Jeff Trexler's blogshttp://www.justmeans.com/editorials/socialenterprise/3.htmlFri, 25 May 2012 00:12:51 GMThttp://www.justmeans.com en hourly 1http://www.justmeans.com/The-place-of-social-enterprise-in-the-new-welfare-state/3635.htmlSun, 15 Nov 2009 02:30:24 GMTJeff Trexler One traditional understanding of charity is that it serves to lessen the burdens of government. It's a seemingly innocuous enough notion--as with its deceptively prosaic cousin, the notion that a tax exemption or deduction is a tax subsidy, it sounds like a common sense idea--but as applied it tends to raise uncomfortable questions. A big 'un is the question of whether charity deserves support for any purposes or projects outside the government's own agenda--after all, if a charity is supposed t Read Full Article ]]> One traditional understanding of charity is that it serves to lessen the burdens of government. It's a seemingly innocuous enough notion--as with its deceptively prosaic cousin, the notion that a tax exemption or deduction is a tax subsidy, it sounds like a common sense idea--but as applied it tends to raise uncomfortable questions. A big 'un is the question of whether charity deserves support for any purposes or projects outside the government's own agenda--after all, if a charity is supposed to be performing government functions and the tax privileges that help fund it are essentially government grants, tolerance for risky disruptive innovations tends to be relatively low.As the political pendulum swings back to government away from the private sector, it's been fascinating to see how social enterprise is being re-imagined as an extension of government aid. It's a subtle but significant shift from just a decade ago--heck, a year ago--when social entrepreneurs were said to have the answers that governments & nonprofits lacked.Case in point: Scott Allard's essay on social enterprise in relation to his new book on the geography of current government social programs. Allard gives the usual huzzahs to social enterprise, but as usual, the caveats are where it's at. The real point of his analysis is what he says that social enterprise is lacking and how it needs to "fit within and strengthen the existing safety net." Yet, we should not view social enterprise as a magic bullet. The financial institutions located in high-poverty communities may not be a good fit for this type of enterprise. . . .Social enterprise also does not remove the need for other safety net programs. Most social enterprise cannot provide the health care, access to affordable housing, child care, quality education, and transportation resources necessary for low-income families to weather temporary economic setbacks or achieve permanently higher economic trajectories. Moreover, many startup businesses fail or fail to generate significant income, which leaves the owners and workers economically vulnerable. Even with more entrepreneurial approaches in place, there remains a need and a role for the public safety net to help working poor families overcome barriers to employment and well-being.These concerns, however, do not outweigh the potential impact of social entrepreneurship. Social enterprise should be a prominent tool in any community's antipoverty toolkit. Instead, we should be asking ourselves whether we are training the next generation of nonprofit leaders, social workers, and policy experts to think not just about creative entrepreneurial solutions, but how they fit within and strengthen the existing safety net.If social enterprise is just another tool in the communal toolkit, is it really social entrepreneurship?]]>http://www.justmeans.com/The-Sundance-Channel-and-Full-Frontal-Fashion-2-0/3955.htmlWed, 14 Oct 2009 15:39:21 GMTJeff Trexler For several years, a New York television show called Full Frontal Fashion offered nightly insider coverage of New York Fashion Week, replete with runway shows, designer interviews, expert analysis and reports from industry parties. At one point the show was based at the City's own television station, and for good reason: not only is the fashion business a central part of New York's economic infrastructure, but it is also a major driver of fundraising, programs for local charities, fair trade ini Read Full Article ]]> For several years, a New York television show called Full Frontal Fashion offered nightly insider coverage of New York Fashion Week, replete with runway shows, designer interviews, expert analysis and reports from industry parties. At one point the show was based at the City's own television station, and for good reason: not only is the fashion business a central part of New York's economic infrastructure, but it is also a major driver of fundraising, programs for local charities, fair trade initiatives and sustainable sourcing. In fact, that's how I had my own first encounter with the FFF crew: at a private opening for a prominent fashion-themed museum exhibit.Given Full Frontal's growing popularity as its programming scaled from the New York market to a network of stations nationwide, it's not surprising that the rights to the brand were recently licensed by a national media outlet--namely, the Sundance Channel. Sundance, of course, has strong social enterprise connections--its indie emphasis is a direct reflection of the Sundance Film Festival's mission, and the channel has further enhanced its do-gooder cred with its promotion of environmental sustainability in its programming and other initiatives. If this year's offerings are any indication, it's evident that Sundance is somewhat tentative about its new fashion media brand. A number of New Yorkers are upset that Sundance has deep-sixed the core of Full Frontal's value added--daily insider coverage of Fashion Week--for a series of documentaries that show how several designers prepare for Fashion Week. This sort of thing is hardly new--there have been several documentaries showing both famous & emerging designers as they prepare for Fashion Week or a contest--and the emphasis on what came before only serves to emphasize the real-time events that Sundance Full Frontal Fashion has conspicuously left behind. This need not be the case. Awkward faux-fashionista gush like "our pal (really) Padma Lakshmi" and "All our credit cards are equal!" just doesn't seem natural coming from a company that has cultivated the image of representing capitalism with a conscience, and Sundance really doesn't have to play that game--the fashion business itself is tired of the tired Sex-and-the-City stereotypes. Instead, the Sundance Channel has a real opportunity to transform media coverage of the fashion business by stripping Fashion Week to its foundation as a hybrid social business venture. Almost every runway show, benefit & party offers an angle for blending social significance with ratings-bait in a way that transcends the earnest eat-your-vitamins ethos that makes so much do-gooder media unwatchable. That the social enterprise world all too often struggles to see the connection says less about fashion's supposed frivolity than the narrowness of our own perspective.