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The View from an “Old” Social Enterprise: An Interview with Jim Gibbons

Nell Edgington — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:56:53 +0000

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Jim Gibbons, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International. Goodwill is such an interesting case because the organization has been practicing social entrepreneurship since long before it became cool, which I’ve talked about before. Goodwill started in 1902 in Boston and in 2010 provided jobs and job training to 2.4 million people with a budget of $4 billion. Gibbons earned his B.S. in industrial engineering from Purdue University, and a M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where he was the first blind person to graduate with a master’s in business administration.

You also can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: Goodwill has employed a social enterprise model for over a century, long before social entrepreneurship was a buzzword. What made Goodwill so forward-thinking?

Jim: Goodwill is often referred to as “the original social enterprise” particularly by leading social entrepreneurs in the field such as Jim Fruchterman. Goodwill’s roots are deeply established in the belief of the human potential of dignity and self-sufficiency, and in an early learning that the people we serve want a “hand up, not a hand out.” Our founder, Reverend Edgar J. Helms, engrained in our culture his strongly held belief that we must challenge the status quo and be “dissatisfied until every person with a disability or disadvantage has an opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.” This drives the entrepreneurial spirit that exists at every independent, community-based Goodwill agency, allowing them to continually adapt and reinvent themselves in order to meet the needs of local communities.

Nell: How do you think an “old-fashioned” nonprofit like Goodwill fits into this growing social innovation movement? How do you make sure Goodwill is part of that movement and doesn’t get left behind?

Jim: The Goodwill brand is a household name and fortunately still leads efforts in social entrepreneurism, community collaborations and innovation. By staying ahead of the curve, we don’t fall behind. Goodwills are relentless in their desire to understand and meet the needs of the diverse local communities in which they operate. Goodwills challenge themselves to remain relevant and meaningful to the three million people we collectively serve each year. Goodwills across the United States and Canada have found the sweet spot of uniting enterprise with caring, ensuring that our social enterprise model is optimized in a way that empowers people and builds communities that work.

Nell: Goodwill has many more competitors these days than it did 10 years ago, particularly from for-profit competitors. How do you manage the competitive landscape and is it having a negative effect on your model?

Jim: As a market leader in this space, Goodwill always keeps its eye on external forces. We use our social enterprise model to advance millions of people who might not otherwise have the tools or help to succeed in life. We admire legitimate and credible nonprofits that leverage similar models to achieve their mission. While we do not condone the practices of those who market themselves to the public as something they are not, we welcome fair and honest competition, as we have earned the trust and support of more than 66 million customers as well as the people we serve every day. Goodwill earns the trust of shoppers by providing excellent value for their hard earned money. In addition, we earn the trust of donors through the assurance that we maximize the value of their donations in order to return the most benefit to the people we serve in local communities. At Goodwill, your donations generate opportunities for people to achieve economic stability, and build strong families and vibrant communities by offering job training, employment placement services and other community-based programs, such as financial education and youth mentoring. In addition, 84 percent of Goodwill’s revenues go directly into these programs, so members of the public can be sure that their donation(s) will have a direct impact on the people in your community. Last year, Goodwill’s retail enterprise revenues grew more than 12.5 percent, indicating that the public, even with increased for-profit competition, still values and trusts Goodwill.

In addition, we plan to remain a market leader through responsible community leadership. Across the United States and in Canada, we are working with municipalities and local governments to ensure that misleading donation bins are clearly marked so that the public is aware of whether or not their donations go to help someone in need, or if they simply add to a company’s profits. We also teach donors to check out a charity’s legitimacy and revenue information about overhead and administrative costs by contacting their attorney general or secretary of state’s office, a charity rating agency such as Charity Navigator or GuideStar, or online resources such as GreatNonprofits or Philanthropedia.

Nell: What do you do at Goodwill to continually innovate and reinvent the model? How is it possible to continue to innovate at a 100+ year old organization?

