Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™) - For Social Entrepreneurs

The Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™), a program developed by Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society, assists social benefit entrepreneurs in developing business plans that enable their organizations to reach increasing numbers of beneficiaries. The GSBI consists of three major components:
- On-line, mentored, application process
- Scholarships for an online (4 month) and in-residence (2 week) program for 20 organisations
- On-going mentoring and collaboration for selected organisations

To Apply:
Become a member of www.socialedge.org and, beginning January 4, 2010 complete the following three GSBI™ Business Planning Exercises:
1. Value Proposition (Due Friday, January 15, 2010)
2. Target Market (Beneficiary) Statement (Due Friday, January 29, 2010)
3. Definition of a Business Model (Due Friday, February 19, 2010)

Check the GSBI™ website for more information.

Social Enterprise Lessons from Funmi Iyanda's Change-A-Life Project

I am sure that you'll have heard about the 7th edition of journalist Funmi Iyanda's Change--Life project. It's been all over the papers, airwaves and blogosphere.

She was a guest of Ireti Doyle's on Today on STV this morning and I caught part of the interview, where she talked about Change-A-Life, her motivations and her hopes for it. Being in the media herself, she's undoubtedly an interviewer's dream: chatty; witty; and very interesting to listen to.

She spoke about the way she runs the project, which made me think about some of the things I have been reading about keeping social enterprises afloat in these tough economic times.

With Change-A-Life, she:

• Keeps her operations lean and mean: This means that she does as much as she can with as little as she can. You don't necessarily need a hugely-staffed organisation to make an impact.


• Recognises that government has an important role to play in alleviating societal problems: In fact, that is what we believe to be their main job. However in our part of the world, we typically see governments abdicating this responsibility and this work being taken up by able and interested individuals and organisations. F.I reminds us and the government that our efforts should complement and not replace theirs.


• Taps into her resource network: Acknowledging that she can only do so much, she draws from people she knows who have time, expertise, money, influence and other resources to share.

To find out more about Change-A-Life, visit Funmi Iyanda's blog.