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Sustainability-and-the-Industrial-Revolution/3876.htmlWed, 14 Oct 2009 10:58:42 GMTJeff Trexler As TriplePundit notes, the opening day of Socap09 produced this observation:1. The sustainability revolution is not on par with the dot com bubble, but rather on par with the industrial revolution. This will be great retrofit of our lives Everything we've ever created was created wrong. We need those all those crazy ideas. ~ Steve Newcomb, Virgance, The Future of Social Innovation on the WebNot saying that I agree or disagree with this--what Newcomb's statement did was get me thinking about what Read Full Article ]]> As TriplePundit notes, the opening day of Socap09 produced this observation:1. The sustainability revolution is not on par with the dot com bubble, but rather on par with the industrial revolution. This will be great retrofit of our lives Everything we've ever created was created wrong. We need those all those crazy ideas. ~ Steve Newcomb, Virgance, The Future of Social Innovation on the WebNot saying that I agree or disagree with this--what Newcomb's statement did was get me thinking about what was makes sustainability feel substantially different.Namely, organizational technology.The Industrial Revolution had it in abundance. Mechanized production decreased costs and maximized output. You could literally point to the engines that were changing the world; even a century and a half later, we can read the critique of, say, Marx and Engels, and their target remains in our sight.Sustainability is more slippery. It's an idea, a goal, an ethic--yet its means of production are not so clear, let alone standardized. Sustainability is also in many ways not that energizing in ways that capture the human imagination--watering your plants with grey water is a far cry from the roaring engines that transformed the landscape while giving the masses power, new jobs and cheap goods.Sustainability may get to the point of being a new Industrial Revolution. Not denying that at all. However, as of now it still needs something more.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Cadbury--Kraft-and-the-Bottom-of-the-Chocolate-Pyramid/3950.htmlFri, 09 Oct 2009 14:25:05 GMTJeff Trexler As the Borg were wont to say, "resistance is futile"--that's the warning that Kraft is sending to Cadbury in regard to Cadbury's struggle to survive the ongoing attempts of rivals Kraft and Hershey to gain control of the storied British chocolate brand. The potential takeover of Cadbury highlights at least a couple major issues for social enterprise. One that no doubt comes to mind immediately for longtime readers of this site is the viability of Cadbury's fair trade initiative should the compan Read Full Article ]]> As the Borg were wont to say, "resistance is futile"--that's the warning that Kraft is sending to Cadbury in regard to Cadbury's struggle to survive the ongoing attempts of rivals Kraft and Hershey to gain control of the storied British chocolate brand. The potential takeover of Cadbury highlights at least a couple major issues for social enterprise. One that no doubt comes to mind immediately for longtime readers of this site is the viability of Cadbury's fair trade initiative should the company be acquired by either of its megabrand bidders. It's an issue that any number of social entrepreneurs face when their business succeeds in attracting attention from other companies & private investors: selling the company brings with it the serious risk of selling out its social benefit. There is, however, another aspect of the Cadbury takeover contest that merits our attention: the reason why big companies think that Cadbury is such a sweet target. As the Wall Street Journal notes, the "heart" of Cadbury's appeal is the brand's "hold on consumers in India and other emerging markets."Cadbury is the biggest confectioner in growth markets such as India, Mexico, Egypt and Thailand, according to consultancy Euromonitor International, and emerging markets provide 38% of the company's global sales, compared with about 20% at Kraft. As a combined company it would be nearly 70% bigger than its nearest competitor, candy giant Mars Inc., in emerging markets, according to a recent report by British bank Panmure Gordon Co. . . . Equally important is the British company's vast distribution network, which includes the small kiosks and family-owned stores that sell large volumes of candy in emerging markets such as India or Mexico.Kraft wants to tap into this distribution network. On a conference call with analysts Wednesday, Kraft executives said sales of its chocolate cookies have been growing rapidly, and they expect to expand those sales around the world, partially using Cadbury's distribution network."In some developing markets, Cadbury has quite a good toehold," says Neil Saunders, consulting director of Verdict Research in London. "If Kraft got a hold of it, they could speed things up by using some of Cadbury's distribution channels to really roll out their products."The key here is not just that Cadbury has ties to emerging markets; what is particularly worth noting is what makes India and other established Cadbury territories so attractive: the micro-enterprise distribution chain.The attention being paid to taking emerging-market micro-enterprise to scale is arguably as significant as Cadbury's fair trade initiative vis a vis supply. That a multinational corporation may not be using such language as CSR, social enterprise or sustainability does not mean the company is ignoring socially beneficial commerce--indeed, a core part of its strategy could be expanding to traditionally underserved communities that could substantially benefit from such support.