Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

One Sky is an international NGO that works with governments and communities to help the most disadvantaged and marginalized children. Jenny Bowen is a storyteller. In this interview, she tells the story of OneSky. I would also suggest that you pick up Jenny’s book, Wish You Happy Forever: What China’s Children Taught Me About Moving Mountains. Because Jenny tells the story so well, I recommend the audiobook. It seems like a simple concept. When children interact with loving parents, they learn…well, they learn everything. They learn a sense of self. They develop language and mobility and curiosity and so much more. But, not all children are so lucky as to have loving parents. In some extreme cases, children are neglected. They can wither and eventually die. In 1996, Jenny Bowen and her husband Dick read an article about Children’s Welfare Institutions, or orphanages. They sat in stunned disbelief as they learned the mortality rate of children in these orphanages was upwards of 85%. They were moved to help,

uCodeGirl offers pathways to technology careers for teen girls by tapping into their curiosity, skills, and potential. Betty Gronneberg grew up in Ethiopia. She attended Addis Ababa University where she majored in statistics. Betty recalls a day in college when she saw her name on a list of students who had been accepted into the new Computer Science track. She was one of two female students on the list. This was 1991. The “world wide web” had not yet been invented. Betty learned to write simple programs in BASIC, an early computer language. Betty’s experience grew rapidly as the internet began to spread. She became a country-wide email administrator for Ethiopia. In 1995, she became the first webmaster for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. With each new assignment, Betty noticed that she was one of the few women in the room. In 1995, 37% of computing jobs went to women. Since women make up half of the population, that’s bad news. And, the news is getting worse. Today, according to Betty, “

The Level Market is the premier marketplace for aid and relief supplies. Stephanie Cox grew up looking at National Geographic with her grandfather. “I knew I wanted to travel the world when I was 6, 7, 8 years old,” she explains. After graduating from college, she traveled the world as a freelance journalist. In 2004, she had a near death experience during the Boxing Day Tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people. She worked in Nepal and in Eastern Europe during times of conflict. But, she found it difficult to make a living. Her family encouraged her to return to the United States to find her way forward. Stephanie moved to Colorado to attend graduate school. While there, she pitched an idea to iDE, a global organization that creates market-based solutions in agriculture, water, and sanitation. Stephanie offered to travel to Tanzania to document the impact of iDE’s efforts. Using her skills as a journalist, Stephanie says “I spent three months in the back of a pickup truck.” Her efforts paid off. She lan

Change Creator is a platform for motivated social entrepreneurs who are ready to create solutions to the world’s problems. What would it take to produce one million new change creators per year for the next 10 years? That’s the question that Adam Force, Amy Aitman, and Keisuke Kubota of Change Creator Magazine sat down to answer. The result of that question is a new strategy. Change Creator Magazine is a multimedia platform empowering forward-thinking change creators and established enterprises to drive social progress. Their mission centers around three of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They focus on SDG 1, No Poverty; SDG 6, Clean Water and Sanitation; and SDG 7, Affordable and Clean Energy. According to Adam, “People want to make a living doing something that matters, aligning their capital to values.” Adam thinks of Change Creator Magazine as an ongoing form of mentorship. They interview social entrepreneurs and global icons to learn about their strategies, how they get their ideas, and how a

AguaClara designs gravity-powered water treatment plants for low-income communities around the world. According to May Sharif, Founder and Managing Director of AguaClara, “More than one in ten people around the world don’t have access to clean drinking water on tap.” When people don’t have access to clean drinking water, adults lose time at work and children miss school. They suffer from illness and or even death. “Up to two million people die each year due to waterborne disease,” May explains. “Most of them are children under five.” By providing access to clean drinking water, people prosper and children learn. Conventional water treatment plants typically do not last more than two years in rural and remote communities. They require skilled technicians and proprietary parts to run and to be maintained. AguaClara has a different approach. AguaClara develops community-scale, non-electric water treatment systems. The systems are designed to be operated by a person with a sixth-grade education and are powered

The Web Neutral Project is a comprehensive certification program that calculates, offsets and neutralizes the carbon footprint of websites and digital products. Matt Reid and Jack Amend have known each other almost all of their lives. They grew up just down the street from one another. Matt attended the University of Minnesota where he studied Environmental Science. Jack attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where he studied Political Science. While in school, Jack ran a graphic design and web development company as a side-hustle. After school, Jack and some friends put together a creative agency with a focus on cause-driven organizations. Jack’s company used solar-powered servers to run their company. When some of their customers asked for a way to tell the story of solar-powered servers, Jack hit upon an idea. Could he provide a certification program for the internet, much like LEED certification for buildings? To figure this out, he reached out to Matt. The IT sector consumes 10% of all gl

Hamilton Perkins Collection is a certified B Corporation, offering designer travel bags at an affordable price. Each bag is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles and lined with vinyl from repurposed billboards. Hamilton Perkins found his niche early with retail sales. During university, he had a sneaker business on eBay. He made and sold leather bags. After college he entered financial services, rising through the ranks at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. Yet, he had an entrepreneurial itch. So, he enrolled in an MBA program at William & Mary while working full-time. Not only was Hamilton working full time while pursuing his MBA, but he also had a side-hustle business creating leather bags. To make sure he was creating something that customers would want, he conducted over 1,000 customer interviews. Hamilton describes his strategy, “I spent every break, and every lunch and every happy hour with a customer throughout business school.” One of the key learnings was that consumers wanted their purchases

Social Venture Partners is a nonprofit that uses the venture capital model to help other nonprofits build capacity and grow. Sometimes you want to do more. It might feel satisfying at the moment to march and chant. But does the impact last? You can donate money to social causes, and that’s important. But sometimes, it feels like you want to do even more. One trend in philanthropy is engaged philanthropy. Engaged philanthropy recognizes that you have more than financial capital to give to a cause. You also have intellectual capital and social capital. You can use your skills and experience to help a nonprofit. You have a network of connections which can benefit a nonprofit. Social Venture Partners allows individuals and corporations to practice engaged philanthropy. There are 42 Social Venture Partners affiliates around the globe. Social Venture Partners, Minnesota is one of them. They focus their efforts on serving youth. The partners at Social Venture Partners identify potential nonprofits to target. They

Plaine Products helps reduce single-use plastics by producing natural, vegan shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in returnable, reusable containers. In 2013, Lindsey McCoy was living in the Bahamas and running a non-profit called Save the Bays. “I had zero interest in going into business,” she told me. “I was going to save the world.” As she explored the islands, she noticed the impact of single use plastics. “Without regular trash pick up, you see those water bottles, flip flops and plastic bags in the water and along the side of the road,” she explains. “To me, single-use plastics is one of those things that once you start to notice it, you realize it’s everywhere.” Lindsey tried to reduce her personal use of plastic. But she found it difficult to find plastic-free alternatives to shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. “It began to occur to me that there was a way to solve this by going outside of the non-profit community Providing a product might be a better solution.” When she returned to the United State