Jim: It’s not only possible to innovate, it’s necessary if we want to remain a leader in our market. At Goodwill, we don’t think of innovation as the creation of the next iPhone, but rather as the next idea that allows us to serve the communities we’re a part of in the most meaningful and impactful way. For example, at the Goodwill Industries of South Florida (Miami), they innovate every day and put thousands of people with disabilities back to work. People with disabilities enrolled in their programs learn apparel manufacturing, flag manufacturing, document destruction, and janitorial services. The Goodwill offers a broad range of flexible business solutions to private and public companies, while helping their employees achieve their independence. And it doesn’t stop there. We are committed to customizing the assistance workers need to achieve their peak performance, and we encourage them to continue to advance in their careers.

In Winston-Salem, NC, and Eugene, OR, (Goodwill Industries Northwest North Carolina and Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette), we deploy ’Prosperity Centers’ that optimize community resources and drive community collaboration for the benefit of the people. Prosperity Centers are dedicated to assisting people in the community to succeed financially. That doesn’t just mean helping workers find jobs; it means giving them all the tools they need to build financial security and independence once they have a job, including resume-writing assistance, skills assessment, career counseling, access to computer and high-speed internet, and help with interviewing skills and financial counseling. At each of these centers, financial professionals talk to participants about their financial goals, and help them come up with a personal plan to meet those goals, whether that’s regularly paying their bills on time, reducing personal debt, starting savings to go to school, or investing in a big purchase like a car or home. With like-minded agencies partnering together, they are able to harness their resources, eliminate redundancies, strengthen their impact, focus the delivery of their services to meet the needs of local communities, and have a meaningful impact on their citizens.

At the San Francisco Goodwill, we’ve deployed the “Back On Track” program. A partnership with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the Family Services Agency, “Back On Track” provides intensive case management to individuals who have been arrested for a non-violent, first-time drug sale felony. Goodwill provides job readiness workshops, case management, career advising, life skills workshops and job training and education placement. For every individual we train, we save the government an estimated $20,000 in jail/prison costs. This program has a less than 10 percent recidivism rate – compared to a 75 percent rate with other programs.

In Cincinnati, the Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries, paves an example for other service organizations that provide services to veterans. One hundred percent of the veterans they serve are homeless, and many have physical disabilities or mental health issues such as PTSD and TBI. Each veteran has a case manager who works with him or her to develop an individualized program plan. The Goodwill provides transitional housing for these veterans and strives to provide services to them in a holistic manner in order to achiever lasting success, a return to family, community and self-sufficient living. All of these innovative examples are shared across the Goodwill network, and modified and adapted to best meet the needs of local communities.

Nell: Goodwill is pretty active in the social media space and in fact you do a fair bit of Tweeting yourself (@jdgibbons). How have you integrated social media into your mission? What does it allow you to do?

Jim: Goodwill is a networked enterprise where the local Goodwills make up the heart and soul of the brand, and they participate in social media with aligned brand messages that communicate their local activities and impact. We’ve integrated social media into our global and national communication strategies in a powerful way because it’s an awesome tool for educating people about our brand. And we’re giving attention to having real conversations at the level that is important to our stakeholders and builds relationships with them.

Nell: You were recently appointed by President Obama to the White House Council for Community Solutions, which is a pretty interesting group working on bringing the public, private and nonprofit sectors together to solve problems. What is that group working on and what results are you seeing so far?

Jim: It’s exciting to work with a group of leaders from a variety of sectors to raise awareness on how collaborations solve problems in a profound way. Recently, the Council announced its commitment to expand job opportunities for youth through the White House Summer Jobs+ initiative. The initiative is a call-to-action for businesses, nonprofits and the government to provide opportunities for youth to obtain life skills, education, training, and social supports that are relevant for long-term employment, and to work together to provide pathways to employment for youth ages 16-24 (referred to as ‘opportunity youth’) who are low-income or face disadvantages to finding employment and related opportunities.

