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Source: Kauffman Foundation

The Kauffman Foundation recently unveiled its 30-second PSA that will air on Sunday during Super Bowl XLVI—Will It Be You?

The PSA highlights entrepreneurs’ contributions to the economy, job creation and innovation. It also challenges viewers to consider turning their own ideas into businesses by directing them to willitbeyou.com, a Kauffman website that provides would-be founders with resources to help them get their plans moving—whether they are seeking inspiration, mentoring, networking, or other assistance.

“As jobs and the economy take center stage this election year, the Kauffman Foundation wants both policymakers and the public to be aware of the importance of entrepreneurs to solving our economic crisis,” said Wendy Guillies, Kauffman”s vice president of communications. “The most-watched television event of the year is the ideal opportunity for Kauffman to inspire entrepreneurs and, in the spirit of Super Bowl advertising, to do so in a fun and accessible manner.”

The 30-second PSA, which employs the same animated illustration style used in the Kauffman Foundation’s popular Sketchbook series, outlines the growth of a simple idea into a successful business and ends with a call to action for viewers. It will run in some of the nation’s largest television markets—New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Kansas City. In addition to airing on television during the Super Bowl, the PSA is available on the Kauffman Foundation’s YouTube channel.

Source: Kauffman Foundation

Are you a global entrepreneur? A global entrepreneur systematically seeks out and conducts new and innovative business activities across national borders. These activities may consist of exporting, licensing, opening a new sales office, or acquiring another venture.

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Founded in 1998, the Global Entrepreneurship Institute (GEI) is a non-profit 501(c) 3 educational organization with the specific mission of educating and supporting entrepreneurs around the world. Our books and course materials are used in the Top 10 of the best graduate programs in the USA that teach entrepreneurship, and 8 of the Top 10 best undergraduate programs in the USA that teach entrepreneurship.

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Our Roadmap For Social Entrepreneurs helps prepare entrepreneurs and managers of nonprofit organizations and projects. It is your action plan, designed for to you quickly develop knowledge, skills, and perspectives to support the application of traditional business management practices and concepts to nonprofit organizations and social cause efforts.

Most social entrepreneurs have five primary fundraising goals. They need funding for starting up, projects and programs, everyday operations, capital enhancements, and creating an endowment fund. Sources of funding for the social entrepreneur can come from a number of sources. When working on your business plan, think about which of these sources you will most likely target. The key sources are government agencies, private foundations, corporate foundations, family foundations, community foundations, social angels, and corporate budgets.

Like a detective, you will need to shift through all your great ideas and notes from your brainstorming sessions. Our Roadmap will help you create a business strategy, a business plan, a financing strategy, and help you focus using proven strategic and tactical approaches. We want to help you kick-start the planning and organizing process. Our Roadmap will help you start your business plan, complete requests for grants, prepare stakeholder presentations, create marketing sponsorship proposals, and even marketing materials like press releases.

When you are completed you should be able to answer the following questions:
- What is this project or program about? What is the problem that needs to be solved?
- It is a one time special event? Or a long-term project that spans a number of years?
- What is the community served? Who are the stakeholders?
- What is its mission and values statement?
- What are its goals and objectives? How will success be measured?
- What organizational structure is best for the nonprofit venture?
- Who will be responsible for managing it? Who is committed to it right now?
- What are the gaps in your leadership team? How will you fill them?
- How much money does it need and when? What about the other resources you need?
- What will your supporters and sponsors get in return for helping you?

We know that putting together information your plan and funding raising is a challenge. But be confident, we have helped thousands of entrepreneurs. Carefully go through our ten steps, review all the questions and prepare your answers. We can help you change the hearts, minds and behaviors of millions. No matter how ambitious your cause, our process will help you define goals and milestones, identify realistic ways to meet them, and ultimately make an impact on the health and well being of society.

Step 1: Perform Situation Analysis
- What’s the specific cause or issue you want to address?
- How do you define your cause, your issue, or the problem that needs to be solved?
- Who is at risk because of this problem?
- How big is this issue? Regional? Nationwide? Global?
- How was this issue discovered? How long has this issue been around?
- What kinds of challenges are there in addressing the problem? What are you going to do better?
- How big is the problem? Can you define the problem in dollars?
- Can you define the impact of the problem on society today?
- What about the long-term impact of the problem on society?
- Did you perform a Corporate Social Responsibility Audit at your workplace?
- What did you uncover? MORE

Step 2: Define Your Community
- How do you define your community?
- How big is the community? Who are ALL your stakeholders?
- Can you define your community broadly in ways that make sense for the sponsors, for the media, for the volunteers?
- Who, specifically are your clients, the beneficiaries of your services? How are they defined, selected? What kind of restrictions do you have? (age, income, geographic)
- How do define the demographics your of target audience (like donors, sponsors) for promotional purposes?
- Are you considering stakeholders outside of your immediate region?
- What type of social entrepreneurial activity is your organization? MORE

Step 3: Research and Analysis
- What is the best approach to solving the problem identified? Has it been clearly defined?
- Who else is solving this problem, consider who else is doing something similar?
- Is it best to set up a project at work? Will this need a full-time commitment from people?
- Is this a one-time, short-term project? Or is this a long-term, continuous project?
- Have you benchmarked, studied other programs, projects, organization that are similar to the one you propose? What are they doing really well? What can you do differently and better?
- How are they funded? How do they find sponsors? How do they operate?
- Have you explored, considered other models, or approaches?
- Why should someone support your project? Who are potential partners and alliances?
- Does your organization need to be classified as tax-exempt from the IRS? If yes, what type of classification?
- Will your organization need financial support in the form of grants, cooperate sponsorship, public fund raising?
- Have you researched potential sources of funding? What types are available for your organization?
- Why would your project fit with your potential partners and alliances?
- What are the details, what are the benefits from sponsorship and support?
- What are the expected outcomes for the other stakeholders involved?
- What kind of other qualitative research have you completed?

