Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

Oorja's biomass and solar-powered micro-grids provide affordable and reliable electricity to off-grid communities in rural India. In India, 450 million people lack access to reliable energy. This has several repercussions including a lack of economic development, poor health outcomes, gender inequity, poor education and more. Without reliable electricity, villagers rely on fossil-fuels such as kerosene and diesel. They spend up to 20% of household income on these dirty sources of power. At the same time, people in rural India produce 200 million tons of crop waste per year. This waste is usually burned in the field, producing greenhouse gasses. Clementine Chambon and Amit Saraogi met in a Climate-KIC workshop in 2015. They developed the business model for Oorja during that workshop. Since then they have worked with and interviewed hundreds of people, fully developing their business idea. Oorja builds and maintains decentralized hybrid solar and biomass-powered micro-grids, producing reliable clean energy acro

Mini-Grids are a way to connect more than a billion people to electricity and water. We’ve grown used to the idea of “the internet of things,” big data, and wireless connectivity. But can these technological breakthroughs be used to improve the lives of some of the poorest people in the world? And, will that technology work in the most rugged and off-grid places on earth? That’s what Steama.co does. On Social Entrepreneur, we’ve been looking at how the people around the world suffer from energy poverty can move up the energy ladder. When people don’t have access to reliable electricity, they use expensive, dirty fuels to power their lives. This hurts their health while keeping them trapped in poverty. One answer is mini-grids, powered by clean energy sources such as wind and solar. But, mini-grid operators have unique challenges. But how does someone without a bank account buy electricity? How does the utility read a meter, turn on an account or track usage remotely? Steama.co provides smart meters, wireles

On this Veteran’s Day, we celebrate with Sam Pressler of the Armed Services Arts Partnership or ASAP. What words would you use to describe veterans? Hero? Brave? Or maybe broken or dangerous? How about neighbor, coworker, or community member? Veterans are people like you and me who exist far beyond the hyperbole, and yet they are often misunderstood. Since September 11, 2001, about 1% of the US population has served in the military. Because so few have served, there can be a civilian-military divide, punctuated by common misunderstandings. The Armed Services Arts Partnership or ASAP helps veterans and their families to thrive through arts classes and performances. Their flagship program is a comedy boot camp where veterans learn about comedy, write their own jokes and then perform in front of a live audience. ASAP’s training helps veterans to develop life skills while breaking down the civilian-military divide. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Sam Pressler “Only 10% of veterans are female, but 35% of

EarthSpark International is working to eradicate energy poverty. Energy poverty is the cycle of poverty that exist when people don’t have access to modern fuels, especially electricity. More than a billion people worldwide do not have access to electricity. And even more people do not have access to reliable electricity. For many of these people, they spend a very large portion of their income on energy services such as kerosene, candles, batteries and cell phone charging services. EarthSpark International researches and develops business models that can spin-off and scale to address specific aspects of energy poverty. EarthSpark provides a pre-pay microgrid in Les Anglais, Haiti. They serve over 2000 people with 24-hour electricity powered by solar energy. This solar-powered microgrid provides affordable clean energy. It cuts their customers’ energy costs by up to 80%. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Allison Archambault “We’re working on business models that can be relevant to energy poverty in man

The Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project is dedicated to keeping kids out of adult jails and prisons. Did you make any bad decisions when you were ten years old? I know I did. In many states, including Pennsylvania, children as young as ten years old can be treated by the courts as an adult. When children come into the court system, they can be offered a public defender. However, when children are in trouble in a group, and we know that children often get into trouble in a group setting, only one of the children will be given a public defender. The others are appointed a private attorney. These private attorneys can be private practitioners who lack a support team such as paralegals, social workers or case managers. The Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project supports kids who are prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system, including individuals who were sentenced to life without parole as children. They do that by helping lawyers with low-income clients get their cases transferred from the adult crim

