as my wife is the project manager and I’m volunteering to help with the social media aspect of promotion.  Below is my first cut at building a widget, built at sproutbuilder in a couple of hours (and I’m sure it would have taken less time for someone who is more technically proficient):

CyTunes sprout

Update: I was going to have the sprout embedded here, but apparently I can’t do so on the free version of wordpress (or I’m just not very savvy).  Easy interface is provided for over a dozen services, including facebook and blogger, so if you want to see how the sprout looks “in action” you can go to my facebook page – it’s both under my “info” and in a separate “my stuff” tab.  I’ve also added it to my tumblr site, which I’ve found incredibly useful and fun for keeping track of little bits of info that I think are worth sharing.

Staying pure after selling out

This week’s HBS Working Knowledge newsletter starts off with an interesting proposition: what happens when a well-known socially responsible business is acquired by a multinational?  Professors James E. Austin and Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard discuss their recent research, which examines such acquisitions as Ben & Jerry’s by Unilever, Tom’s of Maine by Colgate and Stonyfield Farms by Dannon.  Their work suggests that it is possible for a company to stay true to its social mission after acquisition, presented in a working paper asking ”Can the Virtuous Mouse and the Wealthy Elephant Live Happily Ever After?”  

The discussion touches on some great questions, including why the elephants would want to acquire mice with a conscience and why it could be a good deal for the mouse (they’re not selling out – they’re scaling up).

An excerpt is below, but it’s totally worth your time to read the entire (brief) HBS interview with Austin and Leonard:

Q: How can elephants protect the mouse’s social value and brand integrity?

A: The more effective large companies have recognized that preserving the social icon’s distinctive culture and business approach is essential to preserving its key success factors. Consequently, they retain a large degree of organizational independence so as to prevent “contamination” of the social technology.

This stands in contrast to the common approach in acquisitions to integrate and rationalize the assets into the new owner’s systems, structure, and culture. Some of the specific mechanisms used in successful mouse-elephant agreements include governance structures and processes that give the “mice” review and even veto power over actions by the “elephants” that might jeopardize those elements that are deemed essential to the social values underlying the brand’s integrity.

Retaining the social entrepreneur in the joint venture is highly desirable…

SE Business Planning Tool from RootCause

Just got this announcement from the npEnterprise listserv, and signed up to download my free copy.  Yes, you do need to provide your info and wait for a separate email to get the link to download the free copy.

I haven’t looked at anything other than the table of contents yet, but this seems to be worth your time.  If nothing else, their inclusion of a section on articulating a social impact model sets this apart from other business plan tools available for free online and makes it a compelling read for the social entrepreneur.

The pitch from publisher/consultant/sector leader Root Cause below:

I am pleased to announce the release of our organization¹s new book,
Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact: A Social-Entrepreneurial
Approach to Solving Social Problems, co-written by Andrew Wolk and Kelley
Kreitz.

You can purchase the paperback version online at Amazon.com or download a
free PDF copy at www.rootcause.org/bizplanning.

While there are countless books about writing business plans for financial
return or a nonprofit business venture, we wrote this book because there
were none we could find on how to write a business plan to solve a social
problem.

Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact applies the strategic rigor and
financial savvy of traditional private-sector business planning to social
problem solving. The guide provides an introduction to business planning and
leads readers through a four step process for creating an actionable
business plan. The book also includes a sample business plan!

We believe the book is an essential tool for organizations seeking to:

€ Define organizational focus and strategy, and establish a clear roadmap to
guide future action;
€ Build a financially sustainable model by creating a plan to establish
reliable streams of philanthropic income, earned income, and/or in-kind
resources;
€ Establish rigorous methods of measuring social impact;
€ Make data-driven decisions;
€ Build partnerships with organizations in the public, private, and
nonprofit sectors dedicated to solving social problems.

