SOCIAL ENTERPRISE NEWS AND DISCUSSION

Non-Profit Incubators (NPI) is China’s support to social entrepreneurs and social innovation.  Founded in 2006, NPI wants to promote social good by giving small-medium NGOs and social enterprises a boost through grants and other resources.  It hopes to apply the knowledge from China’s fast-growing private sector to meet the demands of community service. It is [...]

The Bicycle Academy is a for-profit social enterprise founded in Frome, United Kingdom that teaches people how to build a bicycle on the one condition that their first built bicycle will go to someone in Africa.  The bicycles mean more than transportation or leisure.  Those in Africa will be able to access food and water [...]

Fred Swaniker lived in many places across Africa.  Growing up, he was trying to understand why his native continent is so poor despite having numerous resources.  He soon came to the conclusion that Africa needed ethical leadership and that much of Africa’s future depended on that.  During his graduate studies at Stanford, he decided it [...]

People For Good is an ad campaign that doesn’t sell you a product.  It doesn’t sell you a service.  In fact, it’s not trying to sell you anything.  Instead, it wants you to share an umbrella when it’s raining, offer your bus seat to someone, give someone a high five, and find your own way to [...]

Uncharted Play is a new social business that is trying to address humanity’s issues through play.  The sOccket is what Uncharted Play calls a soccer ball that is able to harness kinetic energy to light up lamps and power up small electrical appliances.  What spawned as an idea for a class project at Harvard University, co-inventors [...]

H.U.M.A.N. is Helping Unite Mankind and Nutrition.  This social enterprise is taking steps to make obesity a thing of the past in the United States.  What’s their function?  To provide healthy food, drink and health information to people using a vending machine.  They are doing so through placing vending machines filled with healthier snack options across [...]

Back in mid-2011, non-profit venture fund organization Acumen Fund launched the East Africa Fellows Program, a program that provides leadership training for aspiring East African social entrepreneurs.  With a vision to tackle poverty by providing funding to and empowering social enterprises and leaders, East Africa Fellows Program supplements Acumen Fund’s already popular Global Fellows Program, where [...]

Social entrepreneurs are getting a boost of equity through the establishment of the first ever stock exchange for social enterprise.  Four projects under the Big Society in the UK announced recently have received a total funding of £3.1 million, of which £850,000 will go towards setting up the very first stock market for social enterprise [...]

Putting the words “social” and “business” together in the same sentence might lead a few to think Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ in this day and age.  But what about the other social business?  By definition, the one where a company seeks to achieve societal goals rather than to make profit hence the name social business?  [...]