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Innovative-healthcare-in-Africa-and-beyond/3827.htmlMon, 28 Sep 2009 04:06:38 GMTJeff Trexler Earlier this week, the Financial Times published an interesting op-ed by an Acumen Fund intern on the state of healthcare in Africa. One prominent theme was the paucity of useful information:We have no market research reports and there are no systems to capture consumer data. Reading scholarly journals will only get me so far. To understand the health marketplace for poor consumers, I must see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears and speak to as many patients and doctors in low-income a Read Full Article ]]> Earlier this week, the Financial Times published an interesting op-ed by an Acumen Fund intern on the state of healthcare in Africa. One prominent theme was the paucity of useful information:We have no market research reports and there are no systems to capture consumer data. Reading scholarly journals will only get me so far. To understand the health marketplace for poor consumers, I must see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears and speak to as many patients and doctors in low-income areas as I can.The author's noble efforts to press on to establish an innovative "market-based" "social venture capital approach" to delivering medical services to the poor is undeniably inspiring, and I certainly agree with the need for informed collaborative partnerships to promote effective change. Yet I wonder what someone with more experience with healthcare in Africa would make of the piece. The notion that there are relatively few useful resources for healthcare strategy strikes me as overstated at best. The African hospital sector in particular has been in the midst of fascinating changes in recent years, from major investment by South African and Indian firms to more local projects. Missionary and university-based healthcare initiatives have decades worth of experience, and despite what the well-meaning Acumen Funder says, there's a robust body of directly applicable or roughly analogous research that anyone developing new healthcare systems would benefit from engaging.Which brings me to my larger point. Healthcare reform has once again become a major issue in the U.S., and here as elsewhere we tend to treat it as a realm of ancient dragons and young knights. However, the dirty secret of healthcare is that it's a field long defined by the very practices that we promote as hallmarks of social enterprise. Charitable business; hybrid for-profit/nonprofit ventures; commercial entities blending the pursuit of profit with social responsibility; massive investment in innovation; metrics, metrics and more metrics--it's entirely possible that by focusing on the day-to-day problems that ordinary people experience with the current system, we are overlooking systemic and historic weaknesses within our own vision for reform.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Foundation-funded-EveryBlock-sold-to-MSNBC/3742.htmlWed, 09 Sep 2009 10:25:06 GMTJeff Trexler Ten years ago journalism was such a hot industry that writers could expect to score upwards of five dollars a word. Now, business is so bad that media ventures are literally looking to charity for help. The Knight Foundation is one of the leaders in using charitable grants to foster socially beneficial innovation in journalism--and these grants go to both nonprofit and commercial recipients. This in itself is not new--charities have been giving money to for-profits serving public benefit long be Read Full Article ]]> Ten years ago journalism was such a hot industry that writers could expect to score upwards of five dollars a word. Now, business is so bad that media ventures are literally looking to charity for help. The Knight Foundation is one of the leaders in using charitable grants to foster socially beneficial innovation in journalism--and these grants go to both nonprofit and commercial recipients. This in itself is not new--charities have been giving money to for-profits serving public benefit long before blended value became a social enterprise buzzword. What can shift, however, is how such grants are perceived. One factor is the context--an economic downtown is a far different environment from a boom economy. Another is scale--benefits accruing to a big business can have a different valence from support for a microenterprise. Additional factors include the presence of an identifiable personal beneficiary--did charitable dollars make someone rich--and the level of public involvement in charity's work.For a perfect storm of cognitive dissonance, check out this Gawker piece on reactions to the sale local news site EveryBloc to MSNBC. EveryBlock built its base on open source, crowdsourcing and a $1.1 million Knight Foundation grant. The founder gets a payday, and MSNBC gets the charitably-developed site.It's all technically legal until it's not. This is exactly the sort of transaction that could call public attention to how charitable grants to commercial entities result in personal profit and substantial private benefit. We've seen such blowback before--in the U.S., private foundations have to deal with statutory restrictions imposed forty years ago in response to perceived outrages. Ain't nuthin' stoppin' that from happening again, only this time, with negative consequences for all charity that seeks to promote blended value.How to forestall such negative feedback? One strategy would be for a grant to a startup or other commercial entity to be conditioned on some sort of charitable clawback provision, requiring the organization to pay back the grant--and possibly more--should the venture change ownership or generate substantial revenue. Thank yous are nice, but when you've been funded by charitable money they may not be enough.The key thing, though, is the principle. Charities don't want to risk creating the impression that they are taxpayer-funded ATMs for well-connected profiteers.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Illinois-enacts-L3C-law/3672.htmlTue, 08 Sep 2009 11:23:07 GMTJeff Trexler The Chicago Tribune has an extensive article on Illinois' adoption of an L3C statute. Here's the opening--pay attention to the emphasis on the L3C's promise for attracting new investment capital:After nearly four decades of running a staffing agency on a shoestring budget, John Plunkett hopes the next business he starts will be a moneymaker thanks to a new law that recognizes for-profit businesses with a strong social bent.The law, signed by Gov. Pat Quinn last week, allows the incorporation of Read Full Article ]]> The Chicago Tribune has an extensive article on Illinois' adoption of an L3C statute. Here's the opening--pay attention to the emphasis on the L3C's promise for attracting new investment capital:After nearly four decades of running a staffing agency on a shoestring budget, John Plunkett hopes the next business he starts will be a moneymaker thanks to a new law that recognizes for-profit businesses with a strong social bent.The law, signed by Gov. Pat Quinn last week, allows the incorporation of low-profit, limited-liability companies, or L3Cs, a new hybrid structure for for-profit ventures that have a primary goal of achieving a socially beneficial purpose."One of the problems we've had for four decades is operating with enough capital to do what needs to be done to grow and thrive as a business," said Plunkett, founder and chief executive of Harborquest Inc., a Chicago non-profit staffing firm that aims to move disadvantaged workers into better jobs.While the charity, which has an annual budget