Socially responsible investing that produces both financial and social returns (more)
How do we create an efficient capital market for philanthropy? What are the best ways to marry program evaluation with powerful dynamics among online giving places? What role should public policy take in all this? In this free-ranging audio lecture, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Randy Komisar offers a venture capitalist's perspective on these questions and more.
Social networking tools reveal that there is an intricate web of relationships between business and environmentalists, which if developed could benefit the environmental movement.
Voluntary carbon offsets allow people to invest in projects that allegedly counteract their greenhouse gas emissions. But can voluntary offsets help slow global warming? Or are offsets a way for consumers to buy their way out of bad feelings?
A new evaluation tool allows donors and investors to track their investments and compare their data to those of organizations doing similar work.
Why are social entrepreneurs sometimes considered "unreasonable," and how are they different from business entrepreneurs? In this audio interview, author Pamela Hartigan discusses with Design for Change host Sheela Sethuraman how these pesky pioneers are creating markets that are changing the world. She also talks about Volans Ventures, her new enterprise dedicated to integrating the worlds of social and environmental innovation with business-driven wealth creation.
In Britain, something is happening that hasn't for 100 years. More people are becoming incredibly wealthy, not only through inheritance, but also because of their own hard work. A phenomenon on this scale has not happened since the Victorian industrialists. In this audio lecture, Philosopher Charles Handy tells his 2007 Skoll World Forum audience about entrepreneurs who put their energies into meeting some perceived social need—something that government never gets around to and that private enterprise typically doesn't see a market for.
Many businesses serving lower income communities languish because they can't raise enough money to fund their growth. To meet their needs, a new breed of private equity investment—development investment capital—has emerged. Although this style of investing is still in its infancy, it is already showing promise.
Based in Silicon Valley, Kiva is an innovative social enterprise that uses the internet to connect lenders with small businesses around the world. In this audio interview, Jessica Flannery talks with Design for Change host Sheela Sethuraman about starting the organization, and reflects on some of the reasons for its rapid growth and success.
Environmental sustainability is an area ripe for social entrepreneurship. In this panel discussion at Stanford, industry experts discuss the challenges and opportunities for enterprising business minds in the area of climate change. They consider how new economies like China and India are tackling the problem, and whether entrepreneurs should lead with "impact" or "profitability" in pitching solution-oriented ideas to investors.
In this panel discussion, social entrepreneurship is the common thread uniting a leader of a multibillion-dollar private equity fund, a dot-com carbon cowboy, and one of the original Schwab social entrepreneurs. All of them are harnessing business to build a better world. Paul Fletcher, Dan Whaley, and Nic Frances give their Stanford audience a glimpse into the personal side of being a social entrepreneur.
