The Hidden Power Of A Nonprofit Business Model
When I first started my organization, CommonLit, a free platform for literacy resources and progress tracking tools for grades 5-12, one of the most important decisions I had to make was whether to incorporate as a nonprofit or a for-profit. Many smart people discouraged me from starting a nonprofit. The established tech startup community seemed […]
Gratitude Award Winners Announced for 2014
The Gratitude Network is excited to present its 2014 Gratitude Award winners: GoodWorld Solutions (Oakland, CA), The Springboard Collaborative (Philadephia, PA), DrinkWell (Mumbai, India) and Jail Education Solutions (Chicago, IL). Jail Education Solutions – improves inmate outcomes by incentivizing educational and vocational progress through tablet-based curriculum in correctional facilities. Jail Education was the winner of our […]
What Drives Social Innovation?
The Rise of Global Social Fellowship 1971-4 were big years for global social reform…but it took us 40+ years to fully realize how big. It was in the early 1970’s, that two new enterprises were formed, one in the U.S. And one on Bangladesh, that would go on to positively affect the lives of tens […]
Fellowship Is Fueling Global Change
Fellowship… is now fueling the world’s quests to end epidemics, resolve inequities and poverty, increase education and care for our natural resources. Three forces — government environment, bottoms up desire for skills/learning, and conscious capital — have come together to create this sea of change. The Millennials will cause changes like we’ve never seen in the world. In general, […]
What is Creativity? (Perspectives from the Far East)
This week, I begin a relationship with University of International Business & Economics (UIBE), a fast-growing university in Beijing, China that is training MBA-level students, primarily in Asia (Russian, China and Far East). In our class, we’ll have students from Mainland China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Russia, Uzbek (and Germany thrown in for good luck!). […]
Events fostering Innovation
Back at Apple in the 1980′s, we knew how to throw a party – annual developer conferences, beer bashes and new media shindigs…all served to bring together the community around the Macintosh. Then something funny happened. Macworld led to Internet World; Internet World led to Always On; Always On led to Web 2.0, and well…here […]
What topics would you like to see discussed here?
Thanks for joining us in our discussion about social Fellowship and impact investing. The goal is to be helpful to social Fellows who will be seeking funding for their companies and investors who are exploring impact and social investing. We would like to find out what topics you, the reader, would like to see covered […]
Innovation, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability
What’s the link between innovative start-ups and sustainability? I recently worked with a group of executives from all over Europe in a 5-day session on Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability, held at Berkeley. Executives participating were from over 25 organizations in Europe, from small start-ups to large corporations such as oil companies. Presentations from each […]
Key issues in financing a for-profit or non-profit business
There is a set of venture finance issues that I’ve heard now for the past 30 years. These issues come up for most, if not all, Fellows in early- and growth-stage companies. These are the 8 principles around which I’ve designed my New Venture Finance course at UC Berkeley and which I’ve derived from nearly […]