Goodwill will be supporting the Summer Jobs+ program by hiring 1,200 youth ages 16 to 24. The 158 Goodwill headquarter agencies across the United States will also provide more than 3,200 youth with life skills services, including communications, time management and teamwork; more than 2,300 youth will receive work skills services. In addition, 2,000 youth will be provided learn and earn opportunities, where they will gain the ability to acquire their first paid employment position, either through the form of paid internships or permanent positions that provide on-the-job training at Goodwill locations. Thousands of additional youth will also be provided with virtual career mentoring and exploration services.

The Summer Jobs+ initiative was created in response to research that shows that at least one in six young people ages 16-24 are disconnected from the two systems that offer the greatest hope for their future: school and work.

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: November

Nell Edgington — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:55:47 +0000

November was another great month in the world of social innovation. Here is my pick of the top 10 posts, articles, graphics, and discussions. As always, please add your favorites from the month to the comments. And if you want to see a longer list of what catches my eye, follow me on Twitter @nedgington. You can also read past months’ 10 Great Reads lists here.

Some very interesting reports and predictions on how nonprofits and philanthropy are changing. First, the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation predicts a pretty exciting future for philanthropy. And Blackbaud released a report on what 35 experts think it will take to grow philanthropic giving in the US. And finally the 2011 Nonprofit Almanac is out. The annual report shows the nonprofit sector growing and that giving is back to 2000 levels

DC Central Kitchen founder and nonprofit sector advocate Robert Egger launched a new group called CForward to help nonprofits fight for their rightful place at the political table.

The Washington Post gets into the social innovation business by launching a new “On Giving” section to discuss philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, socially responsible business and much more.

The Nonprofit Finance Fund offers a great worksheet to assess a nonprofit’s strengths and weaknesses in order to link their financial health to their impact. Love it!

HubSpot offers a great infographic on pull vs. push marketing, but I’d argue it applies to fundraising as well.

The Alliance for Global Good is launching a $10 million fund to promote innovation in philanthropy. The new fund will “draw attention to charities that have found new approaches to tough problems and provide money to help them expand their work.”

On the Unsectored blog Jeff Raderstrong encourages us to start asking the right questions about the charitable deduction currently the focus of so much debate.

Always one to tell it like it is, Mario Morino from Venture Philanthropy Partners offers 6 Wrenching Questions Every Board Member Must Answer.

Jim Kucher argues on his blog that there is a bipolar disorder in social entrepreneurship, between the competing, and sometimes conflicting, social and business perspectives.

Tom Tierney, chairman of Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consultancy, has written a paper, “The Donor-Grantee Trap, about the dangers of the nonprofit starvation cycle. In a recent interview about it, he argues “Nonprofits should be clear about their definition of success, articulate their strategy for achieving success and be up front about what that costs. That includes understanding the organization’s true overhead costs and making a case for funding good overhead.” Amen to that!

Photo Credit: Sim Van Gyseghem

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: July

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: October

Financing Not Fundraising E-Book

Nell Edgington — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:40:04 +0000

I’m delighted to announce that, by popular demand, we are releasing today the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book. This 27-page e-book is a compilation and expansion on the 11 blog posts from 2011 in the Social Velocity Financing Not Fundraising blog series.

In the midst of an incredibly challenging economic situation that is not getting better any time soon, the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book outlines a new vision for how the nonprofit sector gets funded. Fundraising in its current form just doesn’t work anymore. Indeed, traditional fundraising is holding the sector back by keeping nonprofits in the starvation cycle of trying to do more and more with less and less.

What the sector needs is a financing strategy not a fundraising strategy. Nonprofits have to break out of the narrow view that traditional FUNDRAISING (individual donor appeals, events, foundation grants) will completely fund all of their activities. Instead, nonprofits must work to create a broader approach to securing the overall FINANCING necessary to create social change.

This 27-page e-book is a compilation and expansion of the Social Velocity blog series Financing Not Fundraising from 2011. The blog series is ongoing, with new posts added throughout each year. We’ll begin adding new posts to the series in the new year, but in the meantime, this e-book captures and expands on the posts from 2011 in one place.