Step 4: Define Mission and Strategy
- What is the name of the project, the organization?
- What is the location of the organization?
- What are the main goals and objectives?
- What is the strategy of achieving these goals and objectives?
- What is the mission statement?
- What is the vision statement?
- How would you define the values?
- How would you define the culture?
- What services will be provided? What will be the benefits of your services/program?
- Where will the services be provided? How will they be provided?
- What are the key completion dates and deadlines?
- What are the giving policies? How do they differ with each sponsor/supporter?
- Have you created a Code of Conduct? (an outline or document that covers practical concerns, activities, and actions that are acceptable for your organization, and those that are not)
- How would you evaluate the success of your project? What are your performance metrics?
- What are the benefits from sponsorship and support?

Step 5: Focus Organization and Commitment
- How are you organized? What’s the history of the organization?
- How was it founded? By whom? Why?
- Is it incorporated? If not, should it be incorporated?
- What are the organization’s most important achievements to date?
- Does your organization have organizing documents, like Articles of Incorporation, and Bylaws?
- If an existing organization, how old is it? How has it changed? Do you have amendments to the original Articles of Incorporation, and Bylaws?
- How did the team come together? What are the responsibilities of each team member?
- Who will manage the organization and be the leader?
- Who will keep track of the records, the board notes, and the financials?
- Who will keep track of the communications?
- Who will create the timeline for the schedule of meetings?
- Who will set the objectives and set of accomplishments for each meeting?
- Have you performed a gap analysis for your team? What did you discover?
- When will you need them more members for your team? Who will be responsible for recruiting the other folks?
- Have you considered your external team of professional service advisors, consultants, and advisory board members?
- What are your expectations of your board members? What will they expect from you?
- Can you demonstrate commitment from the top down with your core leadership team?
- If a project at work, are you prepared to discuss how to involve front-line employees and volunteers from the bottom-up?
- Will you have any employees? If so, what will be your hiring, evaluation, and firing guidelines?
- Did your organization get an employer identification number (EIN) from the IRS?
- What do people get for working with your project?
- Do you know who can help you facilitate the introductions that will connect to the partner(s) discussed in Step 3 above?

Step 6: Gather Critical Capital Resources
- What do you need in resources? What details can you provide about your budget?
- How much cash is needed? When is it needed? How will the funds be used?
- What are your cause-specific expenses? Consider inventory, supplies, direct labor, materials, equipment that you need to buy, rent, direct labor, printing, develop of the product or service, signage, T-shirts, food for a one day event, researching and writing studies and reports, special travel.
- What are your overhead specific expenses? Consider special fees, renting office space, phone lines, storing, shipping, packaging, other logistical needs like transportation.
- What are your organization specific expenses? Consider the costs for business plan development, business and legal fees, banking fees like check printing, opening a checking account, incorporation expenses, tax registration, licensing, certification.
- What are your marketing specific expenses? Consider particular marketing studies, special promotional and advertising needs like brochures, flyers, Web site development, creating press releases.
- What are your entrepreneurial specific expenses? You will need to determine and account for the in-kind hours from volunteers, employees, part-time workers, and your advisory board members and in-kind, on-loan resources.
- Who would be the best sponsors to help you? Consider your efforts in alliance building, to these resources and the responses of each sponsor to your request for resources.
- What is the term of sponsorship and level of participation for each sponsor? Just for the project/program/event? Do you expect it to be annual? Long-term?
- What are the costs for sponsors? Can you list and detail all costs sponsors would be expected to pay, sponsorship fees, value-in-kind, promotional fees, signage, literature, flyers, creative/production costs, equipment fees, merchandising?
- Can you discuss payment terms with your suppliers and schedule of needs?
- How can you use your long-term vision of philanthropy to select partners and forge partnerships with sponsors that will help you achieve that vision?
- Do you have any commitments from existing sponsors, strategic alliances, partnerships or sponsors? Do you have any commitments on the horizon?
- What are the deadlines for fundraising? Do you have an idea which sponsor commits what and when?
- Who will be responsible for management of all this ”relationship capital” for your organization?

Step 7: Create Launch Strategy
- What about your organization’s name, and brand development? Do you need to have them trademarked?
- What are the key-success-factors to your organization in terms of launching?
- What are the deadlines for getting launched? What is your timeline of activities, your crucial drop-dead dates, when things absolutely have to be completed?
- Briefly, how are you going to communicate to the world about your organization?
- How do you plan to coordinate your launch (or re-launch) with your sponsors and other stakeholders?
- Who will organize the communications and the launch strategy? What is their experience?
- Who is in charge of the preparation and development of your communication strategies? (how to go out and start talking to the world–media, press, and other communication, contacting potential sponsors, sources of funding, potential partners, and potential volunteers)
- Do you have marketing and communications materials that need to be updated?
- What do you need for your launch, in terms of marketing and communications materials? (newsletters, reports, brochures, magazines, books, press releases, business cards, stationary)
- What about getting a Web site launched?
- Who do you have on your team that can help you use the Internet and Web site?
- What Web sites are you benchmarking? Why? What can you learn from them?
- Who is going to be in charge of Web site design, development and management?
- What features and functions will you need for your Web site to get launched?
- What about content for your Web site and email newsletter management?
- What about updates to your Web site in the future? Who will be responsible?

Step 8: Define Management and Implementation
- Can you scope out and briefly write an implementation plan with key milestones?
- If this is a long-term project or permanent organization, what are the key talking points how this organization will be managed, using established business management practices? Have you considered board meetings, discussion of management practices, how the financials will be prepared and shared, and other regular activities and deliverables?
- If this is a one-time event, or limited project, are you prepared to discuss the name of the event, the program, the date(s), location(s)?
- Can you provide an itemized/detailed proposed schedule of the event?
- Can you discuss the event/program history and objectives?
- What about security measures? What about insurance for the event?
- Will you have special guests at your event? Who is in charge of inviting them?
- What about special speakers, representatives from the media?
- What about any special training for your volunteers? Who will be in charge of this?