Conversation: The Future of Social Enterprise

Harvard Business School professors V. Kasturi Rangan and Susan McDonald are hosting a conversation based on their recent paper, The Future of Social Enterprise. Click here to read a summary of their findings and join in the conversation.

The questions posed center around social sector evolution and measuring ROI and social impact – the conversation started today and already has some interesting posts.  These web forum conversations generally only last a week or two, so check it out now in order to participate!

L3C in VT – blending non-profit goals and for-profit structure

An interesting post from yesterday on npEnterprise – Vermont has passed a bill to allow incorporation as a “low-profit liability company,” or L3C.  This is basically an LLC (limited liability company) that is allowed to accept PRI’s (Program Related Investments, often from foundations) traditionally limited to nonprofits.

In other words, this is a new business structure that recognizes the blended value proposition of a double bottom line that incorporates both social and financial goals.  Legislation has also been introduced here in NC, and is apparently awaiting action in the House Finance Committee.

Check out Americans for Community Development’s website for more details on how an L3C works and the current legislative status.  Or read the original post with additional links below:

Thu May 22, 2008 9:58 am (PDT)

Vermont recently passed a lot of bill regarding L3C’s, which allows
organizations to incorporate into “low-profit liability companies.”

If you would like additional info on the concept, Heather Peeler (Managing
Director of Community Wealth Ventures) wrote an article last year that outlines
the purpose of L3C’s.
http://www.communitywealth.com/Newsletter/August%202007/L3C.html

The bill was championed by a group called Americans for Community Development.
Check them out here:
http://americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/

Becky Eisen
Social Franchise Ventures, LLC.

Some additional information: Vermont Legislature passed
our L3C bill and the Governor of Vermont signed it, so it’s now in the books.

Aspen Institute’s FIELD on Microfinance and Social Enterprise

Just learned of this nifty resource from the NP-Enterprise listserv: a new article called “Social Enterprise and MicroEnterprise: Understanding the Connection” posted at the Aspen Institute’s FIELD homepage (a program of the Aspen Institute focused on microenterprise as an anti-poverty strategy).  It’s a great brief on the basics of social enterprise, social purpose businesses, and micorenterprise.

Also on the homepage are links to a webinar on how microenterprises are using social enterprise to increase sustainability (free registration required, 90 min – unfortunately not able to be downloaded and saved, and I haven’t had time to listen to it in full yet) and a recent FIELD forum (their newsletter) focused on social enterprise.  Both of these resources include a case study of Mountain BizWorks, a project right here in North Carolina (up in Asheville) that I was previously unaware of.  Great reading!

RecycleBank on CNN

Just saw an interesting short news story on RecycleBank, which I hadn’t heard of before.  They motivate people to recycle by offering incentives from big corporate partners like Coke and Kraft.  Cities pay RecycleBank with money saved from landfill overuse fees, and the founder claims that most cities that implement the program have seen increases in recycling of over 100%.

A very interesting model for social entrepreneurship, and definitely seems to be scalable.  Seems that they’re currently located primarily in the northeastern US, but I’m guessing that the CNN story will help them scale out more quickly.  I’m very curious as to whether the customers (actually, I guess they should be called “end users,” as the customers paying for the service are the cities) have found the rewards program to be actually valuable.

I’m also really curious as to how the revenue works and the costs of the scanning equipment being retrofitted to the trucks (particularly upkeep/repair costs), but I’m sure that those things are trade secrets that won’t be revealed anytime soon.  Very interesting model, though, and the type of thing that I’d love to write a case study for!

McKinsey on Microfinance

I know – this blog is in danger of becoming a McKinsey advertisement.  However, when they keep putting out so much good stuff, I can’t help it!  Today there are 5 articles on microfinance/microcredit and banking services for the bottom of the pyramid.  Three of these are premium (paid subscribers only) articles which are only guest passed for current subscribers to the free version for a limited time.  So get reading!

