Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG); Socially Responsible Investing (SRI); and Impact Investing: these terms have slightly different meaning, but in the end all lead to the same conclusion. When we invest, we are owners of companies. We have an obligation to take that ownership responsibility seriously in order to influence the environmental and social impact of companies. For today’s episode of Social Entrepreneur, we continue our May #MoneyMonday series with Matthew Patsky of Trillium Asset Management. Trillium has been recognized as a “Best for the World” BCorp. We dig in to the governance aspect of ESG. Trillium not only screens investments into or out of their portfolio based on ESG, they use their shareholder status to improve the environmental, social and governance policies of companies they hold in their portfolio. Trillium Asset Management works with individual investors, financial advisors and institutional investors. For individuals, they combine investment performance with environmental an

Student loan debt in the US is over $1.3 billion. You can watch the student loan debt grow in real time here. And it’s no wonder. Over 70% of students in the US take on debt to pay for education. At the same time, over $100 million in private aid (scholarships) go unclaimed on an annual basis. This is why Christopher Gray cofounded Scholly. If you have heard Christopher’s name before, it would not be surprising. He is well known for having been awarded $1.3 million in scholarships, a feat that took him 7 months of hard work. You might also remember the disagreement his pitch caused among the “sharks” on the television show Shark Tank. Scholly is the simple, comprehensive and accurate scholarship matching platform that has helped students win over $35 million in scholarship awards. In less than two minutes, you can input your data and be instantly matched with scholarship opportunities. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Christopher Gray “Scholly is a mobile and web app that makes it simple for high scho

Startup life is not for the faint of heart. When Nur-E Farhana Rahman tells you about startup life, she is authentic, transparent and genuine. There are worries about cash flow. There are struggles with hiring the right people and picking the right suppliers. She tells a painful story of falling short on a Kickstarter campaign. In her stories, there is nothing glamorous about startup life. That is not to say that her jewelry startup, Knotty Gal, has not been successful. On the contrary, they have been able to grow the company while bootstrapping. Customers stop them on the street to comment on their products. They have been featured in Forbes Huffington Post, Daily Candy, Conscious Magazine, MSNBC and other news outlets. As their revenues rise, so does their impact. Through Knotty Gal, Nur-E is able to support girls attending Bhandari Girls’ School, one of the first all girls’ school in Bogra, Bangladesh. The school has special meaning to Nur-E. Her great grandfather started the school. Her mother graduated f

Aviary is a new venture capital seed fund, focused on mission-driven, for-profit conscious companies. It is run by Luni Libes. Luni was first a guest on Social Entrepreneur in episode 3. He is our first returning guest. The last time Luni was with us, it was to describe how Fledge, the conscious company accelerator, works. Fledge has graduated 52 companies from their accelerator. They have 7 more in the program right now. As part of our #MoneyMonday in May series, we talked to Luni about several topics: The challenge of finding early seed capital for impact entrepreneurs. Why he started a venture capital seed fund. Luni’s plans to expand Fledge to new cities around the world. And his latest book, The Pinchot Impact Index. If you are an accredited impact investor and you are interested in learning more, Aviary is building a community of co-investors. You can contact Aviary through the contact form on their web site at http://aviary.vc. Quotes from Luni Libes, Aviary Venture Capital Seed Fund “What you d

Lakheni works in South African townships. If you’re not familiar with the townships of South Africa, during apartheid, these were the areas outside of city centers where black people were required to live. During these years, the South African government failed to invest in infrastructure such as water, sewage, electricity and roads. Without infrastructure, commerce and prosperity have been slow to return to the townships. Nokwethu Khojane, grew up under apartheid, and therefore lived in the township. As apartheid was reversed, she had the opportunity to go to university and to find a meaningful career. Her obvious intelligence and hard work gave her many career choices, but her heart was with the people still in the township. While at the University of Cape Town, Nokwethu studied early childhood education. She wanted to tackle the problems of poverty at the root. One of the courses she took was Social Innovation Lab. Her professor encouraged her to go to the crèche (daycare) in the township and to observe. E

Farmer’s markets play an important role in our food ecosystem. Miriam Haas has been tinkering with the model of the Farmer’s market for more than 25 years. There’s so much to love about Miriam and the story of Down to Earth Markets. We talked about Farmer’s Markets as a tool for economic development, especially in abandoned town centers. Miriam refers to farmer’s markets as local community-scale businesses that sell neighbor to neighbor. We talked about local produce as an alternative to the industrialization of our food. We talked about eating clean, local and organic. I also found it interesting that Down to Earth Markets has found a way to scale the local farmer’s market model, while being recognized as a “Best for the World” company by B-Lab, the certifying body for B Corporations. Down to Earth Farmers Markets manages fifteen farmers markets in and around New York City. The company was founded in 1991 as Community Markets and rebranded in 2012 as Down to Earth Farmer’s Markets. Social Entrepreneurship

