Our Top 25 Social Entrepreneurship websites

They say that social entrepreneurship is the new green… One thing is certain: social entrepreneurship’s following will grow very fast in 2009, especially after the election of you-know-who.

Social entrepreneurship has almost as many definitions as it has institutions promoting it. For us, the meaning of social entrepreneurship is very well encompassed by the two words composing it :

Entrepreneurship : To create a new venture.

Social : For the common good.

To help find your way in this field, we mapped out what we believe are the best resources to get the news, the money and the training linked to the marvelous world of social entrepreneurship. In no particular order:

Update (02/06/09): Thanks so much for the great feedback! Please note that this list doesn’t aim to be the ULTIMATE social entrepreneurship websites list, nor a billboard: it is simply the resources we use and refer to the most. Look out for the additions to the list.

03/02/09: We recommend you visiting The Top 50 Social Entrepreneurship blogs to watch in 2009. Great resource.

Best Social Entrepreneurship News websites

1. E-180

Ok, that’s us. We keep you posted on social entrepreneurship, consensual education and social media. News, fellowships, training programs, resources.

2. CSR Wire

CSRwire is the leading global source of Corporate Social Responsibility news.

3. Change.org – Social entrepreneurship

The social entrepreneurship blog @ change.org. Nathaniel is the founding Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, which works annually with hundreds of students in dozens of countries around the world through curricular programs and student project incubation.

4. Stanford Social Innovation Review

Strategies, tools and ideas for nonprofits, foundations and socially responsible businesses

5. Fast Company – Social Responsibility

Fast Company often features articles on social responsibility and social entrepreneurship. They also organize every year the Social Capitalist Awards. Along with the 45 world-changing nonprofits, they also honor ten companies not only striving to make a profit, but to also make a difference.

6. Social edge

Social Edge is the global online community where social entrepreneurs and other practitioners of the social benefit sector connect to network, learn, inspire and share resources. A Skoll Foundation initiative.

7. NextBillion.net

NextBillion.net brings together the community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers, and academics who want to explore the connection between development and enterprise.

8. Alltop : Social entrepreneurship

The best of blogs on social entrepreneurship, from Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop.

9. Alltop : Good

The best of blogs on social good, from Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop.

Best Social Entrepreneurship Fellowships and Funding websites

10. Ashoka

Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, they have elected over 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries.

11. Echoing Green

Since 1987, Echoing Green has provided seed funding and support to more than 450 social entrepreneurs with bold ideas for social change in order to launch groundbreaking organizations around the world. They provide seed money, in the early stage of a social venture.

12. Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation’s mission is to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs. Their main funding program is the Skoll Awards for Entrepreneurship

13. Tides Foundation

Since 1976, Tides Foundation has worked with donors committed to positive social change. They put resources and people together—strengthening community-based nonprofit organizations and the progressive movement through innovative grantmaking.

14. Schwab Foundation

They identify the world’s leading social entrepreneurs: Over the past eight years, the Foundation has been selecting 20-30 social entrepreneurs annually from around the world into its network of leading social entrepreneurs. The social entrepreneurs are selected from more than 1000 candidates that apply every year either to a national “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” competition or directly to a regional selection of the Foundation.

15. Reynolds’ Foundation

The Reynolds’ Foundation funds two great social entrepreneurship fellowships : one for Harvard graduate students and one for NYU graduate students.

+ Unltd

UnLtd is a charity which supports social entrepreneurs – people with vision, drive, commitment and passion who want to change the world for the better. They do this by providing a complete package of funding and support, to help these individuals make their ideas a reality.

Best Social Entrepreneurship Training Programs websites (non-academic)

16. Net impact (Multiple locations)

Net Impact is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of leaders who use business to improve the world. We offer a portfolio of programs to educate, equip, and inspire more than 10,000 members to make a tangible difference in their universities, organizations, and communities.

17. StartingBloc (Boston, New York & London)

StartingBloc’s curriculum is delivered through their signature program – The Institute for Social Innovation. The Institute is a two-month program anchored by four one-day conferences. They provide students and young professionals with the training, education, and networks necessary to turn any career into a socially responsible one.

18. Global Social Benefit Incubator (Santa Clara, US)

The Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™), a program developed by Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society in partnership with Social Edge. It assists social benefit entrepreneurs in developing business plans that enable their organizations to reach increasing numbers of beneficiaries.

+ School of Social Entrepreneurs (Multiple locations: UK, Australia)

The SSE runs practical learning programs aimed at helping develop the individual entrepreneur and their organization simultaneously: our approach, and belief, is that social change is people-powered, and that the most valuable assets and resources we have are human ones.

Best Social Entrepreneurship Training Programs websites (academic)

This list was published by CNN Money in 2007.

19. Babson College (Boston, MA)

The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship is the hub for entrepreneurial activity at Babson. The center’s mission is to lead the global advancement of entrepreneurship education and practice through the development of academic, research, and outreach initiatives that inspire entrepreneurial thinking and cultivate entrepreneurial leadership in all organizations and society.