Step 9: Discuss Promotion and Publicity
- Have you explored innovative ways to measure and to celebrate the impact of the work of your organization, your program, your project? (for example, projected attendance and reach of event to cities, states, regions, etc.)
- Corporate sponsors most often want publicity for their work with nonprofits. Have you considered how to include items such as radio/TV/newspaper exposure, signage, tickets, access to special events, hospitality opportunities, access to mailing lists, public relations efforts, personal appearances and anything else potential sponsors would receive?
- What are the talking points of your press releases?
- Do have an outline for your press releases?
- What are the important dates for your press releases?
- Will you be able to have your press releases prepared in advance?
- Who is responsible for creating your media contact lists? Who will be in touch with the media?
- Have you considered working with a consultant that can help assist you in developing press materials communications strategies, establishing relationships with media and the like?
- How will your Web site support and enhance your Promotions and Publicity?
- Have you considered additional business development/marketing opportunities for sponsors?

Step 10: Prepare Follow Up and Continued Support
- How will you meet with your stakeholders, measure what you accomplished, learn what you did well, debrief your team, and share results with your supporters and volunteers? When?
- How do you plan to evaluate your efforts? How will you track and monitor performance?
- Who will be responsible for performing the “gap analysis” with your mission statement, your goals and objectives and accomplishments?
- How will you know what you did correctly? What you did incorrectly? How will you know what to do next? What are the resources required?
- What are your practices for the preparation of reports to sponsors and other key stakeholders?
- How do you propose to communicate and congratulate the three levels of your stakeholders and share the results? (first level is the internal leadership team, second level is with the volunteers, third level with the sponsors)
- Have you explored creative and genuine ways to say “Thank You!” to each level of stakeholder? (personal visit, phone call, follow-up letter, ”thank you” luncheon, dinner, ”thank you” and recognition in newsletters, on Web site, alerting the media for individual excellence etc.)

One Dozen Keys to Succes Launching Your Nonprofit

1. Focus on and attack single, simple, doable causes—don’t try to change the world in one day
2. Use a detailed planning process, like our Roadmap here, and start early
3. Take advantage of what has been successful before
4. Set project goals with community aspirations and needs
5. Complete well devised research, benchmarking, and modeling
6. Assemble a leadership team that is “committed to the commitment!”
7. Pretest your promotional messages and publicity materials
8. Be creative, prepare a balanced mix of media, Web site, and face-to-face opportunities
9. Implement well!
10. Prepare in advance effective methodologies for evaluation
11. Follow up your stakeholders—share the good, the bad, and your gratitude!
12. Know when you need help and get help when you can.

Social entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs pursuing a social mission and substitute profits for social causes. A social entrepreneur uses formal strategic management practices primarily in the public and nonprofit sectors to solve a range of social problems in the areas of health, safety, environmental protection, and community involvement.

Few words are as abused in the lexicon of the business world, as ill defined in the management literature, and as open to multiple meanings as entrepreneurship. The concept of entrepreneurship has been in our modern society for thousands of years and in the history of economic study the word has been overused, and in some cases underused. Carl Voigt, dean of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, explains, “We sort of defined entrepreneurialism too narrowly as someone who wants to start their own business. But entrepreneurialism can also mean finding new business opportunities and expansion at existing companies.”

Starting with practically nothing, an entrepreneur is one who organizes a new venture, manages it, and assumes the associated risk. At the Global Entrepreneurship Institute the term entrepreneur is broadly defined to include business owners, innovators, and executives in need of capital to start a new project, introducing a new product, or expanding a promising line of business. We include technology transfer experts, technologists at leading universities, and consultants and advisors assisting in all aspects of venturing. An entrepreneur’s principal objectives are profit and growth, and they will employ formal strategic management practices to achieve them.

Wendell Dunn, professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School, believes that “entrepreneurs are in it to prove a point.” Steven Berglas, instructor at The Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at UCLA, has devoted a career to understanding what makes serial entrepreneurs tick. He found they “leave as many intellectual and creative entities for others to derive developmental opportunities from as possible.”

After a ten-year period of teaching and studying entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, Amar Bhide concluded that “it takes a really extraordinary individual to build a promising company—extraordinary in terms of someone who has an almost maniacal level of ambition. Not just an ambition to make a comfortable living, to make a few million dollars, but someone who wants to leave a significant mark on the world.” As technology guru George Gilder describes it, “Because an entrepreneur can never be sure of a return on his investment, starting up a business is like offering a gift to the world, in the hope, but never the certainty, that the gift will be reciprocated.”

What is a social entrepreneur?
Social entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs pursuing a social mission and substitute profits for social causes. A social entrepreneur uses formal strategic management practices primarily in the public and nonprofit sectors to solve a range of social problems in the areas of health, safety, environmental protection, and community involvement.

Social entrepreneurship is nothing new. Social and nonprofit entrepreneurs who pursue endeavors for the benefit of society have existed since ancient times. In fact, the word philanthropy is derived from a Greek word that means “lover of mankind.” Today it is believed that entrepreneurism above and innovation can also help “spark positive social change.”

Social entrepreneurs can work at the local level independently—everything from sponsoring the local youth sports teams, to volunteering as a mentor. Social entrepreneurs can work inside of existing companies with large teams—launching a corporate-wide health fair, to solving work environments for a supplier on the other side of the world. Social entrepreneurs can devote a lifetime to designing environmentally sound products inside a huge multibillion-dollar corporation. Social entrepreneurs can create a project to clean up their local beach for one day out of the year.

