Entries Tagged 'social entrepreneurs' ↓

Check out Global Agents for Change

On May 31st, more than 20 people will ride their bikes 3,000km from Vancouver to Tijuana, Mexico to raise money and awareness for entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Agents of Change, a nonprofit registered charity, hopes to raise $1 million from the challenge to connect those living in poverty with microcredit - small, interest-free loans. The loans are to help entrepreneurs in developing countries by helping to get them out of poverty.

The organization is raising awareness about how microcredit can help families escape poverty, with help from its partner organization, Kiva. Kiva, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, provides loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Agents of Change, which has so far raised more than $8,000 for microcredit, is trying to raise the million dollar fund so people in developing countries can be provided with loans through Kiva.

Kiva’s website provides a platform for borrowers to post their stories, pictures, business goals and needs. Supporters can view the profiles and get a choice of who they would like to support, as well as receive information on the borrowers’ progress and how the money is being used.

Through Kiva, lenders receive their money back after the loan is repaid, but that money can also be used again to help another entrepreneur. The million dollar fund through Agents of Change, however, isn’t refundable as it’s being set up to be used as a constant source of funding for Kiva.

Through Kiva, the businesses are screened by recognized local microfinance partners. All of the funds go directly to the borrower. So far, Kiva’s repayment rate is estimated to be 97 per cent successful.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and is the inspiration behind the cause, founded the microcredit bank, Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.

Global Agents for Change is a fellow traveler with their GFAC fund The group’s vision is to create the world’s largest youth built, youth led microcredit fund and connecting youth with developing world entrepreneurs, providing a crucial tool in the fight to escape poverty. In 2007 they did a 7 week 3000 kilometer ride from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico to help build the fund. They will be doing it again May 31, 2008.

Social Fusion

Social Fusion’s strength lies in focusing on three pillars critical to catalyzing and supporting business based social change. Social Fusion builds the networks that enable leading social entrepreneurs to build their enterprises within a collaborative community of innovation. We extend peer and industry knowledge through technology, and by translating learning into services and products that enable social ventures to more efficiently grow their businesses.

Social Fusion works to bridge investment and sustainable philanthropy by providing select social ventures with the capital access required to reach scale.

Institute for Social Entrepreneurs

The Institute for Social Entrepreneurs is a for-profit consulting company founded in 1999 by Jerr Boschee, who served for the previous eight years as President and CEO of The National Center for Social Entrepreneurs. Among the National Center’s major accomplishments during Boschee’s tenure were creation of The National Gathering for Social Entrepreneurs (now known as the Social Enterprise Alliance) and The Affirmative Business Alliance of North America (now known as the Americas Group of Workability International), the first two membership organizations for entrepreneurs in the field of social enterprise. Under his leadership, the National Center also mounted demonstration projects in nine cities that helped more than 60 nonprofits change their organizational cultures and begin adopting entrepreneurial strategies.

Ashoka

Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, we have elected over 1,800 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries.

With our global community, we develop models for collaboration and design infrastructure needed to advance the field of social entrepreneurship and the citizen sector.

Our Fellows inspire others to adopt and spread their innovations - demonstrating to all citizens that they too have the potential to be powerful changemakers.

Seed Initiative

The Seed Initiative inspires, supports and researches exceptional, entrepreneurial, nascent, multi-stakeholder partnerships for locally-led sustainable development.

innovative ideas, with good scope for expansion, adaptation, and replication elsewhere

with potential to become engines of sustainable growth, tenacious and creative in improving incomes and livelihoods

in the early stages of their development and in need of capacity building and technical assistance to move from “idea” to “implementation”

social entrepreneurs, communities, women’s groups, companies and others, holding a common vision and pooling their resources to achieve it

fermenting ideas and actions which bring direct benefits to people on the ground and are more suited to local circumstances

finding new ways of simultaneously
- improving incomes and strengthening livelihoods,
- tackling poverty and marginalisation
- managing and conserving natural resources

Skoll Foundation

The Skoll Foundation was created by Jeff Skoll in 1999 to pursue his vision of a world where all people, regardless of geography, background or economic status, enjoy and employ the full range of their talents and abilities. Skoll, who was the first employee and first President of eBay, believes that strategic investments in the right people can lead to lasting social change.

The Skoll Foundation’s mission is to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs are proven leaders whose approaches and solutions to social problems are helping to better the lives and circumstances of countless underserved or disadvantaged individuals. By identifying the people and programs already bringing positive changes to communities throughout the world, the Skoll Foundation empowers them to extend their reach, deepen their impact and fundamentally improve society.

The New Heros

The New Heroes tells the dramatic stories of 14 daring people from all corners of the globe who, against all odds, are successfully alleviating poverty and illness, combating unemployment and violence, and bringing education, light, opportunity and freedom to poor and marginalized people around the world.

Also known as “social entrepreneurs,” they develop innovations that bring life-changing tools and resources to people desperate for viable solutions. What is possible? You’d be surprised. Take a journey into a world where people take action to make a big difference.  PBS