business IS personal

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!

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.

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!

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!

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.”

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).

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

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.

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).

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.