Final Post from Michael, Rubicon!

A Summer Intern’s Thoughts on Social Enterprise

Before I became an intern at Rubicon National Social Innovations, I honestly had no idea what social enterprise was or of any organizations that existed. Being only a sophomore in college, my knowledge of social enterprise was limited to the notion that social enterprise somehow uses business skills to try to solve injustices or economic inequities throughout the world. With the little experience I had doing community service in my spare time, I honestly could not distinguish one non-profit from the other in terms of their strategies and approaches to making a social impact. After a phenomenal and memorable 2-month experience with Rubicon National, I am proud to say that I can now make that distinction (or at least I think I can).

One thing that I have questioned over the years while participating in numerous service activities is how effective those service organizations are. Although their services were beneficial to those they were helping, it never seemed like lasting change in people’s lives was being made. I’m not trying to say that these organizations are unnecessary or obsolete; it just seemed to me that their work was “patchwork,” only temporarily relieving the unfortunate of their suffering.

That’s partly why I have continually been impressed by the work that Rubicon National is doing. Their approach to battling the cyclical poverty phenomenon is deeply rooted in creating sustainable, long-lasting employment opportunities powerful enough to lift people out of poverty. The social enterprise models that they develop are truly innovative, creating social enterprises relying on market forces for financial stability and operating on a national scale to maximize social impact. They clearly break away from the stigma of traditional philanthropy being patchwork and make a lasting social impact in the communities that need the most help.

Another reason that I am proud to say that I worked for Rubicon National is their dedication to generating triple bottom line business opportunities, recognizing the fact that social change and environmental awareness do not have to be mutually exclusive. During my time here at Rubicon National, we have been diligently developing an energy efficiency retrofit service as a social enterprise that would create green collar jobs and pathways out of poverty in cities around the United States. Because of the federal mandate for economic recovery and climate change mitigation, Rubicon National realizes that retrofitting homes with energy efficiency measures creates excellent opportunities for the hardest to employ, offering training services and career advancement possibilities in a growing industry.

Additionally, the tremendous volunteer support that Rubicon National has had from professionals in all sorts of career fields has been awe-inspiring and truly invaluable. With over 20 volunteers from Bain and Company consulting, Net Impact, and others offering their pro bono support, Rubicon National has made significant progress on the enterprise that would not have been achieved without them. It is incredible how much buy-in to the project Rubicon National has received, speeding up the process exponentially. Not only have the volunteers shown their interest in energy efficiency retrofits, but also that they genuinely believe in the potential it has for making a lasting social impact.

I must say, though, that all of the success that we’ve had did not come without difficulty or anxiety. Because of its nascent qualities, it has been laborious finding relevant information on the retrofit industry. Other troubles have included navigating the complex matrix of government incentives for energy efficiency outlined in the Recovery Act and collaborating with others in the industry that may actually turn out to be competitors. Through all of these challenges, Rubicon National and its volunteers has impressively and continually managed to push forward.

As my internship comes to a close, I am proud to say that I contributed meaningfully to Rubicon National’s energy efficiency retrofit enterprise. As biased as this may seem, I believe that Rubicon National Social Innovations is one-of-a-kind, having unmatchable experience in the field of social enterprise and a proven track record of success. They may just be getting their footing as social enterprise modelers, but they truly are the “laboratory for scaling social enterprise” and deserve much recognition for their work.

~Michael Paci

Reflections from Sagar

The more I think about it, the more I realize that PW and PennSEM was the most ideal thing to happen to me this summer. When I was smitten by the concept of social enterprise two years ago, I was romanticizing it. I thought that I would be able to figure out all the answers and magically change everything that was wrong with this world. At some point however, idealism hits a brick wall, and you realize that you either have to climb the wall or build a window to get to the other side. Working at PW has been challenging in that I have really had to pick up my game. What I would normally have passed off in school as a good assignment, is now a first draft. I am learning that the real world is not as wonderfully abstract and smooth like management concepts or heat equations, and that you have to be sharp and efficient if you really want to make a bang. Oh, and you have to work hard. Here is a list of things that I have learnt, or at least become more aware of with regard to working well.