The 12 chapters of the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book are:

What is Financing Not Fundraising?
Create A Financial Strategy
Align Money and Mission
Find Individual Donors
Develop a Message of Impact
Raise Money for Building Capacity
Explore New Types of Money
Evaluate Earned Income
Calculate Net Revenue
Move From Push to Pull
Stop Lying to Donors
Getting Started

You can download the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book here.

If you want to learn more about how to apply the concepts of Financing Not Fundraising to your nonprofit, check out our Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series

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A Monster List of Social Innovation Books, Blogs, Conferences, Funders

Nell Edgington — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:10:21 +0000

Since today is Halloween, I thought I’d offer a monster list of resources for nonprofit leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, board members and others involved in creating social change.

The following list comes from the Resources page of the Social Velocity web site. The page includes social innovation conferences, organizations, funders, blogs, books and other things that anyone involved in the social change space should be aware of. It could be a starting point or an ongoing exploration of what’s going on in the space.

We are constantly adding to the Resources page, so if we are missing something, let us know in the comments.

Organizations Moving Social Innovation Forward

Funders

Conferences

Philanthropic Thought Leaders

Things to Read

Blogs

Financing Impact

Using Social Media

Being Strategic

Finding Inspiration

Growing Solutions

Leading Well

Photo Credit: annabellaphoto

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Using Data to Solve Social Problems: An Interview with David Henderson

Nell Edgington — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:47:13 +0000

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with David Henderson. David is the founder of Idealistics Inc., a social sector consulting firm that helps organizations increase outcomes, demonstrate results, and organize information. He has worked in the social sector for the last decade providing direct services to low-income and unhoused adults and families, operating a non-profit organization, and consulting with various social sector organizations. David’s professional focus is on improving the way social sector organizations use information to address poverty.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: On your blog, Full Contact Philanthropy, you write a lot about making program evaluation accessible to all nonprofits, even small and under-resourced ones, which is something that a lot of those pushing for evaluation neglect to address. Evaluation can be expensive, time-consuming and poorly executed. What is the essence of good evaluation, and, at a minimum, what should all nonprofits be doing to evaluate their work?

David: Whatever the price tag, a good evaluation helps you make better decisions, a bad evaluation does not. If an organization is not open to changing its course of action regardless of what the data suggest, then evaluation has no meaning. Therefore, the most important step in any evaluation is knowing what you want to evaluate and why.

While some evaluations are expensive, they don’t all have to be. Evaluation does not mean just one thing. There is no one right way to do evaluation. Instead, there are a number of ways organizations can use outcomes metrics to inform their work, ranging from randomized control trials (most accurate and most expensive) to simply monitoring whether a few key indicators are getting better or worse.

More important than the certitude of any one evaluation is the regularity with which an organization uses metrics in decision making. It’s not terribly costly to start every staff meeting with an update on how the people you are helping are doing. But this discipline helps create cultural commitment to using outcomes data in decision making, which is really at the core of any good evaluation strategy.

Nell: Is everything in the social change arena measurable? Are their some public good efforts that are so complex or have so many variables that we cannot measure them, yet they still need to happen?

David: When we think about measurement, we tend to imagine a numeric, linear scale with start and end points. Not everything is quantifiable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not measurable.

Organizations collect information all the time. Some of that data is quantifiable and gets stored in spreadsheets and databases. But we also get a lot of important information through visual observations and conversations.

All of this information, quantitative and qualitative, objective and subjective, helps inform decision making. Taking the information we have and establishing evaluative frameworks that help us make systematic program decisions is the real challenge.

Nell: How does government fit into the effort for social change? Can and is government changing quickly enough to keep up and to have a relevant place?

David: Ideally, the non-profit sector would innovate and test social interventions, and governments would take the best innovations to scale. But successful social innovation requires cultural commitment to both evaluation and failure. And in the current funding environment, failure is not an option. That’s a big problem.

With so much pressure on organizations to show evidence of impact, instead of investing in innovating new social solutions, non-profits are hiring marketing consultants shrouded as evaluation experts to help them tell their stories.