Social entrepreneurs attempt to influence specific behaviors that will improve health, prevent injuries, educate the poor, protect the environment, lessen the burdens of governments, and create other project that contribute positively to communities. Social entrepreneurs working inside of an existing business can help their businesses improve their bottom line by leveraging a nonprofit partnership to enhance their image, reach new markets, increase consumer loyalty, and build a positive reputation with current and prospective employees.

Social Entrepreneurs address these major issues:

 - Health.Examples include: teen pregnancy prevention, nutrition education, diabetes prevention, adult physical activity, tobacco use and control, arthritis diagnosis and treatment, immunizations, dental hygiene, senior wellness and aging, eating disorder awareness, binge drinking, obesity, physical activity, immunizations, nutrition, sexually transmitted diseases, blood pressure, oral health, high cholesterol, and skin, breast, prostate and colon cancer.

 - Safety and Injury Prevention. Examples include: drowning prevention, underage drinking and driving, youth suicide prevention, binge drinking, traffic safety, safe gun storage, falls, household fires, suicide, sexual assault, domestic violence, disaster preparedness, seatbelt, car-seat and booster seat usage.

 - Environmental Concerns and Protection. Examples include: natural gardening, preservation of fish and wildlife habitat, recycling, trip reduction, water quality, waste reduction, water quality, energy conservation, air pollution, litter, beach protection, wildlife habitat protection, forest preservation, and hazardous waste disposal.

 - Community Development and Involvement. Examples include: arts, religious activities, educational, youth sports programs, organ donation, blood donation, volunteering, voting, crime prevention, animal rights, advancing technology to the poor, and delivering meals to seniors. The scope can be in the neighborhood, or on the other side of the world.

 - Disaster Relief and Prevention. Examples include: earthquakes, natural disasters, fires, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, and fallout from geopolitical tensions and wars like epidemics and mass starvation.

Defining Social Entrepreneurial Activity
A social entrepreneur may work independently, within a fully structured “not-for-profit” central organization, or lead a local association that is affiliated with a larger nonprofit central organization or corporation. An organization may qualify as a nonprofit and tax-exempt status in the United States by the IRS if it is organized and operated exclusively for providing services beneficial to the public interest. Examples are one or more of the following purposes: charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and the prevention of cruelty to children or animals. To qualify, the organization must be a corporation, community chest, fund, or foundation. Examples of qualifying organizations include nonprofit old-age homes, parent-teacher associations, charitable hospitals, medical research organizations, endowment funds, or other charitable organizations, alumni associations, schools, chapters of the Red Cross or Salvation Army, Boys’ or Girls’ clubs, and churches.

Nonprofit does not mean literally that an entrepreneur or the organization cannot make a profit. Under the U.S. federal law and state corporate statutes, as long as the organization is organized, structured and operated for a recognized nonprofit purpose, it can take in more money that it spends on its operating activities. A nonprofit organization may use its tax-free profits for ongoing operating expenses (including salaries for officers, directors, and employees) or for the benefit of the organization. What a nonprofit cannot do is distribute any of the profits for the benefits of its officers, directors, or employees, like dividends.

Central Organization
A central organization is an organization that is formally structured, incorporated, and has substantial resources dedicated to the cause and issues. It is a permanent, everlasting organization or business unit. It can be a nonprofit, and/or a function deeply integrated with a for-profit business organization. It can be operating inside the four-walls of for-profit companies, developing and leading nonprofit projects, foundations. It can have multi-million dollar budgets, perhaps multi-billion dollar budgets. It can be can be huge in scope working local and/or global. Many times, it will have one or more subordinate associations under its general supervision or control in the form of divisions, business units, foundations, and charitable trusts. It is have fully established business management practices and standards and be fully registered with IRS as a nonprofit tax-exempt status.

Examples:
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- United Nations Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) programs
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Ben & Jerry’s Foundation
- Target Community
- Merck & Co. Donating Mectizan to prevent river blindness
- Pew Internet & American Life Project
- General Electric Appliances for the Disabled
- Honda Worldwide: Next Generation Environmental Technologies
- Green Toe shoes from Simple Shoes

Subordinate Organization
A subordinate organization is a chapter local, post or unit of a central organization discussed above. It is long-term, and most likely some kind of operational activities year-round. It is strictly a not-for-profit organization, may or may not be incorporated, but it must have an organizing document. It can be large in support to its community, and/or members, and quite often has large financial resources committed. It can be very focused on a few particular niche causes and issues. Most likely it using some business management practices. It will have a limited number of paid-employees, most often have non-paid volunteers. It is fully registered with IRS as a nonprofit status, probably under the central organization’s charter and affiliation.

Examples:
- AMGEN’s bike ride for Arthritis in California
- Care For Animals, by the American Veterinary Medical Association
- American Electronics Association of Texas
- Cattle Barons Ball, supports American Cancer Society of Columbus
- Surfrider Chapter of Oahu
- Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk in North Carolina
- Lemon Link, connecting a public school to Internet
- Volunteering for the Arboretum Foundation in Seattle
- National Latina Business Women Association, Los Angeles
- MIT Enterprise Forum of Atlanta

Independent Organization
An independent organization solves societal problems through a project-by-project activity. It is a group of two or more individuals meeting for a common cause. An independent organization often works only locally, within its own community, for limited events, project, and social cause programs. Most often it focuses on one social cause or issue at a time. Most likely this organization is not using many formal business management practices. There is a low dedication of assets, and most likely it is not qualified with the IRS as a tax-exempt organization. No plans to elect permanent officers or even get established as n ongoing organization. An exception would be an individual social entrepreneur sitting on the board of a nonprofit organization discussed above, bringing formal business management practices to that organization. Or, they can be working alone within other organizations, creating an invention that changes the world.