Being organized in thought

o What is the goal of what I am doing?

o Asking the so what?

o Thinking through things before exploring what is out there

Being organized in presentation

o Summarizing a lot of information

o Getting to the point when conversing and writing

o Paying attention to detail

Learning to sell. You are trying to sell the person, not the idea, so always, always keep their interests in mind and discuss it from within their frame of reference.

-Sagar

Fog City Updates!

Bay Area Brief:

Since my last update, there has been a lot of talk on Capitol Hill and around the world with implications not only for the energy efficiency retrofit social enterprise we’re developing here at RNSI, but also for the world. On June 26, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a historic piece of legislation intended to curb greenhouse gas emissions and spur economic growth in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) puts a price on emissions that would affect the way electricity is generated, how homes and offices are designed, how foreign trade is conducted and how Americans pay to drive cars or to heat their homes.

Although the discussion on the bill is starting to heat up in the Senate, there is at least one glimmer of hope that gives reason for the passage of the bill. ACES includes around $1 billion in funding for job training programs that ensures local access to quality jobs in the green collar economy. Also, there are provisions in the bill that ensure that the principles of equity and opportunity, career pathways out of poverty for low-income and disadvantaged communities. All of this debate is so exciting for RNSI and for me personally. There has already been a lot of funding allocation for green job creation and for residential energy efficiency project, of which we are applying for, but this piece of legislation is of special importance. If passed, it is a statement that no longer will the United States turn away from the threat of climate change, while providing an economic boost to the communities that need quality jobs the most. In my personal opinion, creating social change and saving the planet are not mutually exclusive.

With our feasibility study coming to a close, RNSI is gearing up to write a business plan for our energy efficiency retrofit social enterprise and apply for federal funding. Under the Green Jobs Act, the Department of Labor is soliciting $150 million in competitive grants for national and local nonprofit entities to provide “pathways out of poverty” and into the green collar workforce. Because of the tremendous increase in capacity to do residential energy audits, retrofits, and other green labor, the grant solicitation requires that applicants have strategic partnerships to ensure that training leads to employment. RNSI is currently trying to identify strong partnerships for the enterprise in the select cities that have shown the most potential for business (Philly is one of them!). Because the industry is nascent and fragmented, RNSI and other potential partners have been finding this task to be difficult. It also doesn’t help when nonprofit are competing over the same resources.

I may not have made it clear to everyone how important it is to make our homes more energy efficient, so here are just a few figures:

• Over 40% of total U.S. energy consumption is in our buildings
• Residential and Commercial building are highly inefficient, and you can potentially save up to 40% in energy costs by retrofitting your building
• 80% of the U.S. housing stock will still be standing and in use over the next 15 years
• Energy prices are highly unpredictable, and the costs can be extremely taxing on low-income households, some of whom spend 14% or more of their income to heat and cool their homes

You see, it’s not just the question of climate change that is driving the clean energy revolution. As fuel resources continue to diminish, prices will rise and the burden on low-income households will increase. Although it is such a difficult time to invest in switching to more sustainable living, it is also the best time.

-Michael

Welcome our Twitter Queen... Danielle!

Having been named “Twitter Queen” the second week of my internship, I have spent many hours researching how social media can be used as a marketing tool and building up Twitter followings for Ventures in Development and Shokay. Prior to arriving in Shanghai, I knew very little about Twitter – I was one of those many people who made Twitter accounts, got confused by all the #, RT, DM, bit.ly and @, and abandoned it shortly thereafter. (Apparently the top 10% most prolific Twitter users account for 90% of all Twitter activity:

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html)

I quickly discovered that a huge number of social entrepreneurs tweet, and that a lot of fascinating discussions on social enterprise, bottom of the pyramid models, and venture philanthropy are easily found and followed on Twitter. Basically, if you are aiming for the double-bottom line, or want to create some sort of positive change in the world, Twitter is the place to be. I have been doing research on the social entrepreneurship field since January, and yet there are many relevant organizations and companies that I only discovered once I logged on to Twitter. Maybe the rest of the world doesn’t see why 140-character posts should make any difference at all, but it appears social entrepreneurs think differently.

Since it is important for any newcomer organization that wants to become a leader in a given field to stay up to date with all the latest developments, as well as network with peers, I quickly started searching for social entrepreneurs and adding both @shokay and @venturesindev to their lists of followers.