If the government is to invest in and scale what works, as the federal Social Innovation Fund purports to do, organizations have to be free to report what does and what does not work. So long as our focus is on story telling instead of truth telling, it’ll be difficult for non-profits to have the latitude to experiment and evaluate freely, leaving the government precious little worth scaling.

Nell: Your particular interest is social change efforts to alleviate poverty. But since poverty is the result of some very serious failures in America’s infrastructure (inadequate education system, broken health care system, etc) is it possible to fix the results of those inadequacies without addressing those much larger structural deficiencies? Or can social entrepreneurs do both?

David: Poverty eradication has to be the goal, but alleviation is pretty darn important to the 43.6 million Americans and billions more worldwide living in poverty today. Social entrepreneurs as well as a myriad of government efforts address both structural causes and the many harms resulting from poverty.

Regardless of a particular intervention’s focus, every effort is more likely to succeed when informed by regular outcomes assessments. Since my firm’s focus is helping organizations use client metrics to make higher impact program decisions, we work with all types of organizations across the anti-poverty spectrum.

Nell: How does your company Idealistics fit into the solution to poverty?

David: Our practice is about helping organizations make smart, high impact decisions that increase social outcomes. Everything we do is underscored by a vision of a social sector that uses evidence in the crafting, implementation, and iterative evaluation of its interventions.

Probably the most important thing we do toward that end is helping organizations establish decision frameworks. A decision framework converts an agency’s theory of change into a tool, or a mathematical model as we think about it, that organizations can test, update, and use in the design and execution of their interventions.

With a solid decision framework in place, we provide analytically oriented consulting and technology systems that help organizations establish data collection pipelines to make sense of their information.

While a lot of our customers hire us so they can better prove to their funders that they’re making a difference, that isn’t our objective. But the fact is our customers do very well with their funders.

Our clients are able to uniquely demonstrate an analytical approach to their work, and have the evidence they need to back their claims of progress, which makes them very competitive in the evidence-deficient social sector landscape. However, for me and my team, the real gratification is not that our customers impress their funders, but that they are better positioned to change the lives of the people they serve.

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Next Generation of High Engagagement Philanthropy: An Interview with Carol Thompson Cole

Nell Edgington — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:14:41 +0000

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Carol Thompson Cole. Carol is President & CEO of Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), a philanthropic investment organization (co-founded by Mario Morino) that helps great leaders build strong, high-performing nonprofit institutions. She has over thirty years of management experience in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. She served as Special Advisor to President Clinton on the District of Columbia and was the Vice President for Government and Environmental Affairs at RJR Nabisco.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: This year marks Venture Philanthropy Partners’ 10 year anniversary. And in fact, venture philanthropy itself is only a little bit older. How has the concept of venture philanthropy changed since it first came on the scene?

Carol: People began talking about “venture philanthropy” about 11-12 years ago. Back then, it meant many different things, depending on who was speaking. Today, it still means many different things, but those organizations that work within this philanthropic mindset, like Venture Philanthropy Partners, have learned some important lessons along the way and share some common characteristics like a focus on performance, long-term financial commitments, investing in capacity and building infrastructure, and bringing resources in addition to capital to the table, to name a few.

At VPP, we actually moved away from using the term “venture philanthropy” a number of years ago as we realized that our approach was not a strictly “venture” approach. We are much more about blending some of the ways private equity firms approach their financial investments with many of the lessons learned and techniques developed by philanthropists through the years. We usually call ourselves a “philanthropic investment organization,” and we work to maximize all available resources, including capital, time, the skills and experience of our team, and the power of our network, to improve the lives of low-income children and youth in the National Capital Region.

Venture philanthropy arose out of the tech boom in the late 1990s, when many young entrepreneurs making their fortunes online decided to shift their resources into philanthropy. They saw a real opportunity to apply their business and management knowledge to nonprofits to create real, sustainable change for our society. These entrepreneurs decided to take the principles of venture capital that helped them become successful and shift that over into philanthropy.