Direct from the e-mail:

Special collection: The biggest market on Earth
In one country, as part of a ubiquitous custom called “five–six” lending, poor people borrow five pesos from informal lenders and repay six, usually within a week. The annual interest rate works out at roughly 13,000 percent.

This is hardly the only place where low-income people suffer from a lack of choices and information. Their options have been limited because legitimate companies have been reluctant to enter the markets that serve them.

These articles from the archive show that large and reputable financial and retail businesses are now finding ways to do so profitably.

A grassroots approach to emerging-market consumers
November 2006

Extending financial services to Latin America’s poor
March 2007

The following three premium articles are available to nonpremium members for a limited time through this e-mail.

Financing Latin America’s low-income consumers (Guest passed until May 16)
March 2007

The CEO as CIO: An interview with the head of India’s top private bank (Guest passed until May 16)
March 2007

Succeeding in Latin American banking: An interview with Banco Itaú’s CEO (Guest passed until May 16)
November 2006

Voluntourism Discussion Happening Now

An interesting discussion is happening on Social Edge about “Travel with a Conscience” and includes not only the more familiar eco-tourism/sustainable tourism, but also “voluntourism” and/or philanthropy tourism.  My positive experience with Solimar Marketing, which is eco/sustainable tourism-based, makes this discussion particularly interesting to me.

Software Testing – The Specialists Are Autistic

Going through the old e-mails again, and found this fascinating article in HBS Working Knowledge that was shocking and inspiring.  First off, I must admit that I’m a fan of the show Boston Legal and that most of my knowledge of Asperger Syndrome comes from that show (yes, i’m pitifully uninformed or misinformed).  However, I’ve worked with autistic children in after-school programs and have heard lots of scary statistics about the “autism epidemic.” This can be a debilitating condition and the success stories seem few and far between – the only one I can think of (disregarding the Hollywood savant examples) is Temple Grandin, who apparently also is in the Asperger Syndrome category on the autism spectrum disorder scale.

Usually, when I think of job training and opportunities for autistic people, I think back to working at the Volunteer Center of Durham 15 years ago, and how we used organizations like Good Work for low-skill labor opportunities such as stuffing and labeling envelopes for mailings.  The results were haphazard at times, and we often had our Board of Directors and Junior League volunteers come in instead to place mailing labels on fund-raising and development mailings to insure quality.  Granted, these were an entirely different population and spectrum of developmental disorders, but still, I never would have thought that anyone on the autism spectrum disorder would be not only well-suited for software testing.  Not to mention that it would actually be so well suited as to provide a competitive advantage.

Enter the shock and inspiration:

“But who is best suited to control and manage the tests? The surprising answer may be found in a group of people previously thought to have a crippling condition: autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

In a new case coauthored by Austin, “Specialisterne: Sense & Details,” an innovative consultancy in Denmark has turned testing into its own specialty. While its 50 or so part-time consultants are considered best-in-class—they are paid industry-competitive wages, and customers include LEGO, Microsoft, and Oracle—75 percent of them live with what others might consider a handicap: They have Asperger syndrome or some form of ASD.”

And later in the article:

Specialisterne now has two offices in Denmark, another under construction in Scotland, and branches being planned in Sweden and India. Its niche, according to the case, is testing when the cost of establishing automated testing is too expensive and complex. In March 2008 Sonne was honored with Denmark’s IT Award for outstanding contributions to IT development. In a statement read at the ceremony, the award was bestowed to Sonne of Specialisterne because “these highly gifted people require special support to get on in society—but via their particular logical skills and sense for precision, they can contribute massively.”

Social Entrepreneurship in the New York Times

New York Times editorial writer David Brooks devoted his March 21 column to social entrepreneurship. The column and Letter to the Editor “Here’s What Social Entrepreneurs Can Do” written by Andrew Wolk, Founder and President of Root Cause and SEA Member, is saved here as a PDF.