20. Columbia University (New York, NY)

Columbia offers the Social Enterprise program, where students develop a perspective on how to apply business skills to social enterprise endeavors and align personal and professional values in careers that result in social benefits to a broader community. The curriculum explores social enterprise within four focus areas: Public and Nonprofit Management; International Development and Emerging Markets; Social Entrepreneurship; and Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability.

21. Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)

At the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise, they believe the private-sector has a critical role to play in helping solve the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems. They work directly with companies around the world to identify, understand, and capitalize on these competitive opportunities.

22. Duke University (Durham, NC)

A research and education center based at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) promotes the entrepreneurial pursuit of social impact through the thoughtful adaptation of business expertise.

23. Harvard University (Boston, MA)

Grounded in Harvard Business School’s mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world, the Social Enterprise Initiative aims to inspire, educate, and support current and emerging leaders in all sectors to apply management skills to create social value.

24. New York University (New York, NY)

The Satter Program in Entrepreneurship is to educate, challenge, and inspire social entrepreneurs to leverage intellectual, social, and financial capital resources with a focus on social change, innovation, and impact.

25. Stanford University (Stanford, CA)

Their Center for Social Innovation aims to inspire and educate social innovators, providing knowledge and ideas that strengthen the capacity of current and future leaders to champion social change.

+ Oxford Saïd Business School (Oxford, England)

The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship was launched in 2003 at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University, to promote the advancement of social entrepreneurship worldwide. In addition to delivering innovative teaching programmes, the Skoll Centre has developed a portfolio of research which employs theory but that is also valuable to practitioners in the field.

Best Resources for Social Entrepreneurs

+ Center for Social Innovation (Toronto, Canada)

The Centre for Social Innovation is a social enterprise with a mission to catalyze social innovation in its home base of Toronto and around the globe.

Anything we missed?

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Nouvelle: Chériiii? C’est prêt!!

La première application Facebook d’E-180 est maintenant lancée! « Résolutions » vous permet de partager résolutions et talents avec vos amis et leurs contacts!

Ça teste fort!!

Vous vous êtes promis d’apprendre Photoshop en 2009? Vous serez sûrement surpris de constater que quelqu’un, quelque part, peut vous aider. Faire du pain? Partir une entreprise? L’accordéon? Vos amis vous éblouiront!

Voici différentes façons de profiter de Résolutions :
- Tout d’abord, il faut s’inscrire… (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/apps/application.php?id=40913205799)
- Partagez vos projets pour la nouvelle année, suggérez des talents à vos amis et aidez-les à trouver un mentor!
- Passez le mot : invitez vos amis à utiliser Résolutions. Plus de gens l’utilisent, plus le contenu est riche et varié!
- Ajoutez une boîte Résolutions sur votre profil Facebook;
- Dites-nous ce que vous en pensez!

Éternelle reconnaissance envers nos testeurs: Caroline, Martin, Rosiane, Dominic, Hélène, Marc-André, Aurélie, Pat et Jules…

Merci de vous intéresser à ce projet, et allez-y! Commentez!

News: Writers wanted

There are so many outstanding people doing groundbreaking stuff in the world, organizations who truly care about developing people’s potential to its full extant, human beings who are willing to question the way traditional education is made and to innovate to achieve their goals.

We don’t know them all.

That’s why we are looking for collaborators: writers who want to share their thoughts on education, on social entrepreneurship, or on the educative impact of social media. It could also be on any other topic that is of interest for people who believe that human beings naturally aim to achieve their greatest potential, if presented with the tools and opportunities.

You can be a mother, a professional writer, an home-schooled teenager, a professor, a blogger: as long as you are passionate about your topic.

It can be one article, a series or sporadic contributions.

Send us an email at info[at]e-180.com with your name and the topic you would like to cover.

News: 2009 = E-180′s Year!

Many new things to come this year for us!

We will be launching our Facebook application next week. With this app, you’ll be able to share your learning resolutions with your friends, and find people who can help you to achieve it. Kind of a first draft of what E-180 will be.

Also, we will produce video podcasts on non-traditional education and will enhance our blog content by collaborating with authors from around the world who want to share their vision of non-traditional education, social entrepreneurship or social media.

All of this to keep you busy while we are working on E-180′s official platform.

So stay tuned for the updates, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have comments or suggestions!

News: We heart FFF

No, we don’t heart the Fédération Française de Funk, definitely not the Future of Freedom Foundation, nor Fuck For Forest (well, maybe).

We heart the Friends, Family and the Fools, especially when they’re all included in one person. The FFF are very special people, who can handle passion and hard work as the only return on their investment.

We got our first investor, in the person of Hélène Parent, a former teacher who also happens to be Christine’s cousin and dear friend!

Merci Hélène, et on te rendra fière, tu vas voir.

News: E-180 wins the StartupEmpire contest!

E-180 enters the marvelous world of web startups!

Is Christine going to be the only woman there?

http://www.billionswithzeroknowledge.com/2008/11/11/congratuations-to-the-10-winners-of-the-startupempire-contest/