Of course, the main strategies of venture philanthropy have been used, in some form or another, by grantmakers long before the late 90s. Venture philanthropists focus on high-engagement approaches to their grants, work to build capacity of organizations to scale their programs, and seek measured and proven outcomes as a result of their investment. Above all else, venture philanthropists use high-engagement techniques to bring more than just money to their partnership with nonprofits. Different grantmakers have refined their own ways of implementing these strategies, but they remain at the core of venture philanthropy, even a decade later.

Nell: When venture philanthropy started in the late 1990s it was thought to be a true innovation that could transform the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Has it lived up to those original ideas?

Carol: Venture philanthropy is a true innovation, but the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors are large and complicated systems. Venture philanthropy is an effective tool that has helped us deliver strong results for the children and youth in the National Capital Region. VPP is focused on identifying outstanding nonprofit leaders with strong programs and bold ambitions to grow. We give them growth capital to build their infrastructure and scale their organizations through serving more children and youth, by increasing their outcomes and impact, or through influence – making systemic change that ultimately allows for many more lives to be changed. Our first fund has grown to serve an additional 16,000 youth.

Clearly, venture philanthropy has worked for us, but it is not the only answer for the nonprofit sector. It can be a useful tool to deliver results, but creating those results is more important than the way those results are created.

Nell: Venture philanthropy was in many ways the precursor to what has now become the social innovation movement. How do you think venture philanthropy fits into these new worlds of social investing, for-profit social entrepreneurship, and other areas where the public, private and nonprofit sectors are converging?

Carol: Again, venture philanthropy is a tool to be deployed in grantmaking. At VPP, we are focused on bringing a high-engagement model to our nonprofit partners and delivering results for the children and youth of the region. Social investing, social entrepreneurship, and other innovations coming out of the convergence of sectors are examples of similar tools to drive results. At the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference in March, where I spoke along side Paul Carttar of the Social Innovation Fund, there was a lot of discussion about what type of organizational structure is best to create social change and what type of funding an organization should seek out to achieve its mission. What became clear is that people need to focus on goals and strategy, not methods. Venture philanthropy complements programmatic sources of funding because it can help some organizations scale very effectively to help those who need it.

Nell: The federal government took a step into the world of social innovation last year with the Social Innovation Fund, which was based largely on the venture philanthropy model. What do you think of the SIF and how do you see government’s role (at both the local and federal levels) evolving from this?

Carol: VPP is a member of the inaugural portfolio of the Social Innovation Fund, and we are honored to be included among the other intermediary funders. We applied to SIF because the challenges in our community are too big and complex to be met by a single funder, a single nonprofit, or a single sector. What we need now is a “network” of nonprofits, funders, corporations, local governments, and the federal government working together to solve our most intractable problems.

SIF represents the first step towards that new form of collaboration. Speaking at the Harvard conference, Paul Carttar said that SIF was about much more than money, and it would be a success if the public-private partnership model was adopted by others across the country. In these lean times for funding, it is important that we work together to encourage social innovation where it is needed. SIF, as well as the other public-private innovations launched by the Obama administration, like Investing in Innovation and Race to the Top, are developments that should be encouraged. If we can continue to push local and federal government to take on this role as collaborator, we will be able to achieve much higher levels of impact in our communities.

Even the largest philanthropic investments are dwarfed by public funding and are often deeply effected by availability of public funding as well as how and when it is allocated. Not every partnership needs to be as formal as SIF, but I would urge all philanthropic and nonprofit organizations to look for ways to seek alignment with local, state, and federal government efforts.

Nell: What’s next for venture philanthropy? Where does it go from here? How do you continue to reinvigorate or adapt the model?

Carol: I strongly believe that SIF represents the next step for VPP, and for all of venture philanthropy. We feel our model of philanthropy works and our first investments were successful, but we also feel like there is potential to dramatically improve the lives of the most vulnerable children and youth in our regions through intense and intentional collaboration. Because of this, we applied to SIF.

Our SIF initiative, youthCONNECT, represents the next phase of our work. Instead of single investments, we are investing in a network of high-performing nonprofits that provide a number of different services to young people from low-income families to help them thrive in adulthood. All the nonprofits in the network share the goal of bringing education, job training, and social services to at least 20,000 low-income youth, ages 14-24, in our region over 5 years. As we demonstrate success, this approach can be replicated or adapted by others around the region and the country. We will still make high-impact, long-term investments in single organizations, but we are exploring the transformative power of a network approach.

