Start Some Good: The Blog: This Week in Social Entrepreneurship
I’m reblogging this from the startsomegood Tumblr — lots of awesome links and resources for social innovators:
In our “This Week in Social Entrepreneurship” series, each Friday we will feature the top stories in Social Entrepreneurship for the week that we find to be noteworthy, novel, and thought-provoking. What are your favorite stories this week in Social Entrepreneurship? Let’s start a discussion!
- This week, we have some very exciting Ashoka news—the winners of the fifth annual Staples/Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition were picked and we are proud to announce that one of them is a StartSomeGood campaign alum! The competition, part of Ashoka’s Youth Venture, looks for youth-led ventures that use innovation and technology to solve some of the world’s most pressing social issues. You can read more about the details of the competition here. Vineet Singal, founder of Anjna Patient Education, is one of four winners that will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Techonomy 2011 in addition to a cash prize to support his venture’s growth. There is also a great write-up about Vineet in the Huffington Post. Congrats, Vineet—you’ve made us here at StartSomeGood so proud!
- California Governer Jerry Brown approved two very important bills for social entrepreneurship this week. These bills created two new classes of corporations in California—the Benefit Corporation and the Flexible Purpose Corporation. California is the sixth state to approve the Benefit Corporation and the first to approve the Flexible Purpose Corporation. These corporate classifications allow businesses to pursue the maximization of stakeholder value, rather than just purely stockholder value—i.e. a corporation can pursue purpose along with profit. Want to learn more about the Benefit Corporation and Flexible Purpose Corporation? Read about the details on Social Earth.
- As Halloween approaches, many of us are most excited for the candy—whether you’re still young enough to go trick-or-treating or you just can’t wait to eat the leftovers. It is a pretty well known fact that many chocolate producers use cocoa that is at least partially harvested by child laborers. In addition, most fair trade chocolate isn’t very appealing to the typical child. This week, GOOD published a list of fair trade candy that is also kid-friendly. Delicious ethical candy—sounds like a win-win!
- Mashable published an article called 5 Tech Innovations That Could Change the Developing World. As innovations allows for technologies to become cheaper, more and more world-changing products are accessible to people living in the developing world. Mashable lists some of the more recent technologies that are helping developing countries catch up to the rest of the world—tablets, laptops, mobile phones, alternative energy, and improved sanitation.
- Bill Drayton, founder and CEO of Ashoka, sat down with Dowser to discuss a new concept for problem solving called collaborative entrepreneurship. Bill Drayton believes that empathy stands at the root of social change. His vision is that we, as entrepreneurs, are part of a team that can combine our skills, passion, drive, and knowledge in order to pave the way for a more empathetic generation that has the power to change the world. You can read Dowser’s interview with Drayton here.
____________________________________________________________
Social entrepreneurs, has all this great SocEnt news inspired you to start your own good? Do you have a social enterprise, a non-profit, or an amazing idea that needs some momentum to take off? Visit our site to find out how to start your own campaign today. Still have questions? We have answers—check out our FAQ section.
“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.
Start Some Good: The Blog: This Week in Social Entrepreneurship
I’m so excited by the newest addition to the StartSomeGood Blog: This Week in Social Entrepreneurship. Each Friday we’ll post the latest news, great resources, inspiration and more in the world of social innovation. Check out the first edition below:
In our “This Week in Social Entrepreneurship” series, each Friday we will feature the top stories in Social Entrepreneurship for the week that we find to be noteworthy, novel, and thought-provoking. What are your favorite stories this week in Social Entrepreneurship? Let’s start a discussion!
- Ventureneer is a great resource for someone starting or owning a nonprofit or social business. This week, Ventureneer features a list of the 25 Best Social Media for Social Good Blogs. These are must-reads for socially driven businesses that are looking to implement social media strategies.
- Are you looking to “Work on Purpose”? In this article on Social Impact Jobs, Echoing Green discusses a recent survey it put together in conjunction with Idealist that found many nonprofit managers are expecting to hire for new positions this coming year. The article also features some social impact job openings.
- Environmental Leader published 12 Ways to Turn Green Intentions into Green Actions. This article gives practical tips on how green businesses can turn the green intentions of consumers that are stuck in the middle (not environmental activists but also not anti-green) into green actions.
- Fast Company featured three of the standout winners of the Powering Economic Opportunity: Create a World That Works Competition, hosted by the eBay Foundation and Ashoka Changemakers. The challenge asked participants to come up with “the world’s most innovative market-based solutions that create economic opportunity and generate employment for disadvantaged populations.”