ROC USA is a non-profit organization with a mission of making quality resident ownership possible nationwide. When Paul Bradley was studying economics in university, he became interest in cooperative business models. “It immediately appealed to me,” he told me. “By its structure, it’s a more broadly distributing form of business ownership. Resources are shared more broadly among workers, among members and among consumers of the cooperatives.” Paul was also interested in development work, spending time in Central America. When he returned to his home in Concord, New Hampshire, he found the opportunity to work in development work in his own neighborhood. He worked with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund where he organized mobile home park residents. In the United States, there are around 50,000 mobile home parks. The residents, many of whom are low-income, often own the home in which they live, but they do not own the land on which the home sits. It can be quite expensive to move a mobile home to another l

Instiglio is a nonprofit with a mission of maximizing the social impact of every cent spent on social programs. They do that by tying funding to results. Avnish Gungadurdoss grew up on the island nation of Mauritius. He was drawn to do social work at a young age. “I remember being taken by how much the poor’s trajectory was completely dependent on where they were born,” he told me. “To me that was a crazy thought, that life is up to the random chance of where you were born.” While working in the field and seeing firsthand the gap between the promise of social programs and their outcome, he recognized that most social programs are funded for inputs and activities, not impact. “Policies that look good on paper get implemented in such a poor manner that they rarely deliver results on the ground,” he acknowledged. He and his cofounders decided to do something about that. They founded Instiglio in 2012. Instiglio helps social programs to be more effective in solving the world’s most pressing issues. They do that

Safeena Husain of Educate Girls works with volunteers across Indian villages to find out-of-school girls, bring them back to school and to educate them. As an educated, successful woman, Safeena Husain visited a village, accompanied by her father. Because they were strangers in the village, the local residents were naturally curious. The local villagers asked Safeena’s father about his family. When her father explained that this was his only child, a daughter, the reaction shocked Safeena. “You poor thing,” they said. “Perhaps it is not too late for you. You can still try to have a son.” Safeena thought to herself, “If I am treated like this, what chance does the poor girl in the village have?” When a girl is educated, they have the potential to enter the formal economy, gain employment and lift their families out of poverty. Educate Girls works at the root cause of gender inequality in India's education system. They work with thousands of schools, reaching millions of children in some of India's most remot

Twin Cities RISE transforms lives through personal empowerment and meaningful work. In the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, why does poverty persist across generations? The path out of poverty is complex, but it almost always involves meaningful work. And, while it often takes technical skills to find a job, more often the barrier to work involves power skills – emotional intelligence, social intelligence, confidence, belief, a sense of self-worth. Through their Personal Empowerment program, Twin Cities RISE creates transformative change, self-confidence and self-reliance. Twin Cities RISE helps individuals in poverty to find long-term, meaningful and stable employment. When someone joins Twin Cities RISE, they are assigned a coach. They participate in the Personal Empowerment program and they are connected with employment opportunities. Twin Cities RISE provides work skills training, internship opportunities, job search assistance, and employment placement. Twin Cities RISE creates

Anushka Ratnayake of myAgro uses a combination of savings, inputs and training to increase the income of smallholder farmers. As a social entrepreneur, Anushka Ratnayake has seen startup challenges that are not common in other regions. For example, less than a year after launching myAgro, an armed conflict broke out in northern Mali. A group associated with Al-Qaeda set up a new state in Norther Mali. In response, the French military launched an operation and ousted the rebels. Anushka Ratnayake, the founder of myAgro was an early employee with Kiva. There she learned about the power of microfinance to impact poverty. She also worked with One Acre Fund where her job was to develop a repayment process for smallholder farmers. She heard from the farmers that they wanted to prepay their loan, or in other words, they were asking for help in saving money for the future. Seventy percent of the population of Mali are smallholder farmers, most living on less than two dollars per day. The farmers have seasonal incom

Satyan Mishra of Drishtee is developing sustainable communities in the villages of India. In the late 1990s, while Satyan Mishra was working on a government contract, he had the opportunity to visit many villages across India. In India, more than 775 million people live in small villages. Nearly half of them live on less than one dollar per day. Satyan saw how the presence of a computer in a village could have an impact. His company, Drishtee started setting up kiosks in villages. By 2006 they had set up over 1,000 village kiosks. And yet, as Satyan told me, “I realized that what we had done had not really made any impact on the community.” Economic challenges, social constraints and environmental degradation remained. So, Satyan and his cofounders at Drishtee decided to take the company in a different direction. While they continue to work at the village level, today they use the power of entrepreneurship to take on the social challenges of the villages. They take a holistic approach to community developme