It is too early to tell the effectiveness of youthCONNECT and SIF, but I think these developments are pushing us into the next generation of high-engagement philanthropy. At VPP, we are committed to evaluation, sharing, and transparency so we can learn from each other as we work in these unexplored areas.

Nell: One of the criticisms of venture philanthropy is that it is only accessible to the largest and most successful of nonprofits. Do you see smaller nonprofits being able to access the ideas of growth capital? And if so, how will this evolve?

Carol: VPP focuses on organizations with strong leaders that deliver results. We have historically focused on organizations with budgets of $3-$50 million, but in our youthCONNECT initiative we have invested in organizations that fall below that monetary requirement but still have a proven track record in the area. Investing in smaller organizations is a different approach than some venture philanthropists have used, but these smaller nonprofits should have opportunities to access growth capital. What is most important to VPP is that an organization, regardless of size, can deliver lasting and meaningful results for children and youth in our region. Change in the lives of those who need it most will always remain our priority.

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The Next Generation of Philanthropy: An Interview with Jessamyn Lau

Financing Nonprofit Growth: An Interview with Susan Comfort

Connecting Government & Philanthropy: An Interview with Rene Cabral-Daniels

This Week’s The Giving Show

Nell Edgington — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:22:19 +0000

I’m delighted to announce that I will be Michael Chatman’s guest on this week’s Giving Show. Michael was voted America’s Maverick Philanthropist and one of the nation’s leading authorities on new philanthropy. He heads the nation’s largest network of mission-related philanthropists giving up to $50,000 annually, The Association of Maverick Philanthropists.

Michael hosts a weekly radio show, called the Giving Show, the largest weekly audience devoted to the topic of philanthropy.

I’ll be Michael’s guest this week on Thursday, September 8th at 11:30am Eastern. You can click here to listen then.

We’ll be talking about Financing Not Fundraising, how to get your donors to be more effective, how philanthropy is changing, what the social entrepreneurship movement means for nonprofits and much more. I hope you’ll join us.

Click here to listen to the Giving Show on Thursday at 11:30am Eastern.

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: August

Nell Edgington — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:40:10 +0000

Since I was on vacation for a couple of weeks in August and pretty much unplugged, I’m probably not qualified to list the 10 greatest reads in social innovation for the month of August, but I’m still going to give it a shot. As always, please add what I missed to the comments.

You can also read the lists of Great Reads from previous months here.

Guest blogger on the Tactical Philanthropy blog, Jed Emerson, a pioneer in the impact investing arena, argues that impact investing is at risk of missing a key opportunity to move the field forward.

Strategic finance is one of the hardest things for many nonprofit leaders to master, but also one of the most critical. Nonprofit Finance Fund explains how to approach it.

Sea Change Capital Partners and Lodestar Foundation are partnering to create a new fund to pay for nonprofit collaboration and mergers. A pool of merger money is a great new addition to what is a pretty big hole in the nonprofit capital market.

From the Harvard Business Review blog comes the argument that sometimes it can be good for business to fire some customers. This concept should apply to nonprofits’ donors as well.

One of the biggest hurdles to nonprofit performance measurement is a lack of money to make it happen. On the Social Currency blog, Angela Francis explains how nonprofits can find the money for evaluation through capacity capital.

The biggest news in August was nonprofit Jumo’s merger with for-profit GOOD. Antony Bugg-Levine (who was just announced as the new CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund yesterday) explains how this merger is just the beginning of a real blurring of sector lines to come.

On August 24th, US Secretary of Education @arneduncan held a Twitter Town Hall to answer questions about America’s public education system and his ideas for reform. You can see the Tweets at #askarne or read the highlights here. He plans to hold another Twitter Town Hall soon.

The Future Generations blog offers a great framework and examples of that often touted, but rarely understood, concept: “scale.”