of about $5 million and employs 20 staffers, competes with for-profit staffing firms, it has struggled to come up with working capital to fund its growth because most of the grants it receives are designated for programming expenses only, Plunkett said.By launching an L3C with a similar social purpose, Plunkett would be able to offer investors a financial return."It's a means of bringing more investment to the table," he said. "This might offer real growth possibility."What's particularly noteworthy about this, of course, is that at base the L3C statute doesn't really do anything that wasn't already possible. A charity looking for funds from a for-profit venture could have launched one years ago; of course, there are significant tax concerns that the charity would need to address in regard to governance and management, but the L3C does nothing to change that. Private foundation program related investments for for-profits that serve a social purpose have been around for decades. You don't need an L3C to get them; the L3C is simply an attempt at fashioning a standardized form for signaling eligibility to receive PRIs. Likewise, an LLC that wants to function as an L3C in a state without such a statute could simply add the same restrictions to its operating agreement.Finally, the L3C statute does not add any incentives for investing in such a blended value venture.I say all this not to discourage anyone from forming an L3C or advocating for a similar statute in their own state. Rather, my aim is simply to provide a needed reality check. Based on the experience of another standardized social benefit form--the UK's CIC--the L3C is likely to be no more a magnet for investment and revenue than any other kind of business. In fact, it might even prove to be less successful, since most investors won't know what it is. Rather than simply dreaming about how the L3C could solve your organization's money problems, you should also look into what is already possible.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Van-Jones-and-sustainable-leadership/3919.htmlMon, 07 Sep 2009 12:28:04 GMTJeff Trexler I've been paying particular attention to l'affaire Van Jones over the past few days for a reason that goes beyond ideology and politics. I remember Van from law school--he was in my wife's graduating class at Yale a couple years ahead of my own. He was a presence practically from the day he first showed up on campus, a personality so forceful that you just knew he was going to make a splash.Well, splash he did--so much so that some of his more colorful statements led to his resignation as the gr Read Full Article ]]> I've been paying particular attention to l'affaire Van Jones over the past few days for a reason that goes beyond ideology and politics. I remember Van from law school--he was in my wife's graduating class at Yale a couple years ahead of my own. He was a presence practically from the day he first showed up on campus, a personality so forceful that you just knew he was going to make a splash.Well, splash he did--so much so that some of his more colorful statements led to his resignation as the green jobs czar. The intrepid Nathaniel Whittemore--whose own blog on social enterprise is a must-read--has asked what I think about Van's resignation under pressure, so here, in brief, is what's been on my mind.The irony of the critical attacks on Van is that his job with the White House was precisely what would have worked to make him more of an establishment figure. Van is a paradigmatic example of what Max Weber described as a charismatic leader. The statements and actions through which such a figure establishes social authority--particularly when rallying individuals across an array of distinct yet ideologically gatherings--are qualitatively different from those conducive to survival (let alone success) within a government bureaucracy. A typical arc for someone in Van's position is akin to what Weber aptly described as the routinization of charisma--just like macrolevel systems, leaders themselves can subsume their more revolutionary impulses into less outspoken management.The differences in organizational culture--especially rhetoric--between rallying a movement and developing practical public programs create an interesting tension within a representative democracy. We elect charismatic leaders to run a routinized bureaucracy, a practice that may seem self-contradictory but is actually rather inspired. Maintaining a steady infusion of charisma outside the relentless bureaucratic routine helps keep the system from becoming a maladaptive machine. Hence the flourishing practice of appointing "czars"--given the routinizing pressures of a confirmation system that exerts equally relentless pressure to conform to convention, unconfirmed advisers offer a way to infuse the political system with inspired leadership beyond the level of the president himself. If a democratic government is going to work, we need to acknowledge that leaders say & do things in one organizational culture that they will likely temper in another. To foster conditions in which the only acceptable leaders are people who conform to the conventional is to push the system closer to collapsing on itself. In place of blending mundane management with charismatic leadership, we are at risk of creating a society run by soulless mediocrities who say whatever is convenient to get a government job. President Obama is a smart guy, and I wish he would have taken the opportunity to educate people in how our system works. A defense of Van could have been a real teachable moment not just for public politics, inasmuch as the tension between charisma and bureaucracy runs through all forms of organizational leadership. As for Van, he'll be OK. His speaker fees will rise, as will the size of his next book advance, and his authority within the sustainability movement will only grow. Yet for society at large the loss is palpable.