Examples:
- Boston Black Student Network
- ModestNeeds.Org
- Kirkuk Business Center in Iraq
- South Pacific Business Development Foundation (SPBD) in Samoa
- Foundation for Immigrant Resources and Education (FIRE), St. Paul
- Somme Prairie Grove Preserve self-guided tours
- Colorado Therapeutic Riding Center
- I Have A Dream, Houston for inner-city kids
- Society of Women Engineers at UCSD
- Court Appointed Housing Specialists, Philadelphia

Case Study: Inventing the World Wide Web
The Web is not a “physical” thing that exists in a certain “place.” It is a “space” in which information exists. J. Neil Weintraut called it “the Rosetta stone of the Internet for the masses.” In Robert Reid’s Architects of the Web, Weintraut says, “The Internet was a massive library of some of the most advanced information and discussion forums in the world from leading research institutions, but locating and getting the information was obtrusively difficult. It was akin to walking down each aisle of a library, scanning each book just to figure out what is there, but doing all this in the dark!”

In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee sat down in the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN) in Geneva to invent the World Wide Web. When Berners-Lee started working on his Web project, there were about 800 different computer networks plugged into the Internet and about 160,000 computers filled with information. He invented a “Web client that allows a human to read information on the Web.” It solved incompatibility among all the different servers, computing systems, and infrastructures.

Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the Web browser has forever changed the shape of modern life, altering the way people do business, entertain, and inform themselves. His invention is often compared to Gutenberg’s printing press, Bell’s telephone, and Marconi’s radio. Time magazine hailed him as one of the 100 greatest minds of the twentieth century, saying, “He took a powerful communications system that only the elite could use and turned it into a mass medium.” More than 375 million queries are made each day on the Internet. Google alone responds to more than 200 million search queries per day in 74 languages from 100 different countries. Tim Berners-Lee chose not to profit from his invention. In April 1993 CERN declared that they would not charge a royalty on the Web protocol and code created by Berners-Lee. It was his gift to the world.

A Social or Nonprofit Entrepreneur uses established, proven entrepreneurial management practices primarily in the public and nonprofit sectors to solve a range of social problems in the areas of health, safety, environmental protection, and community involvement.

Social entrepreneurs create and manage not-for-profit projects, events, organizations, and programs that are measured by means other than bottom-line profits. The nonprofit sector they lead comprises 7 percent of U.S. gross domestic product—a number that grows even larger when health care and public education are included. There are more than a million nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and their start-up rate exceeds that of private businesses. They employ approximately 8.6 million people and mobilize another 7.2 million unpaid volunteers, which together constitute 14 percent of the labor force. Worldwide, the sector makes up almost 5 percent of the GDP.

The philanthropic capital markets are also significant. In 2002, charitable giving by individuals, foundations, and corporations was over $240 billion in the U.S. Over the next fifty years there will be an estimated six trillion dollars of intergenerational wealth transfer that will be flowing into this sector. Additionally, most corporations are involved with social issues and nonprofit organizations.

Increasingly, consumers, investors, business partners, employees and other stakeholders are choosing to deal with progressive companies that not only product and deliver the goods and services but have acceptable, even exceptional, corporate values. Local communities now expect from companies a place of productive and healthful employment in the community. The communities also expect participation of company officials in community affairs, provision of regular employment, fair play, reasonable purchases made in the local community, interest in and support of local government, support of cultural and charitable projects.

Research shows that stakeholders prefer to do business with companies that integrate social initiatives and causes whether health-related, environmental, civic or even political, into their corporate business strategy. Two thirds of American consumers report having a greater degree of trust in companies aligned with a social issue. Sixty percent would buy first from a company that backs a cause they support and eighty-six percent are more likely to buy a product associated with a cause or issue. And, according to a Points of Light Foundation survey, U.S. businesses know that volunteering is good for the community, companies and employees. Eighty-five percent of the companies surveyed said volunteering helps create healthier communities, 74 percent say it helps improve a company’s image and 54 percent agree that it helps employee morale.

With funding for nonprofits shrinking and global markets more competitive, business and social sectors are both confronting an increasingly challenging future. Many organizations are searching for innovative strategies that will counter the mounting pressures felt by communities and corporations alike. Forward-looking businesses and social sector organizations (both nonprofit and government) can solve many of their problems by working together-while serving the common good in the process.

The spectacular late-1990s run-up in the stock market created a generation of newly super-rich executives and entrepreneurs worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. Even after the sharp decline in the market, the ranks of the very wealthy have never been stronger—and many are now working almost as hard at giving their fortunes away as they did at amassing them. BusinessWeek reported that since 1990, charitable donations by individuals have grown by half, from $110 billion to $164 billion in 2001. This new philanthropy displays an impatient disdain for the cautious and unimaginative check-writing that dominated charitable giving for decades.

Changes in today’s philanthropy include:

 - It’s more ambitious. Today’s philanthropists are tackling giant issues, from remaking American education to curing cancer.

 - It’s more strategic. Donors are taking the same systematic approach they used to compete in business, creating detailed business plans that get at the heart of systemic problems, not just symptoms.

 - It’s more global. Just as business does not stop at national borders, neither does charitable giving. Donors from William H. Gates III to George Soros have sweeping global agendas.

 - It demands results. The new philanthropists attach a lot of strings. Recipients are often required to meet milestone goals, to invite foundation members onto their boards, and to produce measurable results–or risk losing their funding.

The start of this new era can be traced to late September, 1997, when cable-TV mogul Ted Turner put together an historic $1 billion pledge to the U.N.–and challenged wealthy “skinflints” to do likewise. Recently, the nation’s underachieving billionaires got an even bigger prodding later when the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, promised to pump a staggering $30 some billion into his foundation to help pay for a campaign to improve health care for the world’s poor. Gates and his wife Melinda have since poured a total of $25.6 billion–some 60 percent of their current net worth–into their foundation, making it the world’s largest. Their mission to bring vaccines to poor children in Africa and India is as strategic and sweeping as Andrew Carnegie’s promise to build a library in every American town.

