The deadline to submit a case profile is September 10th 2010. View the template to make your submission: SEEP and Beyond Profit Transition Profiles.

Email socentstory@intellecap.com to submit.

Launched in March 2009, the platform serves as a directory of social businesses and enables participating businesses to receive discounts on professional services and get exposure to new sources of capital.  ClearlySo currently offers a range of services, information and support to over 1400 social business and enterprise members, over 300 suppliers of products & services and in excess of 250 social minded private and institutional investors. The company’s suite of services is designed especially for social entrepreneurs.

Rodney Schwartz, CEO of ClearlySo, believes that the platform will be particularly beneficial for the Indian market. He said, “In making this move we aim to provide India with services to support the nuts and bolts of truly innovative social enterprise building, with an eye as well towards galvanizing a vibrant Indian investor community.”

ClearlySo is currently searching for what they call a “Lead Entrepreneur,” someone to lead the expansion of the platform in India. The Lead Entrepreneur will lead and deploy the model, and receive some funding from the Shell Foundation, with ClearlySo’s backing and support.

The call for qualified applicants will be underway through September 25, 2010. The full business plan will then be co-created by the new entrepreneur, ClearlySo staff and advisors with aims for a formal launch of the business and platform during 2011.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Social Enterprise of the Day – RuralLight

Philippines; For-Profit

RuralLight doesn’t see electricity as an end; it’s a means for other forms of development. Research by the Asian Development Bank found that 98% of rural families believe electricity is important for a child’s education. It frees up more study time, and allows entrepreneurs to be more efficient and profitable. RuralLight aims to bring these opportunities to otherwise off-the-grid communities. As the young leaders behind RuralLight see it, access to electricity in the short-term means long-term economic stability. With the goal of illuminating 100 Filipino communities by 2012, the RuralLight team shows no sign of giving up on a brighter future.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Social Enterprise of the Day – Volunteer WindAid

Peru; Non-Profit

This small windmill project is volunteer-powered. Volunteers join the program and spend five weeks installing a windmill in rural Peru. Forty-five percent of volunteer fees go directly towards paying for the windmills. The model is low-cost and easy to build, so every volunteer can make a valuable contribution. So far, WindAid has supported start up coastal businesses, and powered a rural school for the regular school day and nighttime classes.  The organization works with Peruvian communities, to locate the projects and places most in need of wind-generated energy. But the benefits don’t stop with the volunteers leave – each WindAid windmill is guaranteed to bring sustainable energy for at least 20 years.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Social Enterprise of the Day – Power Up Gambia

Gambia; Non-Profit

Running a hospital without electricity isn’t difficult – it’s near impossible. Keeping vaccines and medications at temperature, running life supporting machines, or having enough light to perform a surgery require some amount of power. Power Up Gambia hopes to fill that need, using sustainable solar energy. The organization is working clinic by clinic, to install solar panels. They’re at varying stages of completion in three different clinics, which altogether reach a potential 643,000 Gambian patients. Public health heavyweight Paul Farmer has already praised the project for its green efforts.

The Tata Jagriti Yatra hopes to do the same thing – take 400 young people out of their comfort zone to find something new. But instead of mere self-discovery, the entrepreneurs who run the journey hope to ignite an entrepreneurial spirit over the course of an 18-day quest. Starting in Mumbai, the Jagriti Yatra travels 9,000 km by train around the perimeter of India. Along the way, they meet with social entrepreneurs from all over the country, observing how they create opportunity and employment. The hope is that by hearing success stories, the Yatris (as they’re called) will be inspired to start businesses of their own.

And they are. Out of the 800 Yatris already graduated from the program, at least 80 have gone on to become entrepreneurs. With many Indian management institutes struggling to transform graduates into entrepreneurs, the Yatra model is a brilliant endeavor. Statistics illustrate  a dismal disparity between those entering business school with entrepreneurial aspirations, and those that actually beginning their own businesses after graduation. Accounting and marketing are easy to teach, but the entrepreneurial spirit is harder to learn in a classroom.

“I now have a network of 800 young people dedicated to building the nation,” says executive director Swapnil Dixit, 28. Dixit hopes to show this generation of Indian youth that, “If you’ve got the energy [and] the talent – start something, don’t wait for a job to come your way. You could be a job-provider, not a job-seeker, from day one.” In a country where job security is highly regarded, the Yatra hopes to encourage youth to take the risk of becoming a self-made entrepreneur. An entrepreneurship revolution could help India grow inclusively, and drive commerce throughout the country.

One of their obstacles is reaching out to all demographics. It’s still a challenge to bring women and non-urban youth on board. The gender ratios on the Yatra are improving: in 2007, they had 25% females, while 2009 had a 40-60 split. However, only 30% of the women were from non-urban locations. Rural women, facing family and cultural resistance, are still an underserved demographic. (At a recent speaking event, the Yatra founders were asked by a young female what to do, if she wanted to invest the money her father had saved for her dowry into a new business.)

The Yatra organizers are using creative new marketing techniques – like advertising in a chain of rural Internet cafes – to reach out to every corner of India. They also capitalize on the power of the network of Yatris they’ve developed in the past two years. “Yatris will go to obscure locations on their own and work hard to spread the word,” Dixit says. They’ve also used mothers of past Yatris to answer questions from potential travelers’ parents.

