Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

When it comes to social good, we often think we have to do something world-changing. In his book All the Trouble in the World, P. J. O'Rourke said “Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.” If you think about it, that’s human nature. We love the grand gesture, the transformational speech or the disruptive technology. In the meantime, we pass homeless people on the street and we wonder what to do. I understand this feeling well. I’ve often been torn while thinking about how best to serve: do I give a homeless person cash, perhaps enabling them to practice alcoholism? Or, do I walk by without making eye contact? Well, HandUp has a different approach. Sammie Rayner is one of the cofounders of HandUp. You could say that the universe conspired to set her up for just this type of work. Her parents were business owners. As a young person, Sammie cared for her grandfather as he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. These two early influences seemed to set her on a journey to discov

Laurie Lane-Zucker has had a long and interesting path to Impact Entrepreneur. He was the Executive Director at the Orion Society, a highly respected environmental organization and publisher of Orion magazine. In 2007 he launched Hot Frog, a Founding B Corporation, a GIIRS Pioneer Company, a Founding Member of Mission Markets. Laurie is also the founder and manager of the LinkedIn group, Impact Entrepreneur, with nearly 10,000 members from more than 150 countries. (If you join right away, you could be the 10,000th person!). Impact Entrepreneur was recently recognized as one of the "Best LinkedIn Groups for Small Business." Recently, Laurie has started a company, also called Impact Entrepreneur that is focused on, among other things, the creating of Public Benefit Enterprise Zones. Social Entrepreneurship Resources:   eBook: Five Key Traits of Successful Social Entrepreneurs: http://tonyloyd.com/socent Try Audible and Receive Two Free Audiobooks: http://tonyloyd.com/books Impact Entrepreneur: http://impac

Francesco Piazzesi grew up in the construction equipment industry. He noticed that the brick mason who spent his days building houses went home to a tin shack with a dirt floor. In many countries around the world, including Mexico, 2/3 of the houses built are built by the owners. The homeowners gather whatever materials they can afford and, step by step, over many years, they build their house. These houses are often not safe or sanitary and the vast majority have dirt floors. These houses also are not desirable, therefore, the homeowners do not build wealth to pass along to their family. From 1987 to 2006, Francesco tried to solve the problem through a charitable organization. However, he found that he was unable to scale his impact through philanthropy alone. So in 2006, Francesco formed Echale a tu casa, a social enterprise that provides housing to the masses, especially those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.   Echale has a machine that presses dirt into adobe building blocks, which reduce greenhouse

Being a serial social entrepreneur seems to be in Miki Agrawal’s blood. You can read her story in her very fine book, Do Cool Sh*t: Quit Your Day Job, Start Your Own Business, and Live Happily Ever After. After a wakeup call on September 11, 2001, Miki determined to live her life with her eyes wide open. She left her role in investment banking to play professional soccer, and produced films. In 2005 she stared having recurring stomach aches. She realized that she was intolerant of additives, hormones and pesticides that were in the mass-produced food she was eating. In 2006, she opened a pizza restaurant, WILD in New York City. Like most women, Miki has experienced an incident or two with her period – soaking through her jeans or once having to run out of an important meeting. When she and her twin sister Radha had to suddenly leave a three-legged race at a family picnic, they had an ah-ha moment. They wanted to make underwear that protected women during their period. While contemplating the idea, Miki travel

Charitable giving seems to be stuck in a time warp. While we easily bank, shop and communicate across mobile apps, online charitable giving is not always the best user experience. This poor user experience came to the attention of Tesla Motor’s Director of Quality Product Engineering, Mike Vo. Something else came to Mike’s notice. After 5 years of working 90+ hours per week with almost every day of the year, his accrued personal time off, or vacation time, was about to be forfeited. Mike wondered how common this problem was, and if he could do something with those unused vacation hours. In the US alone, every year there is $52.4 Billion in accrued, unused vacation time. That’s a lot of value that can be put to use. Also, every year, US companies set aside $10 billion in matching funds that go unused. So, these three factors: a poor user experience with many charity web sites, $52.4 billion in untapped wealth and another $10 billion in matching funds seemed like a compelling business case to Mike Vo. Today, Mi

Social impact expert Neetal Parekh was born in Oklahoma City. Her parents had immigrated from India. She and her family moved frequently, about 20 times in 20 years. When Neetal and her family visited their family in India, she observed the gap between wealth and abject poverty. Even as a child, she thought about how she could close that gap – to make an impact. Neetal trained as an attorney and, as part of her job, she wrote blogs about changes in law. In 2011, California proposed two pieces of legislation that allowed for-profit companies to pursue social impact while reducing the threat of legal action from activist shareholders. Neetal was so moved by this concept of social impact companies, she started blogging at Innov8Social.com. Today, Innov8social is an online platform, an easy button for anyone who is trying to engage in social impact. They do that through a web site, blog, podcast, a book, online courses and other resources. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Neetal Parekh: “What’s been amazin

