News
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Kiva Hits $100 Million in Loans
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From Brilliant Blog to Business Opportunity
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Ashoka and Google's Million Dollar Friendship
Using Advertising Revenue For Good
Published October 12, 2009 @ 12:30PM PT
A few years ago, Freerice.com exploded across the interwebs. The idea was simple, play a game where you had to correctly identify the definition of a given word, have the site serve ads, then donate that ad revenue to the UN World Food Program. They routinely get more than 500,000 visitors per month and have donated some 69 billion grains of rice so far. Perhaps even more importantly, their creative simple model has inspired a number of others to take similar approaches to fundraising.
GamesThatGive.net uses a similar model, but takes it to the next level. When you visit the site, you can select from a pretty good array of favorite time-killer games like Solataire, Sudoku, Memory, and more. GamesThatGive sells advertisements to major brands like Propel, Mastercard, Pepsi, and others, and then donates 70% of that revenue to charities that you can read about as you play.
Today, GamesThatGive announced that Domino's was their newest advertiser. Domino's cited this creative way for people to give even during an economic downturn as a major reason for their participation: "People are always looking for a way to give to causes they care about, and GamesThatGive provides an easy and fun way to donate in a way consumers can embrace, even during tough economic times. We are excited to be a part of this unique and innovative website launch." said Jenny Fouracre, spokesperson for Domino's Pizza.
It's a creative and fun site, and definitely one to watch.
Nutrition Bar With Roots in Mid-East Peace Fastest Growing in USA
Published August 19, 2009 @ 07:08PM PT
According to recent market data by Nielsen and SPINS, KIND Bars are the fastest growing bar in the USA. This is great news for people who care about social business, because KIND bars are a part of PeaceWorks, Inc. a company that has been using social business to promote cooperation and peace in the Middle East since the early 1990s.
PeaceWorks, Inc. describes itself as a "not-ONLY-for-profit." It began in 1994 when founder Daniel Lubetzky traveled to Israel to explore how investment in social ventures could bring together Israelis and Arabs. As the company grew, Daniel and PeaceWorks eventually launched the OneVoice Movement to amplify the voice of average citizens towards ending the conflict.
KIND began a few years ago when Lubetzky became more interested in and worried about the rising obesity epidemic. The bar was created to answer the need for something both good tasting and good for you. The bar has won a number of awards, as has it's founder.
In 2008, Daniel was a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. I had the chance to interview him briefly at the Skoll World Forum earlier this year. It's great to see his company's spectacular growth (60% increase in super markets and 30% in natural food stores, in the last 12 years), and the fact that he's still so committed to the social mission that got him engaged in the first place.
SWF09 Interviews: Daniel Lubetzky from Nathaniel Whittemore on Vimeo.
(photocredit: perceivecreative.com)
Sonal Shah Confirmed to Keynote SoCap09
Published June 18, 2009 @ 11:20AM PT
The 
Social Capital Markets conference is one of the hottest events in the social enterprise space. By bringing together actors from entrepreneurs to social venture capitalists to wealth managers to academics to consultants, their goal is to really demonstrate and convene the entire capital-for-good landscape.
This year, in a sign of the new times, the SoCap team has just announced the significant participation of members of the new White House Office of Social Innovation, including a keynote by Director Sonal Shah which will "outline the Obama administration's plans for getting involved in the social enterprise community, both for- and non-profit, to effectively channel government impact investment and public private partnerships."
This is a really exciting announcement, both for SoCap who are bringing together an even more impressive group than the first time around, but also for all of us who are excited and anxious to see the Office of Social Innovation's plans for bridging the social entreprise and policy spaces.
Full text of the press release below:
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Social Capital Markets Announces White House Participation at 2009 Conference
White House Office of Social Innovation to play key role, including Keynote from Director Sonal Shah
San Francisco, CA (June 17, 2009) - The Social Capital Markets Conference, which will hold its highly anticipated second annual SoCap conference September 1-3 in San Francisco, confirms today the participation of White House officials in the event's full three-day program - including a keynote address from Obama appointee Sonal Shah, Director of the newly created Office of Social Innovation.