In the wake of Steve Jobs’ resignation from Apple, Cliff Kuang offers a reflection on Jobs as a supreme innovator and great user of technology.

From the tech blog, A Smart Bear, comes a lesson for entrepreneurs (and social entrepreneurs too) when being an expert is harmful.

Photo Credit: afunkydamsel

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10 Great Social Innovation Reads: September

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: May

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: February

Better Strategy for Educational Entrepreneurs

Nell Edgington — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:22:02 +0000

I’m delighted to announce that a book I wrote with Peter Frumkin, head of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the University of Texas at Austin, and Bruno Manno, senior advisor for K–12 Education Reform at the Walton Family Foundation, has just been published by Harvard Education Press. The Strategic Management of Charter Schools: Frameworks and Tools for Educational Entrepreneurs looks at charter school case studies and applies management tools (like SWOT analysis, customer satisfaction surveying, balanced scorecard) to analyze what these schools could have done to be more successful. While the book focuses on charter schools, the tools and frameworks can easily be applied to any nonprofit organization.

Organized around three crucial challenges to charter school leaders—managing mission, managing internal operations, and managing the larger stakeholder environment—the book provides charter school leaders with tools and insights for achieving educational and organizational success. In its description of these managerial challenges, and in its detailed examinations of particular schools, the book offers a clear, credible approach to the efficient and sustainable management of what are still young and experimental educational institutions.

Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, says of the book:

The importance of this volume lies not in the prescription of best practices but in the strategic ‘toolbox’ of skills and frameworks that the authors share. For providers seeking better ways to promote both growth and quality, this book will prove invaluable. For policy makers, parents, philanthropists, and educators seeking to understand how to help charter schooling deliver on its promise, this volume will prove an invaluable resource. Finally, the authors’ savvy suggestions for aligning mission, institutional operations, and stakeholders offer a strategic vision that holds promise not only in the charter sector but also for those in traditional district schools.

Again, although the cases are all related to charter schools, the lessons and insights can and should be used by any nonprofit leader. From better financial management, to stronger mission alignment, to more accurate understanding of the needs of your various constituents, to more effective leadership, this book helps social change leaders create stronger, more effective organizations that will ultimately result in greater change.

You can learn more about the book here.

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New Tools to Launch a Social Enterprise or Grow Your Nonprofit

Nell Edgington — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:15:34 +0000

In our ongoing effort to develop tools to help nonprofit leaders grow impact and create financial sustainability, we are releasing today two new tools on our Tools page.

The first is a step-by-step guide to creating a business plan for an earned income or social enterprise venture. This tool is perfect for a nonprofit looking to start a new earned income business or a social entrepreneur looking to start a for-profit, social mission business.

Both endeavors, a nonprofit earned income venture and a for-profit social business, require a well-thought out business plan to be successful. Without going through the exercise of articulating what the business is, who your customers are, their willingness and ability to pay, how you will reach them, what you will charge them, etc. your business has a high likelihood of failure. You cannot go to market with a new product or service without doing your homework.

The business plan guide will help you create a business plan to successfully:

Find customers who want what you are offering and can and will pay for it
Price your product/service
Market the business
Staff the new business
Determine what it will cost to run the business and if/when you will make a profit
Raise the start-up money necessary to launch the business
Overcome roadblocks and risks

The second new tool we are releasing today is the “Is Your Nonprofit Ready for Growth?” tip sheet. This tip sheet takes you through a check list of fundamental building blocks that any nonprofit considering significant growth of services (5X or more growth with an eye towards scale) should have in place. Without these key elements, an organization probably is not ready to grow dramatically.

You can find all of our tools, including webinars, white papers, additional step-by-step guides and tip sheets on our Tools page.

As always, please let us know what you think of the tools we offer. We’d love your feedback so that we can continue to develop tools that provide value. Thanks!

Photo Credit: HikingArtist.com

Related posts:

The View from an “Old” Social Enterprise: An Interview with Jim Gibbons

Tools to Build Smaller Nonprofits

Changing the Nonprofit Sector