Despite some parental hesitation, and the logistics of moving 400 20-somethings on a train for 2 ½ weeks, the Yatra has inspired hundreds of young people to use enterprise for a better collective future. Dixit remembers the Executive Director of Tata Sons Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan warning that “the biggest danger our nation faces is not terrorism…the biggest danger is a cynical youth.” The Tata Jagriti Yatra shows that Indian youth aren’t necessarily cynical; they’re simply lacking examples and proof of possible entrepreneurial futures. “There is so much energy in the young people here,” Dixit says. If India is able to harness that enthusiasm, “then we have nothing to worry about.”

photo credit: ansaldo-sts.com

Beyond Profit “On the Spot” with Eirik Sorlie from Beyond Profit on Vimeo.

August 12, 2010, marked the beginning of the United Nations’ International Year of Youth, which aims to promote dialogue and understanding between youth of all cultures. The Urban Youth Fund, a program under the UN-Habitat umbrella, recently announced the 51 projects that will receive funding this year. Beyond Profit spoke with Project Manager Eirik Sorlie about the fund, some of the successful projects and sustainable development.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Social Enterprise of the Day – Youth Engagement Services

Pakistan; Non-Profit

In a nation like Pakistan, it’s easy for youth to feel disempowered. Flooding, political strife, and misused aid are daunting problems for even the most seasoned development worker. But Youth Engagement Services (YES), the first youth service organization in Pakistan, helps Pakistani youth realize that they can still have an impact on seemingly massive issues. YES helps youth create and lead their own service projects, in fields like education, technology, health, and relief work. YES doesn’t only reach out to higher income, educated youth looking to give back. They reach the non-educated sector as well, instilling a sense of ownership over the future of their country. Youth Engagement Services provides skill training, and support their creation of a business plan. Startup seed funding is provided through a variety of donors. And once the business gets off the ground, YES continues monitoring and metrics, to make sure they’re growing effective enterprises. Beyond social enterprise, YES hopes to create a new generation of active Pakistani citizens.

TEDGlobal Fellows profile: DK Osseo-Asare

The “Design for Development” movement is a controversial one. Many argue that it leads to architects and designers from industrialized nations designing for, rather than with, the citizens of developing nations. Ghanaian-American architect DK Osseo-Asare has seen similar, well-intentioned mistakes. “Definitely not all, but some of the emerging ‘humanitarian design’ initiatives today show up in communities without adequate partners, and fund their own design visions,” Osseo-Asare says. “We are wary of scenarios in which design is in a sense forced into local communities.” His two organizations, the think tank DSGN AGNC  (Design Agency) and architecture studio LOWDO (Low Design Office), aim to reverse this debilitating trend. For Osseo-Asare, design isn’t about constructing buildings – it’s about building connections.

His two organizations aim to do just that. DSGN AGNC is a non-profit organization that looks for design solutions to development problems. LOWDO is a social enterprise, “an architecture studio that realizes high design through low cost, low energy technologies and solutions.” Regardless of the vehicle, both organizations see their structures as more than buildings – they are opportunities to build sustainability and community. Both DSGN AGNC and LOWDO work closely with the neighborhoods they build in.

One area where Osseo-Asare hopes to use collaborative architecture is through the “kiosk culture” of Ghana. Informal shacks and buildings made of reused materials line Ghanaian streets, home to microenterprises and microindustry. While these buildings are technically illegal, they are an integral part of Ghanaian culture and daily life. “People expect ubiquitous micro-enterprise, [like] the ability to buy water or mobile phone credits from a vendor at virtually any point in the city,” Osseo-Asare says. Why then, are city planners trying to wipe out such structures, and replace them with factories?

“Kiosk culture is an existing model for survival in the city that can also become a bottom-up strategy for advancing local fabrication and sustainability,” Osseo-Asare says. Instead of eradicating kiosk culture in the growing city of Tema, Ghana, he and his team are working to build stronger, more environmentally friendly microstructures. Their first project is “bamboo lifecycling”: growing bamboo in an urban setting, and using it to build temporary and mobile infrastructures. After use, discarded building materials can be used as low-cost and low-impact cooking fuel.

Like another TEDGlobal fellow, Veronica Reed, Osseo-Asare is working to reverse the misconception that positions low impact and low cost as two separate goals. Many of his other projects involve creating gardens and green schools in low-income areas to serve as an example to the rest of the community. They promote the incorporation of rainwater catchment, renewable energy, and productive landscaping into both urban and rural neighborhoods. And they’ve changed the way they look at landscaping, by designing on the ground to accommodate the land in its natural state.

“The architecture born within low-income environments is often very sustainable: efficient spaces, use of recycled materials, building with natural materials according to traditional or vernacular techniques,” he says. By working with existing Ghanaian building traditions, rather than striving for new western modernity, he sees a path to more collaborative sustainability.

“Part of the problem in Ghana is that too often people tend to equate ‘modern’ with ‘Western,’” he says.  “Low-cost/low-tech architecture can not only be climate-responsive and ecologically-sensitive, but also simultaneously aesthetically progressive and grounded in local culture.”

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Social Enterprise of the Day – ChangeFusion

Thailand; Non-Profit

ChangeFusion works with a broad range of social enterprises and NGOs in Thailand, providing design and investment advisory. But their recent endeavor has them working with a narrower niche – youth entrepreneurs in Thailand. While the youth unemployment rate is lower than the average for Southeast Asia and East Asia, young entrepreneurs still struggle to find funding for startup enterprises. ChangeFusion hopes to fill that gap, with startup investment and incubation targeted to youth businesses specifically. Since 2007, they’ve already supported projects in women’s handicrafts in India, and computer services in Thailand. As of 2009, they had serviced 50 young entrepreneurs.