Posts tagged ‘Resources’
This Summer, fund your startup
At E-180, we believe that mentorship is the most powerful tool to further your education. We also believe that there’s no need to pay thousands of dollars to learn something. Actually, we even believe that you can be PAID to learn.
So, you have a startup idea/project/fantasy you’ve been thinking about for months. But you don’t have the money, the contacts, the skills to go from passion to action. Here are 4 programs that will not only provide a wide array of tools to get your idea off the ground, but that will also pay you to do so, wherever you are based in the world.
04/06/09 Update: We just came across GoodCompany Ventures. Check out our post about it.
Description
Their goal is to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale. Then they introduce you to later stage investors—or occasionally even acquirers.
How much
Rarely more than $20,000
When
From January through March and from June through August
Where
The Bay Area, United States
What else
- Once a week dinner with startup founders, venture capitalists, lawyers, accountants, journalists, investment bankers, and executives from big technology companies
- Mediation between founders
- Pitch coaching
- Lawyers on deferred payment plan
What you need to give
2 to 10% of your companies’ stakes.
Description
Get your startup funded and off the ground while learning from the best.
How much
Up to $18,000
When
From May through August
Where
Boulder, United States
What else
- Mentorship
- Office space
- Investors Demo Day
What you need to give
6% of your companies’ stakes.
Description
Help great people with great ideas build great companies.
How much
Between US$10,000 and $25,000.
When
From May through late August
Where
Philadelphia, United States
What else
- 3 different ways to get involved: as a hacker, a strategist or an innovator
- Does not need to be an IT, software or Web project
- Collaborative work space
- Mentors and Advisors who have “been there and done it” before
- Donated legal, accounting and administrative help to form your company properly
- Introductions to funding sources (including Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, private investors and public sources of funding)
- Hackers or strategists
What you need to give
4 to 8% of your companies’ stakes.
Description
Challenge Your World is an an investment agency with a conscience. They invest in people with ideas, and help bring those ideas to life. Their mission? Redefine value and generate a new concept of profit. They embrace triple bottom line accounting and social entrepreneurship.
Where
Montreal, Canada
What else
- It is based on a contest. It is a competition for funding for great new business ideas. It is open to anyone with a great business idea that meets the following criteria: it provides a positive impact on people, a positive net impact on the environment, and has strong financial potential.
- Coaching and mentorship
We’ll see you at one of these this Summer!
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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