"The Obama administration has shown remarkable commitment to fostering social innovation," said SoCap09 founder Kevin Jones. "We're thrilled that the Office of Social Innovation has chosen to use SoCap09, which sits at the nexus of policy, investment for impact and social entrepreneurship, as a platform for moving forward."
Shah has indicated that her keynote will outline the Obama administration's plans for getting involved in the social enterprise community, both for- and non-profit, to effectively channel government impact investment and public private partnerships.
The goal of the new office is to bring together private and public sector organizations in new and powerful ways. Under the direction of Ms. Shah, the team will actively identify innovative programs that are successfully tackling social problems, and assist in scaling them across the country through seed money and government backing. Shah's talk will be followed by a panel on taking effective programs to scale and the challenges for-profit social enterprises face when accessing government funds. Administration officials will be involved in all three days of the conference, including the final day of community-driven sessions.
In addition to participation from the White House, SoCap will bring together a global sampling of traditional investors, social entrepreneurs, impact investors, philanthropists, new media, NGO's and non-profits, wealth managers, development agencies, venture capitalists, MBA students and other groups interested in the growing opportunities of social capital. Last year's sold-out conference gathered attendees from 6 continents and 26 countries.
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About SOCAP09
SOCIAL CAPITAL MARKETS (SoCap09) convenes events to highlight the growing field of social capital, people investing with the end goal of creating social change. SoCap's goal is to make connections, generate partnerships and to increase the acceleration of capital to good. Social Capital Markets brings together a unique mix of the world's top social innovators - investors, donors, entrepreneurs, and thought-leaders-catalysts of change across the globe. Last year's 2008 conference gathered more than 650 leading global investors and entrepreneurs from 26 countries and 6 continents, providing a unique forum for thought and business leaders to collaborate and set in motion new market-based solutions for the 21st century.
FrontlineSMS:Medic and The Extraordinaries Win Big at NetSquared
Published May 28, 2009 @ 11:16AM PT
First and second prize-winning teams from n2y4: 2nd place project: The Extraordinaries: Mr. Mystery, Ben Rigby, Jacob Colker / 1st place project: FrontlineSMS: Medic - Isaac Holeman, Alex Harsha, Dieterich Law (photo from elstudio)
NetSquared's annual spring conference has become the go-to place to discover innovative social change technology products. Each year, they sponsor a project challenge that gives social tech innovators - usually grouped around some theme - the chance to win cash prizes, mobilize peers, and get great advice. Last year's big winners at the "mapping" themed challenge were crisis info crodwsourcers Ushahidi. While I wasn't able to attend this year, it was clear even from afar that it was all about FrontlineSMS:Medic. The scrappy team of big thinking undergrads, hacks of Ken Banks' FrontlineSMS software in tow, pitched their way to $45,000 in total prizes. They won first place in the Mobile Challenge, where the placement is determined by attendee voting, first place in the Microsoft Mobile Challenge, and were one of five winners of the French American Charitable Trust (FACT) Social Justice Award. FrontlineSMS:Medic will use that money to scale up their model of using mobile phones and simple coordination software to help rural clinics provide higher quality and more comprehensive home health care with lower travel costs.
Also rocking the casbah were on-demand mobile volunteer shop The Extraordinaries. I've been so excited to see how persistent these guys have been, how much more developed their ideas have become, and how much traction they've started to get. For my money, they're doing some of the best thinking about how to find and supply small, meaningful tasks to people who want to contribute. I love their screenshot with resume review. I would review 20 resumes a day. The Extraordinaries won second prize in the Mobile Challenge and were also awarded with a FACT Social Justice Award.
For anyone looking to fund innovative new projects or just looking for a does of inspiration, it's worth checking out the whole list of featured projects. This year's featured projects may be next year's winners (just ask The Extraordinaries). Congrats to all who participated and NetSquared for another great conference. FrontlineSMS: Medic describing their project:
The Extraordinaries:
