Twitter “Social Enterprise of the Day” Roundup

Monday, July 20, 2009 – Friday, July 24, 2009

Last week we began to feature a “Social Enterprise of the Day” on Twitter. To supplement this new initiative, here is a bit more information on our featured social enterprises. Enjoy!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – Shokay

Shokay, formed by Harvard classmates and friends in 2005, is busy introducing luxury yak* down to the global market. Shokay hopes to create a market for yak fiber (a luxury product relatively unknown to the fashion world), in order to increase the value of the raw fiber and provide Tibetan yak herders with long-term employment and higher sustainable income. Sourcing its yak fiber directly from Tibetan herders, Shokay is investing and reinvesting its success into local communities, ensuring the opportunity of choice for future Tibetan generations.

Shokay’s development impact is four-fold: direct income generation, preserve local culture, promote sustainable use of the environment, and community development work. Currently, Shokay works with 2,600 people from the Hei Ma He Village of Qinghai Province in Western China, providing a sustainable source of employment and income to these herders. Shokay also works with a team of knitters in Chong Ming Island off of Shanghai to bring its collection of home, kids, and accessories to fruition.

Our favorite part of the Shokay web-experience is the kitschy twit pics of the Shokay’s yaks (not the live ones).

Follow Shokay on Twitter at @shokay

*For those who are unfamiliar with yaks, they are large, furry, animals that are part of the cow-family, and reside in cold, mountainous areas of South and Central Asia.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – Himalayan Wild Fibers

Himalayan Wild Fibers aims to transform the lives of millions of Nepalis by providing them with new opportunities for income, while generating a profit for the company. Through buying environmentally sustainable, wild-growing, marketable fibers through ethical supply chains; selling the fibers into major textile markets, in which sustainable products remain very much in demand; and, providing income-generation opportunities to impoverished Nepali families, Himalayan Wild Fibers focuses on the triple bottom line – profit, society, and the environment. Most of those who benefit from their work are landless and marginalized or small-scale subsistence farmers.

Himalayan Wild Fibers’ business model is simple: buy and resell. They buy at fair trade prices, creating immediate income for subsistence farmers. With a consumable product, their sales will repeat and grow without proportionate marketing and sales efforts, creating large profits. As a ‘Not Just for Profit’ (and a Beyond Profit enterprise!), Himalayan Wild Fibers will eventually contribute a significant portion of its profits for reinvestment in Nepal while still paying excellent returns to investors.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – Keen Guides

Keen Guides is revolutionizing the way people tour museums, parks, historic sites, downtowns, colleges, and other public venues. Keen creates downloadable tours in many different languages, using cutting- edge video, GPS positioning and the most accessible technologies available. What sets them apart from other tour products on the market is their accessibility modalities such as closed captioning, sign language and cued speech. No longer will those with hearing and sight disabilities be excluded from getting the full experience at cultural institutions. They can be used by more than 98% of visitors with hearing loss, providing a truly accessible product.

Keen Guides are designed as video and audio files, created for use on any media player. Visitors can download tours onto their personal media player or use a pre-loaded personal media player at participating cultural venues.

Follow Keen Guides on Twitter at @KeenGuides

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – Ayllu

Ayllu, a new organization started by Melissa Richer, is exploring how to replicate small businesses – in the water, renewable energy, healthcare or sustainable agriculture sectors – proven to alleviate poverty. Currently in the process of conducting market research and feasibility studies, Ayllu is developing a model to enable social enterprises to franchise their models and microcredit banks to extend financial services to the newly-franchised microenterprises. Ayllu’s model takes social enterprise to the next level, allowing businesses to grow exponentially franchise-by-franchise, with the potential to move millions out of poverty.  The goal is to implement the Ayllu Initiative in September 2010, with the plan of being in 10 countries in 10 years, having impacted 10 million people by that time.

Ayllu’s belief is, “with a hand up, not a hand out, the poor can help themselves out of poverty.” We at Beyond Profit wholeheartedly agree with Melissa – we believe that social enterprise has the potential to create millions of jobs, billions in new wealth and create huge social and environmental value.

Follow Ayllu on Twitter at @ayllu

Friday, July 24, 2009

Social Enterprise of the Day – Kshan

Kshan (“a moment” in Sanskrit) – all it takes is a moment to save a life

Kshan, provides a 24×7 service that connects people looking for a blood donor  to a large and healthy group of volunteers using SMS. The model is simple: Kshan has a network and whenever it is apprised of an emergency, all the members are SMSed immediately with details of the needy person, such as age, blood group and hospital, so that anyone can go and voluntarily help him or her. According to Kiran Harwani, a Kshan co-founder, “We are like phantom intermediaries, collecting the information and passing it on. The blood donor contacts the needy person directly, and none of us comes into it. But once somebody confirms himself or herself as a donor, we stop any other potential donors from wasting their time and effort.”

Follow Kshan on Twitter at @Kshanorg