Here are some of my favorite social entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter:

@jnovogratz: Founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund, a nonprofit global venture fund that makes philanthropic investments in enterprises that present innovative solutions to poverty.

@beyondprofit: A cool new magazine on social enterprises in emerging and developing markets.

@ayllu: A new organization that wants to spread microenterprises to poor communities around the world. Founder Melissa Richer is currently in Brazil conducting market research and always has interesting links and insights to share.

@socialentrprnr: A blogger at Change.org’s social entrepreneurship page.

@SocialEarth: This organization just launched a new social enterprise video library, and my mentor Carol Chyau is featured! Check it out: http://video.socialearth.org/carol-chyau-discusses-social-enterprise-in-china.

@startingbloc: Educating young social entrepreneurs through their exciting programs – I’m sure

@reachshijie and @ayllu could tell you more about it.

@khayacookies: Cute social enterprise selling cookies made with all-natural ingredients by South African women. What I like is that by hiring and training unemployed people in Philadelphia, as well, they integrate social impact throughout their supply chain.

@KINDSnacks: The makers of a new health bar which will soon be sold in Starbucks. A portion of the profits go to promoting peace in the Middle East.

One thing I really like about Shokay’s Twitter strategy (already in place before I arrived) is the use of Twitterfeed to aggregate posts from all its team members. Basically, if any Shokay team member posts a tweet with the words “Shokay” or “yaks,” that tweet automatically feeds into the Shokay company account. With team members Twittering from Xining (where the yaks are), Chong Ming Island (the location of our knitters’ cooperative), Hong Kong, and Shanghai, followers of Shokay get an inside look at the social enterprise and all aspects of its supply chain.

One challenge of building up Shokay’s Twitter following is determining the appropriate audience to target. Of course we want to promote our products – clothing, accessories, toys, and a home collection hand-knit with yarn spun from Tibetan yak down – but we also want to contribute to all this buzz on #socent (if you don’t know what that means, check out http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/twitter-hashtags/). Social entrepreneurs may follow us because they think our business model is interesting or similar to their own, but they are not necessarily going to bring us sales. And our tweets on the definition of social entrepreneurship (http://www.venturesindev.org/defining.htm) probably aren’t going to interest the knitters and crocheters who like our free patterns and cute baby yaks (http://twitpic.com/a7ywk). We have to find a way to balance our content in a way that satisfies all our target audiences.

More updates to come! For now, I will leave you with some greetings from our yaks.

Catherine's Greetings from Singapore

Hi guys,

Hope you'll enjoy Catherine's stories!

*~*~*~*

Last week, a project at work involved researching the best practices of venture philanthropy. I really had no idea what this topic entailed besides the fact that “it had something to do with venture capital.” Even knowing that meant very little, because my knowledge on venture capital is quite limited to begin with. After two days of research, I’ve discovered that venture philanthropy is an emerging field that has the potential to make a lasting impact in our quest to solve the world’s problems.

Although there has been no official definition for venture philanthropy, the core concept of venture philanthropy involves treating funding as an investment rather than a charitable donation. By implementing the practices of venture capital firms, venture philanthropy hopes to help the social sector by infusing techniques that will result in high impact. Venture philanthropy is often characterized by innovative approaches, a focus on measurable results, and long term impact. This field was first introduced in a 1997 Harvard Business Review article called “Virtuous Capital: What Foundations Can Learn from Venture Capitalists.”

Check out the Acumen Fund – an awesome example of venture philanthropy at its best.

Vicky!

First entry from Vicky Lam!

*~*~*~*

Greetings from Hong Kong! Actually, I am already halfway through my summer internship with Ventures in Development , but there are so many interesting projects going on with ViD that I don’t have much time to spare and share my exhilarating experience in the past month. Apologies for the delay!

As you have probably learnt from Danielle, another PennSEM intern, ViD is a non-profit that aims at cultivating the concept of social entrepreneurship in the Greater China region through knowledge and enterprise development. My major task this summer is to work on “Knowledge Development” through coordinating a number of activities held in Hong Kong, which you will find out more about in my upcoming journals.