After experiencing sexual violence in high school, Joy McBrien decided that she wanted to prevent this tragedy from happening to other women. When she read about the high incidence of violence against women in Peru, so she decided to travel there. As an 18 year-old, she decided to start a non-profit. After working with local women, she raised funds and built a women’s shelter. Over the next six years, Joy visited 18 countries, listening closely to the needs of women. Through these conversations, Joy began to deeply understand the relationship between poverty and violence against women. She understood that the best path to empowerment was through economic development. In other words, jobs. Today, Joy is the founder of Fair Anita, a social enterprise that empowers women around the world through dignified jobs and fair trade relationships. Fair Anita currently works with 8,000 women in 16 countries. Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Joy McBrien: “I wanted to create a systems-changing solution that would at

Social Entrepreneurship can come from almost anywhere. Sometimes we hear stories of people in a position of privilege to use their resources to do good for the world. Chris Ategeka’s story does not start like that. Chris lost both parents to HIV / AIDS as a child in Uganda. Later he understood that, if his parents would have had access to simple healthcare and the required medicine, they could have lived to be a ripe old age. At the age of 7 Chris became the head of a household. He was responsible for caring for his younger siblings. At one point, one of his little brothers passed away because he could not make it to the hospital fast enough. Chris eventually made his way to an orphanage where he was matched with a sponsor in the United States. They provided assistance so that Chris was able to attend high school. He was a good student and eventually his sponsors offered him an opportunity to come to Berkley, where he studied engineering. But Chris experiences with the broken healthcare system caused him to w

Social Entrepreneur Olivia Rothschild always wanted to be of service. Growing up in multiple countries and traveling widely, she learned to be open-minded and curious. She said yes to opportunities that were presented to her. You can see these traits in her work today as a co-founder of 109World, a platform for positive change. 109World is built on 7 passions: water, children, the environment, education, women, food and animals. These passions are interconnected. In a time when trust in institutions is at an all-time low, Olivia, along with Rachel Brathen, known on Instagram as @yoga_girl, have a formula for success. Show up as your authentic self. Follow your passions. Live a transparent life, shared on social media. Inspire others, attracting a tribe. Use your influence to do good. Create shared-value projects that you can do together. Change the world. 109World is inspiring others to share in their passions through project-based trips. For example, in April they are traveling to Nicaragua to build a wate

If you hang around the startup community long enough, you’re going to run into some founders that make you think “I don’t know what business they’re starting, but I want to back their play.” Elise Maxwell is one of those people. She is authentic, transparent and relentlessly helpful. She’s just someone you want to cheer for. Elise spends her days talking about women’s intimate health. What is women’s intimate health? Elise Maxwell told me, “It’s all the things that you might not be comfortable talking about. That’s a good indicator. Is this intimate health? Are you really talking about this right now? No? Then it’s probably intimate health.” Who do you trust to talk to about your intimate health questions and concerns? If you had a question about menstruation, breastfeeding, menopause, douching, or other intimate health questions, where would you go? You may go to your mother or other close female relative. You might go to your doctor. Or, you might have a best friend in whom you could confide. But not all wo

After returning from time volunteering in Mother Teresa’s mission in Thailand, Dana Frasz was shocked to see the amount of food being wasted on her college campus. She founded Empty Bellies, an award-winning system to fight waste and hunger. They collected leftover food from local businesses, campuses and events and donated the food to soup kitchens and communities in need. After graduation, she spent three years at Ashoka, the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs. Eventually, she made her way to the Bay area, where she founded FoodShift. FoodShift is a social enterprise based in Oakland. Their goal is to reduce wasted food while alleviating hunger. FoodShift is attacking the problem on several fronts. They are buying imperfect produce that would otherwise go to waste, from local farmers. That keeps food waste out of landfills, reducing the greenhouse gasses in the process. They are opening the Alameda Kitchen to turn the food into meals, and in the process, creating jobs for some people who have h

In many ways Teju Ravilochan’s story is the story of many immigrant families. His parents were born in India, but he was born in the United States. His parents learned how to adapt to their new culture through their own experience but also through the experiences of their children. Teju also learned about the world through the eyes of his parents. It was on a trip to India as a young man when a person Teju saw someone around his age who was begging for money. He was confronted with the sad reality of the “birth lottery,” the fact that the circumstances in which a person is born can influence the economic opportunities available to him or her. To Teju, that seemed unfair. And yet, trying to take on global poverty almost felt like an impossible task. He wondered if there weren’t a place where people could learn to tackle tough social and environmental challenges. This thought was the seed from which the Unreasonable Institute was born. The Unreasonable Institute is a mentorship and training program for entrepre

If I told you about a startup that reached $1 million in recurring annual revenue, in 11 months, would you be interested in learn more? What if I told you that the founder had bootstrapped her way to success, would be even more interested? I know I was. Laura started as a freelance web and print designer, which led to gigs in social media marketing consulting, followed by social media marketing training. She is well known for launching B-School with Marie Forleo.   Today, Laura is the Founder of MeetEdgar.com, a social media scheduling and automation software. Edgar allows you to upload your social media updates, categorize the updates, and then schedule them. Even better, it keeps great social media updates from going to waste. They allow you to reuse good social media updates over time. It was also interesting to hear how she thought about blogging, search engine optimization and social media and how they go together. Key quotes from the interview: “What’s great about online training is it is very scalable