One excerpt that hit a bit close to home (something I hadn’t put my finger on but have definitely noticed) is this description of SE’s:

“These thoroughly modern do-gooders dress like venture capitalists. They talk like them. They even think like them. That means that aside from the occasional passion for heirloom vegetables, they are not particularly crunchy. They don’t wear ponytails, tattoos or Birkenstocks. They don’t devote any energy to countercultural personal style, unless you consider excessive niceness a subversive fashion statement.”

Although to be fair, one of my SE friends is actually more at home in his Birkenstocks listening to Grateful Dead DAT’s as he is in his business garb – you just wouldn’t know it if you ever met him while he’s “on the clock”. Fashion sense aside, however, the most salient point in the article to me was this snippet:

“Their problem now is scalability. How do the social entrepreneurs replicate successful programs so that they can be big enough to make a national difference”

To address this challenge, I still think that the research and tools produced by Greg Dees is the best place to start (although Jeff Bradach’s work with Bridgespan is a great follow-up, and I am still just starting to read Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, by Heather McLeod Grant and Leslie Crutchfield). However, Greg’s research on scaling social impact is easy for me to find and available free online (not to mention his status as an SE rockstar), so that’s where I’m pointing you right now. I’d particularly recommend the frameworks for thinking about scaling social impact section, which contains links to some free powerpoint presentations, practitioner’s toolkits, and links to articles and papers which go into greater depth about how to use these frameworks (including a couple of great articles by Greg co-authored by Beth Anderson and Jane Wei-Skillern, although the more recent one requires a subscription to the SSIR).

Ashoka

Taken from a post on npEnterprise this morning:

Ashoka’s Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship has recently developed a “Social Entrepreneurship Teaching Resources Handbook”. The handbook is an excellent reference guide, and can be found in PDF format here.

This handbook includes a mapping of over 250 professors who are actively teaching or researching in social entrepreneurship
from more than 35 countries, with 29 different competitions, over 800 different articles and 200 cases used in social entrepreneurship
courses.

Sections include:
- Social Entrepreneurship Programs, Courses, Cases, Articles and other learning resources
- Profiles of Social Entrepreneurs, Support Organizations, and Competitions
- Social Entrepreneur Networks, Conferences and Events

Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector – HBS Interview

HBS Working Knowledge pointed me to this interview with Jane Wei-Skillern about the recent casebook that she and her HBS colleagues James E. Austin, Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard, and Howard H. Stevenson wrote: Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector. Jane co-authored several works with Greg Dees and Beth Anderson that I read when I was working with them at CASE (Center for the Advancement of Social Enterpreneurship), and I really like her work. The book will be added to the list of many that I’d like to buy and read one day. Right now, I’ve got too many in my “to read” pile to go out and buy more!

My favorite part of the interview is excerpted below (emphasis mine), but it’s a brief interview and definitely worth reading in full.

A major challenge facing business leaders is how to enhance the effectiveness of their social responsibility initiatives while substantially improving overall organizational performance.

This challenge cannot be overcome through incremental change in existing activities. Instead, it requires a fundamental transformation in the way that companies do business. It entails identifying new opportunities, creating new strategies, and establishing the structures and processes needed to pursue them. It is more powerful to envision this challenge as an entrepreneurial undertaking aimed at the innovative cogeneration of social and economic value.

Bill Strickland: new book, new blog

Bill Strickland, who I learned about in Greg Dees’ classes at Fuqua and subsequently saw speak (see link for streaming video) when he was honored at the inaugural Annual CASE Leadership in Social Entrepreneurship Lecture (Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank was honored in 2004, before his Nobel Prize win), has a new book out, and a new blog on Social Edge. Those unfamiliar with Strickland’s work may want to check out the Manchester Bidwell website.