Yvette Ondachi uses technology to connect smallholder farmers to markets. Yvette Ondachi is a biochemist. She was a pharmaceutical product manager across several east African countries. “The problem I encountered was, most people couldn’t afford [medicine],” Yvette told me. Even after an experiment in which the company lowered the cost of medications by 75%, many people still could not get access to medicine. “One of the things that propelled me,” Yvette explained, “was watching mothers, helpless as their children suffered from preventable diseases.” She knew she had to do something to make a difference. “Something within me became very restless. I said, ‘I have to do something about this.’” Most of the people who were unable to buy medicine were smallholder farmers, those who farm on small plots of land and live off of their crops. Globally, there are about 500 million smallholder farmers. They produce 80% of the food consumed in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In Kenya, around 42 million people work at least

Martin von Hildebrand has been working with indigenous people for the last 42 years to protect their rights and the environment. Martin lived with indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest from the 1972 through 1980. There, he witnessed rubber tappers exploiting the lands and missionaries converting the indigenous people from their traditional ways. By listening to the indigenous people, he was able to learn what they wanted, and to explore ways to secure their future. Martin realized that, the indigenous people needed to secure land rights, the right to self-governance, and environmental protections. Martin worked with the government to secure all of these rights. In Colombia, 26 million hectares were set aside. Indigenous people have their own governmental system, and they are managing their environmental programs. Martin’s work is spreading beyond Colombia to the rest of the Amazon. The Amazon is critical for so many reason. The Amazon is a rich source of biodiversity. Twenty percent of the world’s oxyg

Anne Field is interested in “not only for profit” businesses.   Anne Field is an award-winning writer, editor and journalist. Just over ten years ago, she wrote an article on for-profit social enterprises and impact investing. At the time, the term impact investing was new. The B-Lab had just been formed, and new social enterprises were blooming. Anne became fascinated how companies could make a profit with a purpose. Today, Anne is best known for her Forbes blog Not Only for Profit. She writes about for-profit social enterprises and impact investing. She primarily focuses on the startup journey. She is one of the people I closely follow on social media. In this conversation, Anne describes where her interest in social entrepreneurship and impact investing began. She describes some of the forces behind the growth of social entrepreneurship including the financial meltdown, the frustration with inaction on some of the larger issues of our time, and the important role of millennials. She describes four trends

New Profit supports systems-changing ideas to advance equity.   America has a problem. We need ten million more people with degrees and quality credentials by the year 2025. J.B. Schramm wants to do something about that, in a way that advances equity. J.B. was a co-founder, and now serves on the board of College Summit. College Summit partners with high schools in low-income communities to empower students. They see students as peer-leaders. To date, they have served over 250,000 students from 500 schools nationwide. College summit saw quite a bit of success. President Obama awarded College Summit a portion of his noble prize fund. They were selected by the World Economic Forum as the US Social Entrepreneur of the Year. J.B. enjoyed the program work, but eventually, like very great social entrepreneur, he began thinking about how to shift the system. He began doing field work in order to advance equity across the entire system.   Today, J.B. leads New Profit’s Learn to Earn Fund. Learn to Earn scales proven

BasicNeeds works in partnership with people living with mental illness.  Picture it. A young Chris Underhill and his wife are making their way out of a large hospital in Malawi where they have just been given wonderful news. They are expecting their first child. The year is 1969. The courtyard is filled with family members of hospital patients. Smoke from cooking fills the air. The hallways are crowded as the young is compelled forward, carried by their good news. As they round a corner, they come upon an unexpected scene. They find themselves confronted with a cage containing five men. The cage is surrounded by small children poking the men with sticks and taunting them. As Chris would later discover, this scene is far from uncommon for mental health patients in low-resource settings. This bittersweet moment compelled Chris Underhill into a life of service on behalf of mentally ill patients in low-resource settings. Globally, nearly six hundred million people suffer from mental illness. In low-income count