ImpactAlpha provides business reporting in the area of impact investing. ImpactSpace is an open data platform providing information for the impact investing marketplace. It’s easy to see why people compare these two platforms to TechCrunch and CrunchBase. ImpactSpace first came to my attention when NextBillion (Episode 54) announced a media partnership (announcement here). ImpactSpace is quickly becoming the standard profile source for thousands of companies and investors. There you can find the profiles of over 6,000 impact companies, more than 2,000 impact investors and more than 3,000 impact deals. Zuleyma Bebell began her university career thinking that she was going to go into intelligence work. She soon began to notice how a lack of economic opportunity was a root cause of radicalization around the world. When her friend Ravi Kurani told her about his idea for ImpactSpace, Zuleyma replied “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” This offer led to the two of them becoming co-founders of Impac

When Audrey Cheng was working with Savannah Fund, Africa’s leading technology seed fund and accelerator, she ran into a problem. She could not find software developers. She noticed that she was not the only one who was experiencing this problem. In fact, a 2011 survey found that, in Kenya, 45% of employers with developer positions were not able to find qualified coders. And the developers they were able to find were very expensive. Many Kenyan companies outsourced work to India, Eastern Europe and other regions. Audrey began to ask questions. With unemployment rates around 40%, and universities teaching computer science, why were there so few qualified developers in Kenya? Audrey realized that Kenyan universities and training schools were not teaching the needed skills. With her cofounder Frank Tamre, Audrey set out to solve her problem. She and Frank created Moringa School. Moringa has three programs. Junior Moringa School teaches basic coding skills. Moringa School is an intensive 16 week bootcamp where asp

Listening is a key strength of Nedgine Paul. Before launching Anseye Pou Ayiti (Teach for Haiti), she spent more than three years actively listening to her native Haiti. The result of her listening is a highly contextualized solution that turns teachers into community builders. Anseye Pou Ayiti recruits, trains, and supports high-quality teachers where they are needed most. Over the years there have been many stories told of Haiti, from conquest to coups; from corruption to catastrophe. Anseye Pou Ayiti is creating a new narrative of Haiti, one of a capable nation rebuilding itself; one of pride in culture, customs and community. And it all began with listening. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Nedgine Paul: “I think language matters a ton.” “What troubled me was that many of them had school end at sixth grade.” “From that point forward, I’ve been trying to find the answer to that why.” “You want to be a changemaker, you want to have an influence but you have to be informed.” “Zip code does not determi

Impact investing is always happening, whether we think about it or not. If you put money in a bank account, the bank uses your money and there is an impact. If you invest in the stock market, even if you invest in an index fund of all stocks, your money is still making an impact. The only question is, are you consciously choosing the kind of impact that you want to have. Consumers are waking up, becoming conscious of the impact of their spending in alignment with their values. Millennials are choosing to work in jobs that are more closely aligned to their values. In the same way, investors are beginning to ask questions about impact of their investments. Amit Bouri is a thought leader in the area of impact investing. He is the cofounder and CEO of GIIN, The Global Impact Investing Network. GIIN is a nonprofit with a mission to increase the scale and effectiveness of impact investing. They provide several tools to help anyone from students to impact investors to make data-driven decisions. Their site is rich w

Building empathy is the first step in becoming a changemaker. And what better way to build empathy than to travel? But not all travel is created equally. As it has been said, The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. When you travel, you have choices of just how “local” the experience is. You can stay in a homogenous hotel chain, a local boutique hotel, stay in the home of a close friend, or even stay in the home of a stranger. You might want the most local and authentic experience possible, but how do you know whom to trust? Trust is the currency of the shared economy. Horizon is allowing people to tap into their trusted network to find accommodations from a couch for a night to an apartment for a month. And, by allowing us to tap into our network, we are building empathy. Building Empathy Quotes from Drew Meyers: “This is a really, really unique big world that we live in, but if you really get down to it, and actually talk to people, we’re all in the same boat.” “We enable trave

Today’s founding and funding series dives into the area of funding a social venture. I am honored to be joined today by Sonja Rossteuscher of Triple S Advisory & Consulting. Having served as the Chief Financial Officer of the African Development Corporation, Sonja brings a great deal of experience in funding social enterprises at all stages of growth. Sonja took the time today to answer several questions today. In fact, I almost called this episode, “Everything you wanted to know about funding your social venture, but were afraid to ask.” Here are some questions that she tackles: What are some forms of funding that social entrepreneurs can consider? (6:32) What is the difference between an angel investor and a venture capitalist? How do I think differently about an angel investor and a venture capital fund and what they might need? (9:09) When should a startup founder NOT seek capital? What are some pitfalls when seeking capital? (11:30) What is equity and what is dilution? (13:58) Before approaching inv