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Around-the-world-with-social-enterprise/3846.htmlSun, 30 Aug 2009 01:15:09 GMTJeff Trexler Staycations are all the rage in the post-boom US of A, so here are a few stops on a virtual globetrotting do-gooder junket:Daspu, a fashion brand by Brazilian sex workers, held a fashion show for its latest line:Daspu was launched in 2005 as a way for prostitutes to gain regular income while also fighting preconceptions of people affected with AIDS. Sales revenues are reinvested into initiatives combating sexually transmitted diseases."Daspu gets rid of prejudice. It opens paths for the citizen Read Full Article ]]> Staycations are all the rage in the post-boom US of A, so here are a few stops on a virtual globetrotting do-gooder junket:Daspu, a fashion brand by Brazilian sex workers, held a fashion show for its latest line:Daspu was launched in 2005 as a way for prostitutes to gain regular income while also fighting preconceptions of people affected with AIDS. Sales revenues are reinvested into initiatives combating sexually transmitted diseases."Daspu gets rid of prejudice. It opens paths for the citizen whore," said Leite, an activist in favour of regulating the profession.Coco husks to fiber exports: today's Manila Times runs a social enterprise op-ed that includes a look at the Davao Oriental Coconut Husk Social Enterprise, a small business that has already scaled to a significant degree:The two women wanted to improve the income capacities of farmers and mothers in the fourth-class municipality of San Isidro by cashing in on coco husks. Coco husks could be converted into coco coir, which is an export product, an alternative to synthetic fibers for household and industrial use. They believed that by using the resource abundant in the community, they could help reduce poverty which affected one in every two families there.. . . By 2007, exportable products increased by 34 percent. The business grew and moved from micro-enterprise level to becoming a small-scale enterprise with assets exceeding P5 million. More farmers were hired, thereby increasing their income. Today, PBSP continues to assist the enterprise through marketing improvement. Social enterprise, the final frontier: the JoongAng Daily recently offered this fascinating look at how Korean conglomerates are boosting support for charitable ventures:SK Group said yesterday that it is looking into establishing a non-profit social enterprise with a 50 billion won ($40.3 million) fund by 2011."We plan to establish a new social enterprise model like that of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh that can contribute to fundamental changes in society," said Kwon Oh-yong, head of SK's brand management department.SK Group said the organization would make use of its efficient management structure and work to involve the public in its efforts.Once established, the organization will consult with SK Group's 13 core affiliates to solicit project ideas as well as create a system for generating profit. The funds will then be used to benefit the public in various ways, including job creation.SK also plans to create a Web site where the public can post ideas for social campaigns.Also yesterday, Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group, the country's leading automaker, said that it plans to create 1,000 jobs for the underprivileged by 2012 as part of its philanthropic activities.The automaker said it will create 800 jobs by helping Ansim, an organization based in Busan that provides services to the elderly and people with disabilities, expand and diversify its business. The automaker also plans to create 200 to 300 jobs at two other social enterprises.The automaker plans to invest 2 billion won every year to support these activities.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Gen-Art-merger--MAGIC-Ecollection--design-news-and-beer/3776.htmlFri, 21 Aug 2009 11:07:04 GMTJeff Trexler The big news is social enterprise right now is the question of cooperatives & health care design, but we're going to take a pass on that for a little while--go to JustMeans Health for ongoing commentary, and expect much more here after August! For now, as many of you set out to escape the summer languor with a quick (or long) trip to the beach, here are a few brief news items of note:Gen Art is--or was--a hybrid venture consisting of for-profit and nonprofit organizations that worked in tandem t Read Full Article ]]> The big news is social enterprise right now is the question of cooperatives & health care design, but we're going to take a pass on that for a little while--go to JustMeans Health for ongoing commentary, and expect much more here after August! For now, as many of you set out to escape the summer languor with a quick (or long) trip to the beach, here are a few brief news items of note:Gen Art is--or was--a hybrid venture consisting of for-profit and nonprofit organizations that worked in tandem to help promote emerging fashion designers. Like many small arts-related social enterprises it has reportedly been experiencing its fair share of financial distress, but behind the scenes it has also been taking action to move forward. This week the announcement came that the for-profit arm of Gen Art will be merging with the commercial promoter Rock Media, which will be assuming all of Gen Art's outstanding liabilities. The merger highlights at least two important issues regarding social enterprise: (1) having a commercial business will not necessarily pay the bills, and (2) transactions that assure financial survival nonetheless raise legitimate questions about the long-term viability of the organization's social mission. Ten years from now, will Gen Art 2.0 be a major force for emerging designers or a commercial conglomerate with a legacy foundation that makes a few token grants? We'll see. In other fashion news, the upcoming WWD MAGIC trade show has been featuring the designers connected to Ecollection, the show's sustainability initiative. If you want to see "what's new and what's next in the world of design and sustainability," WWD has become a must-read.Fashion is not the only aspect of social enterprise design that's been getting a lot of press recently. Change Observer and IDEO should be part of everyone's daily social enterprise news intake, as should Information Aesthetics, which offers fascinating looks at such issues as train vs. air travel, water levels & climate change and relative beer consumption by country. What? You don't think beer has anything to do with social enterprise? Then you should definitely check out the new Arthur Guinness Fund for Social Enterprise!]]>http://www.justmeans.com/The-San-Francisco-Fed-on-Social-Enterprise/3704.htmlFri, 14 Aug 2009 08:49:57 GMTJeff Trexler Here's some beach reading for all you social entrepreneurs: a special issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's Community Development Investment Review, featuring articles on social enterprise. It's like the Fed's own version of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, except with bullet points instead of bikinis!And yes, that picture really is of the National Geographic Swimsuits special issue, a blatant revenue raiser that NatGeo is still selling on its website years after it first appe Read Full Article ]]> Here's some beach reading for all you social entrepreneurs: a special issue of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's Community Development Investment Review, featuring articles on social enterprise. It's like the Fed's own version of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, except with bullet points instead of bikinis!And yes, that picture really is of the National Geographic Swimsuits special issue, a blatant revenue raiser that NatGeo is still selling on its website years after it first appeared in print.