Purpose matters. 90% of U.S. consumers say they would switch brands to one associated with a cause, given comparable price and quality, according to a study conducted by Cone Communications. In another study conducted by World Federation of Advertisers and Edelman, 60% of people said that they are actively seeking brands with a sense of purpose. And, according to Deloitte’s 2015 Millennial Survey, six out of 10 Millennials said a sense of purpose is part of the reason they chose to work for their current employer. Russ Stoddard of Oliver Russell builds brands for purpose-driven companies. He’s been at this for 25 years and so he’s learned quite a bit about the intersection of purpose and branding. And his understanding continues to evolve. Oliver Russell is a certified BCorporation and the first public benefit corporation in Idaho. Russ came to my attention in 2015 when he published three very useful white papers on “How to Build a Purpose-Driven Company.” You can find them here: http://bit.ly/PurposeWP Resou

Cathy Clark first came to my attention as the coauthor of the book The Impact Investor: Lessons in Leadership and Strategy for Collaborative Capitalism. However, as she tells me in this interview, she had an early start to social entrepreneurship. Cathy grew up in inner city Philadelphia. While still a high-school student, she helped her father create a program that prepared students for college. Through this experience, she learned that social outcome is the result of a well-run organization. Through her career she has had stops at the Aspen Institute, Markle Foundation, Flatiron Partners, Columbia University and the Investor’s Circle, to name a few. Today, Cathy is the Director of the CASE Initiative on Impact Investing (or i3) at Duke University. The mission of CASE i3 is to build the field and market of impact investing so that it can support the needs of social entrepreneurs and investors. Key quotes from the interview: “To get to a social outcome…you have to know how to run an organization.” “It wasn’t

There’s an old saying that has been attributed at different times to Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln (neither of whom said it.  “Success is going from failure to failure without losing momentum.” For any entrepreneur, especially social entrepreneurs, the ability to balance tenacity with humility is key. An entrepreneur listens carefully, designs a minimally viable product, tests it in the marketplace, pivots and then starts again. In this way, we learn quickly and make progress. No one has illustrated this principle better than Curt Bowen. In this interview you’ll hear Curt tell the story of several iterations of Semilla Nueva. They are working on the problem of malnutrition in Guatemala, which has the fourth highest rate of malnutrition in the world. Key quotes from the interview: “There’s this really beautiful relationship between tenacity, humility and instinct. You have to have all three of those pieces working together. Because all three of them are what is necessary for you to go from mistake to

If Jeffrey Hollender’s name is familiar to you, it should not be surprising. As the cofounder of Seventh Generation, the author of a half dozen books, and a frequent speaker on using business to do good in the world, he’s a natural fit for a conversation with Social Entrepreneur. But he did not come on the podcast to talk about his past accomplishments. He’s busy taking a systemic approach to his latest business Sustain Natural. Through Sustain, Jeffrey is connecting the dots between condoms, hunger, health care, poverty, and climate change. Yes, that’s right. I said condoms…and lubricants and wipes. All of which are fair trade, organic and sustainably produced. And, Sustain donates 10% of their profits to help poorer women access health care such as STD testing and breast examinations. In this interview, Jeffrey talks about the importance of systems thinking in order to take on some of our most pressing problems. He describes the experience of being forced out of the company that he had built and he gives so

When Mariana Costa and her partners started a web development company in Lima, Peru, she quickly learned that good web developers are hard to come by. She also noticed that, of the candidates that applied for her open positions, very few of them were women. And, while there was a very high demand for web developers, there were also millions of young people who neither went to school nor worked, and of those, 70% were women. That means that, in Peru alone, there are nearly two million young women who are out of the workforce. Many of them turn to the informal economy to make a living. With customers hungry for help, a web design studio in need of talent, and a huge supply of underemployed or unemployed women, Mariana and her partners formed Laboratoria. Laboratoria, a tech social enterprise that empowers young women by giving them access to education and work in the digital sector. They accomplish this through their codeAcademy, a five-month program that emphasizes not just coding skills but also life skills.

Colleges and Universities are complex organizations with lots of deep thinkers and multiple stakeholders. Marina Kim has had a lot of practice at working across complex cultural boundaries. The daughter of Korean and American parents, raised by a single mother, summers in Costa Rica, moved to northern England at 10 years old, and then attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Today, Marina is the cofounder of Ashoka U, where they take an institutional change approach to impact the education of millions of students. Ashoka U has three primary programs: They have a Changemaker Campus designation where, through a rigorous 1-2 year selection process, they recognize colleges and universities that have embedded social innovation as a core value. There is the Ashoka U Commons, where cohorts of institutions work together on specific building blocks of social innovation education. They hold an annual conference called the Ashoka U Exchange. Key quotes from the interview: “I feel extremely comfortable