Even though I am spending most of my internship in Hong Kong, I worked at the Shanghai office for my first week to understand the basic operations of ViD and Shokay, one of the social enterprises that ViD is incubating. The tagline of Shokay is “Luxury with a story, style with a touch of humanity,” which eloquently summarizes the developmental nature of our brand. At Shokay, we retail a variety of hand-knitted products created from the precious yak down that we directly source from the Tibetan herders in the Himalayan region.

Blankets, hats, scarves, sushi platter… everything at Shokay is made from the finest Tibetan yak yarn!

On the second-last day of my short trip to Shanghai, I joined a few colleagues, left the metropolitan Shanghai, took a two-hour ferry and arrived at rural Chongming Island, where our knitters reside. Can you believe that ALL the Shokay knitted products are hand-made by just 40 women from this island? Amazed at their knitting skills, I chatted with some of them and learnt more about their life stories. Most of them have only received primary education and farm on their own fields. While some of them might have worked in factories before, due to the unfavorable geographic location of Chongming Island, many factories closed down and local job opportunities become extremely limited. Our knitting cooperative therefore allows them to turn their genuine interests in knitting into a vocation that provides a stable source of income to their families. Below are some pictures that I took during my one-day trip:

Two of our amazing knitters finishing the knitted baby yaks!

With my PennSEM mentor Carol Chyau (right) who co-founded ViD and Shokay. She is also a Penn alum!

Sunset at rural Chongming Island, where our most talented knitters are from

Now that I’m back in Hong Kong, one of the tasks that I’m responsible for is coordinating Shokay’s “Knit a Yak Campaign.” Launched in late April, we worked with 7 elderly service centers in the Wong Tai Sin district and recruited some elderly volunteer knitters to knit 2009 items using the Shokay DIY Knitting Kits. This area has the highest population of singleton elderly in Hong Kong. Most of them seldom interact with the local community, and may receive little care and support from family members. The 2009 knitted items will be given to the singleton elderly on Senior Citizen’s Day (15 Nov 2009). Through knitting and giving, we hope to encourage the volunteer knitters to contribute to their community and outreach to the singleton elderly, Eventually, we hope to sustain the program by setting up a fund from the profits generated from the sale of the DIY Knitting Kits. You are most welcomed to check out the details of this program on our website, especially if you are in Hong Kong!

Some of our elderly volunteer knitters in the Hong Kong “Knit a Yak Campaign”

-Vicky

Living and Working in the Tropics

Greetings everyone, and hope you've enjoyed your July 4th tremendously. Here's a warm update from Sagar from the tropical island of Singapore.

*~*~*~*

Hey everyone!

To start with, let me just give a shout-out to everyone who helped make PennSEM possible: the board, the professors, the university, the mentors and us! It's hard to believe that I am immersed up to my nose in a field that I hadn't even heard about two years ago.

Singapore is a great place, a serene amalgamation of fundamentally eastern culture with all the conveniences, technology and opportunities that the western world has to offer. I've been here twice in the last two years, and can only say: it works. Those who have never been here tend to mock the country for being 'strict' (the chewing-gum stereotype), or reject the regime because they haven't seen the quality of life. It's obviously not Philadelphia with its crazy hobos and sprawling graffiti, but I love it only marginally less. So I have been spending my time eating at hawker centers (there are even 'VEGETARIAN' stalls here), Little India and McDonalds, trying to speak Singlish, futilely scouring football fields for a pickup game, drinking Margaritas on Clarke Quay and getting a hands-on experience of Social Entrepreneurship.

I have learnt a lot more about SE, work that is par excellence and soft skills in the last two weeks than I have in many years of school, especially through sustained interaction with Vivian. The work content is also fascinating because we are looking at macro sector issues, and attempting to create systemic change which is very different my original perspective on SE - working to create products and technologies that directly impact those in need, which is more on the enterprise side. If I do choose this track as my career path, this will be definitely be a question that I will have to grapple with. At the end of the day, it might also be decided by my abilities and experience, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

On another note, I have just started using Twitter as a means of information. Signed up to follow Ashoka, Acumen and a whole host of other SE related organizations. It' s even better than an RSS feed.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for more thoughts on SE. Can?

-Sagar