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Global-health-delivery--studying-by-doing/3601.htmlMon, 03 Aug 2009 20:26:21 GMTJeff Trexler The Financial Times has published a profile of how MIT is incorporating field work into classes on international development:Global health delivery is an emerging field that looks at how healthcare can reach the neediest people in both wealthy and developing countries. "The formal study of global health delivery is relatively new and I thought it would be intellectually fulfilling to be able to contribute," says Mr Newkirk.This year he and several classmates spent three weeks at a clinic in the Read Full Article ]]> The Financial Times has published a profile of how MIT is incorporating field work into classes on international development:Global health delivery is an emerging field that looks at how healthcare can reach the neediest people in both wealthy and developing countries. "The formal study of global health delivery is relatively new and I thought it would be intellectually fulfilling to be able to contribute," says Mr Newkirk.This year he and several classmates spent three weeks at a clinic in the tiny rural village of Kipkaren, Kenya, helping to develop a subscription-based payment system for patients. When the team presented their ideas to the health centre's staff, "the enthusiasm was overwhelming", he says.That Mr Newkirk plans to work as a consultant in public health after he graduates is music to the ears of Anjali Sastry, the Sloan professor who created the course."Our big problems on this planet will not be solved with one person's brainwave," says Prof Sastry. "What is required is collaboration. We need to be earnest, not cynical. We need to roll up our sleeves and figure out what works and what we can try next. That is what the class is about."Service learning generally is a growing trend in higher education, although far too many such efforts are too remedial to be of real use to the intended beneficiaries. An initiative such as the one described above, when connected with substantive investigation and informed collaboration, can a useful step toward moving beyond the empty papers-tests-and-projects model that leads students to view college more like doing prison time than a meaningful experience.And if it gets you out of Boston for the winter, what's not to like?]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Social-enterprise-burger-joint/2498.htmlThu, 30 Jul 2009 10:26:19 GMTJeff Trexler If you're bothered by the Burger King that questions global warming, here's news of different kind of hamburger joint: Burger City, a Tucson nonprofit gourmet restaurant whose profits help fund the 501(c)(3) ArtFare.From one perspective, Burger City is a stellar example of social enterprise, particularly in the way the business model is shifting from dedicating all of the profits to charity to more of a hybrid structure. However, as folks familiar with U.S. nonprofit law no doubt realize, a char Read Full Article ]]> If you're bothered by the Burger King that questions global warming, here's news of different kind of hamburger joint: Burger City, a Tucson nonprofit gourmet restaurant whose profits help fund the 501(c)(3) ArtFare.From one perspective, Burger City is a stellar example of social enterprise, particularly in the way the business model is shifting from dedicating all of the profits to charity to more of a hybrid structure. However, as folks familiar with U.S. nonprofit law no doubt realize, a charity that uses a restaurant to generate revenue raises interesting tax questions.Having to pay unrelated business income tax is one possible consequence, inasmuch as operating an ongoing burger joint is arguably not related to ArtFare's exempt purposes--using the profits the fund the charity is not enough to count as relatedness. Ways a social enterprise restaurant such as ArtFare could possibly avoid UBIT include staffing the restaurant with volunteers, employing people in need as part of a charitable program or arguing that the restaurant is part of an economic development program in a needy part of town.Beyond UBIT, socially entrepreneurial charities also need to take care lest the venture provide a basis for the IRS to revoke their tax-exempt status. With Burger City planning to expand as a franchise, this is a particularly salient concern. As this case involving a charitable vegetarian restaurant illustrates, the IRS and the courts might conclude that a social business is practically indistinct from a commercial business and thus not qualified for tax exemption as a 501(c) organization.A relatively safe and standard strategy for dealing with UBIT and exemption concerns has been to spin off the charitable enterprise as a separate entity, an approach that also has the benefit of shielding the parent charity from liability resulting from the business. That said, with so many charities now embarking on entrepreneurial business ventures, there's good reason to be nostalgic for the days when all profits earned were tax-exempt so long as they were used for a charitable purpose.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Four-funerals-and-a-wedding/3550.htmlWed, 29 Jul 2009 22:17:46 GMTJeff Trexler This week, Slate examines the etiquette of turning a wedding into a charity fundraiser, while New Scientist explains why the environmental footprint of cremation arguably make it unsustainable. With regard to the latter, the Green Funeral Company offers a particularly useful assessment of cremation compared to three eco-friendly alternatives to traditional techniques, including this useful tidbit:The most environmentally sound method of cremation is on an open air pyre using wood. Not only would Read Full Article ]]> This week, Slate examines the etiquette of turning a wedding into a charity fundraiser, while New Scientist explains why the environmental footprint of cremation arguably make it unsustainable. With regard to the latter, the Green Funeral Company offers a particularly useful assessment of cremation compared to three eco-friendly alternatives to traditional techniques, including this useful tidbit:The most environmentally sound method of cremation is on an open air pyre using wood. Not only would this be carbon neutral, but it would be much more spiritually and psychologically nourishing than the current industrial conveyor belt approach that is used in most modern crematoriums. It is my company's most-requested "fantasy funeral".]