Bill Gates: Business Builder and Global Humanitarian
In 2006 Bill Gates received the Global Humanitarian award at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. From Microsoft’s early days, to the founding of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates has consistently made philanthropy a priority, and demonstrated that technology can be applied not just to business problems, but for the benefit of humankind.

“We are delighted to honor Bill Gates with this award, and to celebrate his humanitarian contributions with the next generation of innovators who can take great inspiration from his example,” said The Tech Museum’s president, Peter Friess. Over the years, Gates’ philanthropic contributions have come in two stages. The first was creating a culture of giving at Microsoft. In 1983 he initiated a United Way giving campaign for his 476 employees; 30 years later the company has 68,000 employees and contributes $61 million, 60,000 of hours of volunteer work, and $273 million in software and services across 95 countries. Today, Microsoft employees consistently lead the nation in per capita contributions to philanthropic causes.

The second phase began in 1994, when Bill created the William H. Gates Foundation. Three years later, he and Melinda created the Gates Library Foundation, which worked to bring public-access computers with Internet connections to public libraries in the U.S. The two groups merged in 2000 to form the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At the end of 2005, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation endowment totaled $29.1 billion. The foundation has made $10.5 billion in grant commitments since its inception, and in 2005 it made grant payments of $1.36 billion.

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to reduce inequities and improve lives around the world. In developing countries, it focuses on improving health, reducing extreme poverty, and increasing access to technology in public libraries. In the United States, the foundation seeks to ensure that all people have access to a great education and to technology in public libraries.

The Problem in Today’s Nonprofits
Donors, meanwhile, face problems of efficiency and scale that the corporate world has long since overcome. If philanthropy were an industry, it would be a highly fragmented, remarkably inefficient array of enterprises. On the giving side, tens of millions of donors and foundations give a total of more than $212 billion a year to charitable causes.

“There’s a lot of money just sloshing around out there,” says Melissa A. Berman, CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which assists wealthy individuals in developing and managing their charitable giving. “Half of all the giving is not used optimally.” And most foundations dole out only the required minimum of 5 percent of their assets annually, preferring to perpetuate their own organizations rather than put more muscle behind their stated cause.

On the receiving side are the nearly one million public charities, 40 percent of them with annual budgets of less than $100,000. Generally, they are vastly undercapitalized, understaffed, and poorly managed. Most nonprofits use their limited resources to market themselves to the same donors and foundations year after year. There is little if any investment in business management, organizational infrastructure, or staff development. “Compared to the for-profit sector, the nonprofit world is back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Japan was beating up American businesses,” says Jeffrey L. Bradach, managing partner at Bridgespan Group Advisors Inc., a consultant to nonprofits and philanthropists. “It’s only beginning to understand that if you want good outcomes, you have to invest in building strong organizations.”

In a survey by Cynthia Massarsky and Samantha Beinhacker from the Yale School of Management—The Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures, they identify the need for support as critical. They explain that, “Although some nonprofits have the potential to plan, create, and manage profitable business ventures, most of them cannot accomplish these tasks on their own.”

Social Entrepreneurs Deliver the Solution
With this said many of the new philanthropists are trying to bring badly needed business discipline and organization to the field, helping to more effectively match up the growing philanthropic capital with the most urgent social needs. Social entrepreneurs bring proven business management practices and skills to the nonprofit sector. Which has led to another critical difference in the new philanthropy: active partnering among long-established private foundations, corporate funds, and individual donors.

Following this new spirit of collaboration, Acumen Fund Inc., a leading-edge philanthropic nonprofit, recently gathered 30 of its 39 “investors” for the first of what is expected to be the equivalent of an annual shareholders’ meeting at, appropriately enough, Pocantico Conference Center, a piece of the old Rockefeller Estate in Tarrytown, N.Y. The group, which focuses on global social philanthropy, was created last year with seed funding from the Rockefeller and Cisco Foundations. Since then, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, AOL Time Warner Foundation, and 36 individual philanthropists have each ponied up from $50,000 to $500,000 apiece as founding partners. “We’re learning how to bring to the same table philanthropists, corporations, the big foundations, and the government,” says Acumen Fund founder Jacqueline Novogratz, who had led workshops for new philanthropists at the Rockefeller Foundation. “You’re going to get better results.”

Other case histories include Home Depot and KaBOOM! (building playgrounds), Microsoft and the American Library Association (adding computers and Internet services to libraries in low-income areas), Denny’s and Save the Children (raising money for poor children), BankBoston and City Year (sponsoring volunteers in community work), Ridgeview, Inc. and Newton-Conover Public Schools (creating better public schools and better parent involvement from employees with children), and Boeing and Pioneer Human Services (creating airplane parts by employing those with disadvantaged backgrounds).

It is evident that alliances between for-profit and the not-for-profit industries yield enormous benefits for both. Businesses can boost their bottom line by leveraging a nonprofit partnership to enhance their image, reach new markets, increase consumer loyalty, and build a positive reputation with current and prospective employees. The upside is just as powerful for nonprofits, because an alliance with a corporation can provide crucial funds and visibility while helping to attract new volunteers and donors.

>>Read More

SOURCE: BestCollegesOnline.com

Conducting business globally, and making it work humanely, is quickly becoming the dominant issue of today. Trade, investment, and information technology are exploding across borders and overwhelming governments’ ability to provide social safety nets and public services to cushion the impact of globalization on people. The result is shaping up as a new era of corporate social responsibility. Being a “good global citizen” means conducting business responsibly and being committed to conducting business with the highest level of integrity and in an ethical and responsible manner.

We define Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the integration of business operations and values, whereby the interests of all stakeholders including investors, customers, employees, local community members, and the environment are reflected in the company’s policies and actions.