AMP Summit Panel: Mobilizing for Social Good
I’m honored to say that I’ll be speaking at the AMP Summit, on a panel entitled Mobilizing for Social Good: The Changing Face of Philanthropy on September 29. I’m seriously humbled to be speaking alongside:
Mark Drapeau, Director of Innovative Social Engagement, Microsoft
Tom Serres, Founder and CEO, Rally.org
and Kiersten Regelin of Hewlett-Packard
Interested in joining what promises to be an awesome conference here in DC? Details for requesting an invitation are on AMP’s homepage. Hope to see you there!
Tech Community, are we MTV or TED?
A fantastic article in the Washington Post, “Tech Community, are we MTV or TED,” which explores something I’ve been thinking a lot about. In a community that loves to think of itself as world-changing, why then, “…are so many great developers spending their time trying to create products specifically designed to addict and help us waste our time?”
It’s a well-written, thought-provoking piece, and one that has the power to potentially shock the tech world into returning to its roots of building things that truly matter.
Our social enterprise, StartSomeGood.com, is currently in the running for a $10k grant through the Pepsi Refresh Challenge. As part of our promotion of it, my sister helped me put together this video, showing how hard I’m “training” for the challenge (garnering lots of funny looks from passerbys)! Check it out — if nothing else, I think you’ll enjoy getting to see me pour an entire bottle of Pepsi over my head!
Start Some Good: The Blog: New Campaign Highlights On StartSomeGood
I love reblogging from the StartSomeGood blog and being able to highlight some really amazing ventures currently running on the site. Check them out and consider supporting some incredible social entrepreneurs!
Happy Friday everyone! Whether you’re sipping on morning java or getting your afternoon caffeine kick, take a few minutes to check out some of StartSomeGood’s latest campaigns.
Berkeley Youth Alternatives (BYA) is looking to fund a Youth Garden Program to provide teens living in poverty with internships, where they can engage in positive activities and gain valuable job skills. The paid internships teach teens how to live a healthier lifestyle by growing their own food for their families and communities. BYA also helps them open their own bank accounts and teaches them how to manage their finances.
FRAEC is an organization dedicated to improving US-Russian relations through The Story Stream Project, a campaign to bring stories of Russians and Americans making a difference in their local communities. The funds they raise will be used to cover the travel expenses to Russia to interview individuals and to produce the documentary that captures their stories.
The indigenous people of North Sulawesi, Indonesia live a life riffed with poverty and inhospitable living conditions. Due to the lack of education and health care, many of them die of complications from treatable and preventable diseases. Learn To Live is a three-week program that will send a team of medical professionals to treat these patients and to set up health care clinics. Please click here for more details about the program.
Hesperian has been publishing and distributing illustrated books for the survival of people in poor and under-resourced communities for over 30 years. Given the growing availability of mobile phones in rural areas, Hesperian is looking to use mobile technology to provide life saving health information to those living in poverty. Your support for this campaign will help create a mobile phone application to help people who might not have access to doctors, hospitals and medical information.
One in seven Australians has been a victim of racism in the past year. All Together Now, a non-profit organization in Australia, is going to Give Racism The Finger In Melbourne. Partnering with The Body Shop, over 50,000 customers have added their fingerprint to the canvas store, symbolizing their willingness to speak up when they witness racism. To promote this campaign, funds are being raised to print and place these posters Melbourne’s biggest train stations.
Shouting Fire is not an ordinary radio station. It is an audio nexus for ideas and engagement, an online salon where you will be able to listen to an eclectic mix of programming or access the content you want on demand from philosophy to poetry to politics. Click here to learn more about what Shouting Fire aims to bring to you.
Did you know that most of America’s recycling programs does not accept the prescription bottles? That becomes a problem when with 76 million baby boomers and over 3.6 billion prescriptions to fill. A recent college graduate as come up with a solution with two new designs: a prescription bottle made of glass and silicone and the other out of 18/8 food grade stainless steel. Donate here today to help make environmentally friendly and reusable prescription bottles.
Legal systems in many developing countries are no more transplants than their former European colonial countries. Often times, they are viewed as a means of oppression. OpenTrial aims to reduce corruption and violence in developing-world legal systems by working with locals to collect and upload data to put judges, police and prosecutors under public scrutiny. An international support base is needed to provide the funds to pay people to do this - starting in Indonesia - and your donation will be a beginning that will fuel action.
Budak's Tumblr: From SF, but living in DC. Social Entrepreneur and Travel Writer. I like adventures, roadtrips, photography, California and empanadas.