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Sex-and-the-Social-City/3535.htmlWed, 29 Jul 2009 08:27:44 GMTJeff Trexler This afternoon I came home from an engaging discussion of, among other things, how sustainable fashion has gone from the margins to the mainstream in recent years, and what should show up on the television but an episode of What Not To Wear? featuring the virtuous to a fault Tara K., whose commitment to recycled clothing had doomed her to a life of dumpy used goods. The show went on to take Tara to some of the cool vintage & eco-clothing stores in New York City, and by the end she had learned th Read Full Article ]]> This afternoon I came home from an engaging discussion of, among other things, how sustainable fashion has gone from the margins to the mainstream in recent years, and what should show up on the television but an episode of What Not To Wear? featuring the virtuous to a fault Tara K., whose commitment to recycled clothing had doomed her to a life of dumpy used goods. The show went on to take Tara to some of the cool vintage & eco-clothing stores in New York City, and by the end she had learned the valuable but inexpensive lesson: sustainable can be sexy. Schooled as I've been in the McLuhan & Warhol mode of dispassionate observation, I recount that pithy bit of televised wisdom not so much to affirm it as to call attention to its very existence. The fact that one of Tara's co-workers at their recycling center said the glam makeover would "raise the credibility of the industry" highlights an interesting dimension of post-financial crisis social enterprise:We're the new Sex and the City.While conspicuous consumption has become passe, thrift stores and other purveyors of clothing with a social mission are being remade in the image of boom-era commercialism. It's a fascinating trend, as the charitable dimension of social enterprise gives new meaning to what was even before the crash a lifestyle cliche. Below, a few more intriguing examples. First, a Goodwill video that I actually discovered onn Hulu while writing about social enterprise . . . In addition, Goodwill D.C. has a popular and useful fashion blog:And here's The S.W.A.P. Team, a new Canadian social enterprise; the photo at the top of this post is from one of their recent fashion show fundraisers.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/-quot-Looking-for-a-meaningful-job-quot-/3464.htmlMon, 27 Jul 2009 02:56:43 GMTJeff Trexler There have been any number of social enterprise issues that have caught my eye this week, but when I sat down to write this post I couldn't get my mind off of this simple profile update here at JustMeans:The desire to blend our need to make a living with our drive to live a life is at the base of much of what we see in social enterprise. It sounds so basic, but it's incredibly complex--Kant famously spoke of it in terms of the distinction between viewing people as means to ends versus ends in th Read Full Article ]]> There have been any number of social enterprise issues that have caught my eye this week, but when I sat down to write this post I couldn't get my mind off of this simple profile update here at JustMeans:The desire to blend our need to make a living with our drive to live a life is at the base of much of what we see in social enterprise. It sounds so basic, but it's incredibly complex--Kant famously spoke of it in terms of the distinction between viewing people as means to ends versus ends in themselves, yet over two hundred years later we don't seem to have become any better at guaranteeing that everyone gets to work in ways that treat them as fully human. One way to rise above this tension is, of course, to hang out at this site, which offers access to a range of jobs with a socially beneficial purpose. Still, even if you manage to snag one, that's only one step on the quest--meaning isn't something you get so much as create, and that's a lifelong process. Another way to find meaning in a career is to look for meaning in unexpected places. At base, every enterprise is a social enterprise, or should be--as Ellen Dissanayake memorably observed, "making special" is the art of being human; our innate aesthetic is to make more from the mundane.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Saving-the-planet--one--spoiler---at-a-time/3492.htmlSun, 26 Jul 2009 19:26:31 GMTJeff Trexler Fan campaigns to save TV shows & characters have a rich history, going back at least to the landmark letter-writing campaign that persuaded NBC not to cancel Star Trek back in the 1960s. (FYI: the book linked above is a must read collection of primary source material for anyone interested in the history of nonprofit organized fandom.)Now, fans of Torchwood are using a charitable fundraiser to persuade the BBC to bring back Ianto Jones, a character who was killed in the latest--and in my opinion, Read Full Article ]]> Fan campaigns to save TV shows & characters have a rich history, going back at least to the landmark letter-writing campaign that persuaded NBC not to cancel Star Trek back in the 1960s. (FYI: the book linked above is a must read collection of primary source material for anyone interested in the history of nonprofit organized fandom.)Now, fans of Torchwood are using a charitable fundraiser to persuade the BBC to bring back Ianto Jones, a character who was killed in the latest--and in my opinion, brilliant--season, which examines the question of social benefit and tragic choice.Word is the effort won't succeed in bringing back Ianto, but so far it has raised about $5,000 for BBC's Children in Need.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Out-of-the-Dragon-s-Den/3367.htmlMon, 20 Jul 2009 22:09:38 GMTJeff Trexler The Dragon's Den is a BBC venture capital pitch contest--originally from Japan--that will soon be adapted to US TV as The Shark Tank. As this recent Guardian article notes, last year on the BBC version chef Simon Boyle went on the show to raise money for his social enterprise, Beyond Boyle, a catering service staffed by homeless people. The result: VCs expressing how much the venture moved them . . . just enough not to make an investment."Outside of the Den," said a clearly moved Dragon Peter Jo Read Full Article ]]> The Dragon's Den is a BBC venture capital pitch contest--originally from Japan--that will soon be adapted to US TV as The Shark Tank. As this recent Guardian article notes, last year on the BBC version chef Simon Boyle went on the show to raise money for his social enterprise, Beyond Boyle, a catering service staffed by homeless people. The result: VCs expressing how much the venture moved them . . . just enough not to make an investment."Outside of the Den," said a clearly moved Dragon Peter Jones, "You'd hear me say I'm in." Alas, as they were in the Den, and as the aim is, theoretically, pure profit maximisation, he was going to keep his money firmly in his wallet. The implication was clear: business is business, good causes are good causes, and never the twain shall meet. Business is a ruthless and self-interested affair, to be taken deadly seriously; creating social value is what we do when we are in a sweeter, fluffier, more recklessly altruistic place.Fortunately this story has a happy aftermath, with Chef Boyle's biz getting money through the Spark Challenge. Beyond the news itself, the Guardian piece provides a useful example of how the social enterprise world looks from outside. The contrast to commercial investing, the notion that attention to "mundane" business details is "un-charitable," the sense that social enterprise is "anti-charity" and an "anti-Dragon's Den"--all well worth noting, even if it all says less about how charity really operates than how it is perceived.