Corporate social responsibility focuses on treating the stakeholders of the firm ethically or in a responsible manner. This means treating key stakeholders in a manner deemed acceptable in civilized societies. Social includes economic and environmental responsibility. Since stakeholders exist both within a firm and outside, the net result of social responsibility is to create higher and higher standards of living, while preserving the profitability of the corporation, for people both within and outside the corporation.

There are three principal reasons why business leaders should be concerned about the socially responsible behavior of their businesses. First, a company’s right to exist depends on its responsiveness (or lack of) to the external environment. Second, federal, state, and local governments can (and will) threaten increased regulation if business does not evolve to meet changing social needs. Third, a responsive corporate social policy may enhance a company’s long-term viability.

So there is no challenge than finding a right balance between the relentless pressure for short-term profits and broader social responsibilities. It is important to begin today, thinking long-term, investing heavily in the communities that you do business in, being obsessive about achieving profits, and fully integrating social responsibility into your policies.

We define the key types of corporate social responsibilities:

Economic Responsibilities
These include the most basic of corporate social responsibilities of conducting business, and some economists see these as the only legitimate social responsibilities of business. Corporations living up to their economic responsibilities requires business executives to maximize profits whenever possible. The essential responsibility of a business is assumed to be providing goods and services to society at a reasonable cost. The company also emerges as socially responsible by providing productive jobs for its workforce, tax payments for its local, state, and federal governments. They could be providing a great work environment, with a corporate culture based on respect and dignity. They could be embracing diversity that represent all-walks-of-life which makes everyone feel included and valued.

Legal Responsibilities
These reflect the company’s obligations to comply with the laws that regulate day-to-day business activities. The legal responsibilities are supplemental to the requirement that businesses and their employees comply fully with the general and criminal laws that apply to all individuals and institutions across the county. These include labor laws, insider trading and self-dealing, falsifying statistics, inflating revenues, hiding expenses, and defrauding investors and regulators. In recent years failures to adhere to the law have recently produced some of the greatest scandals in the history of American free enterprise. These include Adelphia Communications, Enron, Global Crossing, ImClone Systems, WorldCom, AIG, and Tyco.

Environmental Responsibilities
We all know and understand that environmental responsibility is essential if we hope to sustain the quality of life on our planet. The environmental movement around the world has achieved stricter enforcement of existing environmental protections and actually spurred the passage of new, more comprehensive laws. These new laws are devoted to preserving the world’s ecological balance and making environmental protection a policy goal in many nations. And each year we learn more about what it means to be environmentally responsible. These actions include a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, developing renewable resources for energy, waste reduction, utilizing post-consumer waste for recycling like with new packaging containers, a reduction of hazardous waste in landfills and waste system and encouraging consumers and suppliers alike to participate in environmental responsibility.

Ethical Responsibilities
These reflect the company’s notion of right or proper business behavior. They are obligations that transcend legal requirements for conducting business. Generally, companies are expected, but not required, to behave ethically within the boundaries of the local community’s social norms. Some actions that are legal might be considered unethical. For example, the manufacture and distribution of cigarettes is legal and governments make billions in taxes on the sales of them. But in light of the often-lethal consequences of smoking, many consider the continued sale of cigarettes to be unethical.

Discretionary Responsibilities
A business and its employees voluntarily assume these. They include public relations activities, good global citizenship and full corporate social responsibility. Through public relations activities business leader attempt to enhance the image of their companies, products, and services by supporting worthy causes. This form of discretionary responsibility has a self-serving dimension. Companies that adopt the “good citizenship” approach actively support ongoing charities, public service advertising campaigns or issues in the public interest. A commitment to full corporate responsibility requires strategic managers to attack social problems with the same focus in which they attack business problems.

It is important to understand that the types of corporate social responsibility will often overlap, creating gray areas where societal expectation on organizational behavior is difficult to categorize. In considering the overlaps among various demands for corporate social responsibility, business leaders should keep in mind that in the view of the stakeholders, economic and legal responsibilities are required; ethical responsibility is expected; and discretionary responsibility is desired.

Corporate social responsibility is no longer a luxury for companies. In today’s global economy, it is critical for companies to embrace social and environmental responsibility in order to meet the demands of their stakeholders–investors, consumers, employees, and communities where they serve.

Benchmarking Examples:
- Cisco
- FedEx
- HP Global Citizenship
- IBM
- Kellogg’s
- McDonald’s Corporation
- Silicon Valley Bank
- Starbucks
- TimeWarner
- Wells Fargo

We believe that any company, regardless of size and industry, should strive to enhance their corporate image with all stakeholders and create social cause projects that give back to their community. Each company, regardless of size, must decide how to meet its perceived social responsibility. We know that while large, well-capitalized companies may have easy access to consultants and in-house specialists, this is not an affordable strategy for smaller companies. However, the experience of many small businesses demonstrates that it is feasible to accomplish great things without great expenses.

Is your company a good global citizen? Does your company “walk-the-talk?” How do you know? Do you want to “unleash” the social entrepreneurs at your work? This audit will help you measure your company’s actual social performance against the social objectives it has set for itself.

Many successful companies have become world-renowned for incorporating social causes and social initiatives into their cultures, their values, and business strategies. Increased customer preference for social responsibility points to the importance of understanding how this type of philosophy can enhance your business. In other words, is your company a good global citizen? How do you know? What can you do to improve your positioning?

Research has shown that integrating business strategy and corporate social responsibility contributes to:

• Positive brand awareness
• Increased employee satisfaction
• Reduced operating costs
• Improved community relations
• Corporate accountability

When making payroll and finding your next customer are top priorities, it may at times seem difficult, if not impossible, to focus on your corporate social responsibilities. But there is no better time to integrate a socially responsible corporate culture into your organization than right now. This is especially true in early-stage companies and start-ups, when business practices and organizational norms are just being formed.