America Forward Coalition – putting social entrepreneurship on the public policy agenda

In today’s issue of The Enterprising Voice from the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA), they announce that last month the SEA became a member of the America Forward coalition. This new organization’s stated purpose (taken from their website) is:

America Forward works to connect social entrepreneurs with policymakers to promote innovative solutions and provide a new vision for the role government can play in solving our nation’s social problems.

I’m of mixed feelings on this one. Apparently this group came about as a result of discussions led by New Profit, Inc., a venture philanthropy that I’ve heard and read great things about. However, looking at their list of “high impact organizations” I saw some shockers – organizations that I wouldn’t have typically associated with being particularly innovative, enterprising or entrepreneurial.

I also don’t know about the necessity/efficacy of looking for government to play a greater role. Usually this seems to mean greater regulation of limited funds (or setting aside a portion for specific initiatives), rather than an increase in overall funding for the social sector. This often hits smaller, more entrepreneurial organizations the hardest, as they are often young and without the funding, infrastructure or history to scientifically prove their model. If this group starts to really emphasize the importance of investment in infrastructure and professional development in order to foster organizational sustainability and scaling social impact (as opposed to the push to decrease administrative costs that has accompanied the accountability movement in the last 20 or so years), I might be a bit more enthusiastic. However, looking at their blog page, it seems to be more about individual members working to push their individual agendas on Presidential candidates, often under the aegis of social entrepreneurship or social innovation. In my admittedly quick skim, I only saw one blog post that began to address thoughts on transforming the role of government and funding in the social sector in any meaningful way.

Further, in some ways this public policy approach seems to be antithetical to the market-driven, enterprising ideals of many blended businesses in the “third sector”. I would be surprised to see someone like Pierre Omidyar endorsing this initiative. I know that business, big and small, lobbies government for benefits such as tax incentives, funding of new technology initiatives, IP extensions for developing technologies and much much more – I just don’t know that such efforts are where we ought to be focusing our attention.

I see the value in further disseminating the central tenets of social entrepreneurship through media coverage and a “seat at the public policy table,” but worry that the message will only get through in a diluted form, and social entrepreneurs will become synonymous with social workers. Ambivalence abounds. I guess this is another one of those initiatives that I’ll be on the “wait and see” side (aka the sideline).

Great Nonprofits – An Interview with Perla Ni

A message on the npEnterprise listserv mentioned a list of blogs centered around social entrepreneurship. This list included several that I haven’t seen and may need to add to my own links. It also included Beth Kanter’s blog, which I haven’t visited in a while. I surfed on over and found this interview with Perla Ni, former publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review and founder of Great Nonprofits.

Real estate, social entrepreneurship, spirituality and more…

I’m back at work after a brief holiday break with my wife and her parents – it feels great to eat too much and just spend time relaxing with family during the holidays! My mother-in-law (MIL), a doctor, is not usually conversant in social entrepreneurship, so she shocked me by letting me know about a social venture I hadn’t heard about yet! I thought that the hot socially-conscious gift this year was the goat, given to families and communities in need throughout the world through organizations like World Vision and Mercy Corps. However, according to the mainstream media that my MIL has been watching, the hot gift is actually The Giving Tree GiveCard™.

The GiveCard is a pre-paid MasterCard® gift card, with a twist. In order to activate the card, the gift recipient must go online and donate 10% of the value of the card to the charity of his/her choice (any non-profit listed in GuideStar). The Nashville, TN company Giving Tree, LLC seems to have hit a home run, garnering this much attention for its flagship product in the few months since an October press release announced both the product and the formation of the company. A for-profit company targeting socially conscious consumers, Giving Tree hopes to have a dual social impact: 1) It teaches gift recipients (often children and teens) the rewards of philanthropy, and 2) It raises money for non-profits. I give them kudos for great marketing, a name that’s easy to remember (and brings strong emotional associations with Shel Silverstein’s book), and a clever way to tap into the socially conscious consumer who wants to teach philanthropy to their kids in a way that won’t engender anger and resentment (e.g. “I wanted new games for my Wii, but my dad just gave me a card saying that I gave a goat to some family in Africa”).