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/What-termites-teach-about-buildings--amp--jobs/3352.htmlSun, 19 Jul 2009 13:24:04 GMTJeff Trexler The weekend Financial Times has a fascinating article for anyone interested in the technology of social change: how termite structures are shaping the future of print-on-demand sustainable architecture. A few key excerpts follow below, but what I'd really like to highlight are the real opportunities here for people interested in careers related to social enterprise, CSR & environmental sustainability. There are scads of activists and awareness-raisers and managers and, um, lawyers, but technolog Read Full Article ]]> The weekend Financial Times has a fascinating article for anyone interested in the technology of social change: how termite structures are shaping the future of print-on-demand sustainable architecture. A few key excerpts follow below, but what I'd really like to highlight are the real opportunities here for people interested in careers related to social enterprise, CSR & environmental sustainability. There are scads of activists and awareness-raisers and managers and, um, lawyers, but technological change won't happen without innovative engineers, designers & scientists. Blend technological expertise with imagination and you may not merely be successful in finding work--you could be creating the green jobs of the future.Indeed, while landmark, one-off buildings might generate headlines for the new technology, the key goal is to transfer the printing process from the production line to the residential building lot, making houses available in less time, at much less expense and with more extraordinary designs than are currently available. "Mass printing of houses could be quite cheap, fast and specific," El-Ali says. "We are taking this technology quite seriously and putting it forward to clients. You can build whatever you want for the same price as a standard house."For many, the dream is also to make houses more eco-friendly. Soar's belief that we should live like termites, for example, might sound fantastical but it is, in fact, embraced by builders and architects all over the world. They are enthralled: first, by the scale of the mounds relative to the insects (one overused clich is that if termites were the size of humans their structures would be many times higher than the Empire State Building) and, second, by the internal environmental controls that Soar is studying. Indeed, the ventilation of buildings including London's Swiss Re office tower (also known as the Gherkin), Serpentine Gallery and Portcullis House and the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe used termite mounds as inspiration.Building on work by the American evolutionary scientist Scott Turner and Namibian entomologist Eugene Marais, Soar thinks that previous models for how the nests got their air missed the point. Rather than working like the "stack effect" of a chimney - where wind blowing over the top creates a vacuum that sucks out hot air - he and his research partners think it operates like a lung, mixing gases through intricately porous walls. "We have identified respiratory systems in a pile of mud," he says. And, by scanning and copying the structures via rapid manufacturing, he hopes to "capture a technology that keeps a swarm [of termites] in a constant state without electricity" - no pumps, no fans, no air conditioning. This is particularly relevant for houses, since most are too short to take advantage of controlling their climate through chimneys. ]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Lending-for-health-or-borrowing-trouble/3089.htmlFri, 17 Jul 2009 09:33:27 GMTJeff Trexler Is trying to help children always a good thing?While the rest of the world was watching the Michael Jackson memorial, this afternoon on Twitter an interesting discussion occurred between global health expert Alanna Shaikh and Tori Tuncan, founder of the microloan service Lend4Health. Although Lend4Health is a celebrated example of an organization that is using online social networks to promote social good, Shaikh confessed that the venture "gives me the creeps." Part of the problem, Shaikh noted Read Full Article ]]> Is trying to help children always a good thing?While the rest of the world was watching the Michael Jackson memorial, this afternoon on Twitter an interesting discussion occurred between global health expert Alanna Shaikh and Tori Tuncan, founder of the microloan service Lend4Health. Although Lend4Health is a celebrated example of an organization that is using online social networks to promote social good, Shaikh confessed that the venture "gives me the creeps." Part of the problem, Shaikh noted, is the medical approach that Lend4Health currently supports: the controversial biomedical approach to autism, "quackery" that should not be a basis for a family's going into debt. Another problem is more systemic: namely, the way that the microlending model infringes on the privacy of children. It's a real issue. Lend4Health's website offers photos, names and diagnoses of the kids being served by the loans, and its Twitter account provides updates and detailed appeals. Even if parents are legally free to disclose otherwise private medical information regarding a minor child, Lend4Health raises what is--for me at least--an ethically questionable incentive for parents to make a child's condition public in exchange for cash. Whatever one's assessment of biomedical intervention, surely the social enterprise community is not so caught up in its own virtue that it can't see how posting "my son Timmy is autistic and we can't afford to pay to get rid of his condition" can hurt the very children that lending for health is supposed to protect. A child's sense of self, relation to parents, interaction with friends--publishing medical information can have payback for the kid years after the loan itself is repaid. While I admire Lend4Health's dedication to doing good, I am concerned about the potential ramifications for both children and adults should the model go to scale.]]>