In celebration of Earth Day 2016, we’re featuring Mathieu Senard of Alter Eco. Alter Eco is a full circle sustainability company – from the earth to the earth. Their products are organic, fair trade, carbon neutral and, even their packaging is biodegradable. Their mission is nothing short of global transformation through ethical relationships with small-scale farmers, and an integral sustainability orientation at every point on the supply chain. Globally, Alter Eco works with about 25,000 small-scale farmers. For Earth Day 2016 I wanted to feature a food company. After all, of all of the buying decisions we make every day, one of the most frequent and important decisions we make is the kind of food we’re going to consume. As Anna Lappé said, “Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” Evidently, quite a few people believe that Alter Eco is creating the kind of world that they want. Alter Eco’s US revenues are at $22 million plus an additional $20 – 25 million from their

Impact measurement is critical to success as a social entrepreneur. We become social entrepreneurs because we want to make an impact, but how do we measure our impact without detracting from our resources that are making an impact? Investors, business owners and customers can view our impact with different lenses, and therefore have completely different impact measurement needs. Impact measurement can be complex and resource-intensive, but does it have to be? Is there a better way? Sasha Dichter of Acumen has a better idea – lean data. Lean data uses short, simple surveys, delivered via mobile phone to assess whether or not people’s lives are better as a result of our products and services. While the idea of mobile phone surveys is not new, the availability of mobile phones around the world now makes this possible in the poorest regions. Impact Measurement Quotes from Sasha Dichter: “You ask any entrepreneur what the need most after the money, and it’s a great team.” “The ‘here’ where I am now did not rea

Founding and funding a social enterprise requires several practical steps. In today’s episode of Social Entrepreneur, Jesse Finfrock of Morrison & Forester walks us through these steps. With their headquarters in San Francisco, they see a lot of startups take off and other blow up. What makes the difference? Keep in mind that Morrison & Forester is a global firm, working across a global network of 17 offices located in key technology and financial centers in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Their clients include some of the largest financial institutions, Fortune 100 companies, and leading technology and life sciences companies. Jesse works with Morrison & Forester in their impact space, where money meets mission. He works closely with Susan Mac Cormac, who popularized the idea of the hybrid corporation – part for-profit, part nonprofit. Jesse took the time to answer several key question about founding and funding a company. I’ve listed the questions below with a timestamp to make them easier

How Our Inspirational Story Can Keep Us Stuck What happens when our inspirational story keeps us from transformational change? We all have a story. Sometimes those stories hold us back. “I’m not good at math.” “Women aren’t supposed to behave like that.” “It’s too late for me.” Stories can also inspire. They drive our life forward with their narrative. “I’m creating something epic.” “I’m going to help a billion people.” “I overcame adversity to make an impact in the world.” But is it possible that an inspirational story can only take us so far, and, in fact, can become a burden that keeps us from reaching the next level. Maria Rodriguez had a story that she had to overcome. Maria grew up in Guatemala City. Her family owned a coffee plantation. She was a 20-year old, rebellious student. She was a woman in Guatemala. And she was studying the hospitality industry. Her story was on a particular trajectory. While she was at university, a guest lecturer came to speak. In typical fashion, Maria was not listening.

If you want to know how to scale a social enterprise, Michael Pirron of Impact Makers might be someone to ask. Not only is his company recognized as a “Best for the World” B Corporation, they are also on the Inc. list of Fastest Growing Companies for five years in a row. And, they have been listed as a Best Places to Work. That’s a combination that piques my interest. Impact Makers is a for-profit Virginia benefit corporation that is owned by two non-profits. In 2015, Impact Makers gifted ownership of the company to two organizations that support philanthropy and community development: Virginia Community Capital and The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Michael Pirron: “The typical path is the Warren Buffet or Bill Gates model: work really hard, be an Attila the Hun egregious business man. To make a lot of money is the focus, so that you can have an exit, cash out and then do philanthropy at some point.” “I’m not a trust fund kid. I’m not indep

Founding and funding a social enterprise: how do you start and what do you do? Every Friday in April we’re going to talk about practical tips to help you become a startup founder and how to fund your dreams. Today, we’re going to kick it off by discussing the series with practical advice. The series will touch on 10 different themes:   Personal Development – Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management Determine my aspirations - Social impact, freelancer, join a company, found a startup, create a small/medium enterprise, system-wide change Design the business - Customer empathy, ideation, problem definition, rapid prototyping, minimally viable products, field testing Define the business - Business model, customer segments, value proposition, product-market fit, channels, partnerships, cost structures, revenue streams Fund the business - Bootstrapping, pitching, friends & family, crowdfunding, angel investors, seed funding, venture capital, Series A Launch the business - Stru