Kiva Business 4 Business Community: Social Enterprises Archives

Can Water technology be an alluring Venture Investment?

VC lore has it that there's not much opportunity for an early stage investor in the water market. Yet opportunities in the water market seem obvious.

From Greentech Media

Peter Nieh, a partner at VC investment firm Lightspeed Venture Partners said via email, "Water is an alluring market because the need is clearly there and the opportunity is large. [There is] some great technology out there. The issue for us is that economically attractive distribution is hard to achieve because the market is so fragmented."

"[I] definitely agree that water is a challenging sector... and as such, it's sort of the Rodney Dangerfield of cleantech investments," observed Steve Vassallo of Foundation Capital."

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The Tactics of Hope: The Social Entrepreneur Movement

Wilford Welch and David Hopkins, authors of the groundbreaking book, "The Tactics of Hope: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing Our World," provide strategies and tactics to help transform personal concerns into meaningful actions that address critical social and environmental challenges. The book can be accessed and purchased at www.TacticsofHope.org

Capitol Hill and Business Leaders "Say Yes" to Youth Entrepreneurship

From CSRWire:

The Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy Group (YES GROUP) will launch the "I Said Yes" campaign and release the nation's first policymaker guide on youth entrepreneurship on Tuesday, November 18, 2008, at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2661, in Washington, DC. The event, entitled "We Say YES! To Youth Entrepreneurship Education in America's Schools: What Policymakers Can Do to Prepare Youth for the Market Economy," is focused on bringing about change in how youth are educated and empowered.

The event will kick off with greetings from Stephanie Bell-Rose, President of The Goldman Sachs Foundation and Chairperson for the YES GROUP, and Peter Reiling, Aspen Institute Executive Vice President for Leadership and Seminar Programs. A distinguished panel will discuss youth entrepreneurship including Alex Nock, Deputy Staff Director, U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee; David Johns, Policy Advisor, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; and Lindsay Hunsicker, Senior Education Policy Advisor, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. These key leaders represent part of a growing movement across all sectors of society to increase youth entrepreneurship education throughout the country.

Continue reading Capitol Hill and Business Leaders "Say Yes" to Youth Entrepreneurship.

Brilliant Idea - wish we had it in Canada

This is such a great idea! I much prefer this kind of affinity program to others. It is so simple and so beautiful in how it works. Brilliant!

Lothar Fritsch

Who are social entrepreneurs?

More and more, we are seeing social entrepreneurs (in fact, you will see many of them on our sister site, Ideablob.com).

To get some background on this trend, there's a good piece on HeraldNet.com.

So, what is a social entrepreneur? According to Ashoka (which is a global organization of about 2,000 social entrepreneurs):

"individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system."

There's also a new book on the topic; that is, David Bornstein's How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition.

To get more information, click here to check out the article in HeraldNet.com.

Getting the Vibe

While at the Digital Hollywood conference, I had a chance to meet up with upstart company, SocialVibe.com.

Essentially, it's a combination of social media (especially Facebook and MySpace ) with consumer brands and causes.

That is, you select a charity to support as well as a brand (some include Coca-Cola, NBA, Sprint and Nestlé). The result is that you can earn points for charitable donations.

It's an interesting concept. And so far, the site has raised about $30,000 for 14 charities like the World Wildlife Fund, PETA, charity:water, One Laptop Per Child, Surfrider Foundation, Direct Relief International, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Invisible Children and Donors Choose.

NYTimes: The Rise of the "social enterprise"

There's an interesting piece in the NYTimes, which talks about the emergence of the "social enterprise." Essentially, it's a for-profit organization that has some type of social mission.

Some of the notable examples include: Mozilla Corporation (which develops the Firefox browser), TechSoup (which distributes tech products to nonprofits), and the Internet Archive.

If anything, the new Web 2.0 technologies - and open source software -- are making it easier to launch such ventures. Basically, the cost barriers are much lower.

Also, new business models - such as using Google AdWords - makes it easier to find ways to monetize things.

Finally, check out Ideablob.com (which is something we launched last year). It's a platform for new business ideas. Interestingly enough, there are many that are social enterprises.