Another conversation was focused on real estate, and the way that the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) and the Triad (Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem) continue to grow despite the national housing market slump. When my MIL asked about potential property investment in Hillsborough, my wife (who is much more up-to-date on such matters than I am) replied that all of the good investment property there has already been bought up by developers and real estate investment firms. Apparently, in order to be able to find a deal on property in the I-40/I-85 corridor between the Triangle and the Triad, you need to go west to Mebane or farther.

This confirmed for me the brilliance and foresight of my friends and colleagues involved in the creation of the Stone House, a project of stone circles. A 70-acre retreat offering space for spiritual renewal and strategic action, this non-profit social enterprise is a brilliantly conceived and well-planned endeavor including elements of environmental and financial sustainability. Still in construction (very green construction, at that), you can learn more about this facility at its website (including a download of their long-term strategy) and keep track of their ongoing efforts at their blog. I’ll be bringing some information on this facility back to the in-laws when we return this weekend for additional holiday celebrations with more extended family in town, including our beautiful nieces (who, despite living far away in Atlanta, have really enjoyed keeping track of one of my pet projects at work, the Museum’s Animal Department blog).

One Laptop Per Child

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program has been getting a lot of press recently.  You probably know about the promotion of buy one, donate one. Rather than a proper post, I’ll just let you explore some of what I consider the better/more interesting links I’ve seen:

HBS Case Study – free (with registration) Q&A with case author Professor John A. Quelch & link to purchase case study

Washington Post story following up on the HBS case study, focus on competition from for-profit companies 

Washington Post article on deployment in Peru

Photos and brief review by a U.S.  customer opening and trying out the laptop

Independent OLPC News Feed – keep up to date as this story/enterprise unfolds

Changemakers.net in SSIR

I didn’t realize how large Ashoka‘s Changemakers.net initiative had grown in the last several years until I read this article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.  It’s amazing that so much innovation can come from a contest offering such relatively modest prizes.  I do wish that the article’s subtitle referencing the wisdom of crowds was more than a simple name-checking.  The most compelling part of the article for me was this section:

“Like most funders, Robert Wood Johnson usually circulates its requests for proposals within a limited circle of U.S.-based nonprofit groups, and then treats submissions as intellectual property. The whole process has an air of secrecy about it.  In contrast, Changemakers’ approach was novel and refreshing, says Jeane Ann Grisso, an internist and epidemiologist who works as a senior program officer in the foundation’s vulnerable populations division. “Organizations I’d never heard of, doing projects I’d not even thought about, bubbled up through this process.” She says the foundation plans to solicit more proposals from the winners, and will almost certainly fund some of them.”

This is a portion of one of the key complaints/conversations that we had around the table as we formed ncyt over a decade ago.  In fact, we were more frustrated by the lack of transparency around the funding process and the often adversarial (or at best “guarded”) nature of the relationship between nonprofits and their funders.  Only as more funders came to the table did we realize the secretive and competitive nature of communications between the funders themselves.  When I went to business school in 2001, I was heartened to realize that this was a known issue, being addressed on a larger level as “field building” grants were being given to multiple foundations to collaborate and create some “industry standards” and benchmarks.  When I rejoined the ncyt Board in 2005, it seemed that these larger national efforts had stalled.  However, we did have some productive and fruitful conversations with organizations working to address these issues – most notably a conversation with Dan Moore, a consultant with NC Gives, an organization founded to create and sustain a more inclusive and collaborative network of philanthropy (including the very-hip-at-the-time and apparently growing giving circle concept).    Let’s hope that as time goes on there is an increased emphasis on impact, collaboration and transparency and less emphasis on who “gets the credit” for positive social change.

Gift guide for social entrepreneurs

The folks at Social Edge provide a gift guide for the person that wants nothing – other than to save the world.