Does Your Company “Walk-the-Talk?”
Careful, accurate monitoring, and evaluation of your company’s social responsibilities and actions are important. Not only because your company wants to be sure it is implementing policies as planned, but also because social responsibilities by their nature are open to intense public scrutiny. But how do you know if you are hitting the mark, or falling short of your own expectations and objectives? Does your company “walk-the-talk?” What are the steps you can take to incorporate socially responsible initiatives into your business, while at the same time adding value to your company? To make sure your company is “making good” on your initiatives you can conduct a corporate social responsibility audit of your company’s performance.

Corporate Social Responsibility Audit
Formal strategic process that will help you measure your company’s actual social performance against the social objectives it has set for itself, and how your decision making, mission statement, guiding principles, and business conduct are aligned with social responsibilities. The audit helps in discovering the interests and objectives of your employees and stakeholders.

You need to start out scoring your company’s performance in such general areas as employee benefits, plant safety, ecology, and community involvement in social causes. Your goal is to find out which nonprofit organizations and social causes your employees would like to support, and how you can incorporate your employees’ interests into your business plan. You also need to discuss what your employees have done in the past, and find out what other companies are doing in your business space.

The auditing process may be conducted internally by your company. However, you can choose to have one conducted by an outside consultant who will impose minimal biases, which may prove to be more beneficial to your company. Consider that fact as with a financial audit, an outside auditor brings credibility to the evaluation. This credibility is essential if management is to take the results seriously and if the general public is to believe your company’s public relations, social cause activities, and social cause marketing.

Once the social responsibility audit is complete it may be distributed internally, or both internally and externally, depending on your company’s goals and findings. Some companies publish a separate periodic report on their social initiatives and later have it available on their Web site. And nearly all publicly traded companies now include a section in their annual report devoted to social responsibility activities.

The audit may be used for more than simply monitoring and evaluating your company’s social performance. For example, you may also use the auditing process to scan your external environment and to determine your company’s vulnerabilities, then decide to launch new social cause initiatives within your company. Companies searching to differentiate themselves in their marketplace start with an audit to help them creative new social cause marketing initiatives with nonprofits. These initiatives aid in capturing market share from direct competitors, and even help introduce new products.

Step 1: Situation Analysis
- Have you violated any of your Corporate Social Responsibilities?
- If so, why? What happened? Who else knows about these violations?
- What about any of your suppliers? What about any of your buyers? What about any of your direct competitors? Have any of them ever violated any of their responsibilities? Why?
- What is your mission statement and how does it align with your responsibilities to your community and stakeholders? What about your goals? What about your corporate values? Does your business plan reflect what you are finding?
- What does your community and stakeholders think about your company? What about your industry? What about your competitors? What about your end users, your customers?
- Are your findings positive or negative? What are the trends and direction?

Step 2: Benchmark
- How would you describe, define the ethical standards and norms in your industry?
- Do you have a corporate code of conduct? How did it come about?
- How do you share it, communicate your corporate code of conduct with your employees? How do you know that they know it?
- When was the last time you reviewed it? Does it need any changes?
- What about your competitors? Do they have a corporate code of conduct?
- What are your direct competitors doing in respect to social cause programs?
- Which social cause programs have worked in your industry? Why?
- Which social cause programs have not worked in your industry Why not?
- What does the future, the trend analysis, indicate for your industry?
- What other significant trends are shaping your industry? What about regulations that may impact your industry? How did they come about? What is their root cause?
- How are companies in other industries complying with their social responsibilities that are similar to yours?

Benchmarking Examples:
- Cisco
- FedEx
- HP Global Citizenship
- IBM
- Kellogg’s
- McDonald’s Corporation
- Silicon Valley Bank
- Starbucks
- TimeWarner
- Wells Fargo

Step 3: Brainstorm
- Based on your findings and discovery above, what can you do differently, to strategically set your company apart?
- What do you want to do better? What things need improvement at your company?
- What do you want to continue doing? What are the things you are doing better than your competitors?
- What area of your community, or who in the community, is most affected by your business? How?
- What community issues are likely to affect your business and/or employees?
- What role does your company want to play in the community?
- What have you done in the past to help this relationship?
- What are your employees’ interests and to which social causes are they committed?
- Does your business plan, business strategy fit well with what you are uncovering so far?
- Does your business plan, business strategy need to be reworked?
- What would be the timeline on getting your plan and strategy revised?
- Who could help you with this process?

Step 4: Evaluate Alternatives
Consider each one of these alternatives: Sponsorship, co-branding, licensing, new product promotion, philanthropic investments, donations of products and services, and employee involvement.
- Which one(s) seem best for your situation analysis? Why?
- What does your corporate leadership team think? What do your employees think?
- How are you going to evaluate and measure the outcomes for your social cause initiatives?
- What kind of resources are you willing to commit? For how long?
- How will you know you are doing well? Who is going to be the judge of that?
- How are you going to get your employees motivated and passionate to get behind your choice?
- How are you going to select an alternative? Who is going to help you select?

Step 5: Create the Action Plan
- What are the key talking points of your audit you feel you need to communicate right now?
- Do you feel you are you going on the “offensive?” Or the “defensive?” Why?
- Which social cause initiative looks like the best answer for your situation? Why?
- What are some of your deadlines to get started? How fast should you be moving on this?
- What moves do you think your direct competitors will do once you launch your social cause initiative or program?
- With whom should you be sharing your audit? How are you going to share your audit?  – What do you expect them to feel, to think and to do once they read your audit?
- What do you need to share and when–with your internal stakeholders, executives, employees, investors, etc.? With your external stakeholders, suppliers, buyers, local communities, and the media?
- Who can help you prepare a summary of your corporate social responsibility audit?
- Who is going to be the person in charge of creating and launching your new social cause initiative?