|
||||||||||||||||
From In Business Magazine March/April 2001, Page 25 financing sustainability IN the July-August 2000 issue of In Business, I discussed the Seattle Social Enterprise Initiative and the development of the First Seattle Social Investor’s Forum. In this article, I would like to set more of a social context for this effort as well report on the Second Seattle Social Investor’s Forum and the social enterprise movement in Seattle. Nonprofit organizations have long suffered from lack of access to capital networks as well as lack of capacity to take advantage of those networks even if they had the access. In the past, this was not as important since nonprofits are traditionally grant-supported by government agencies and foundations. Unfortunately for nonprofits, we live in an age of government withdrawal, downsizing, privatization and deregulation. Even activist government agencies like Seattle’s have had to retrench due to cuts in federal and state funding programs. At the same time, businesses have created worldwide networks leaving many of their communities of origin behind due to labor, tax, and technology issues and in many instances retreating from real geographic space into cyberspace. (Note Boeing’s decision to move its corporate headquarters and increasing amounts of production out of Seattle). These developments have left a vacuum of services some of whose manifestations are deteriorated communities (especially city centers and close-in suburbs), lack of social services, poverty, and homelessness. Seattle is fortunate to have strong homegrown businesses in the new high-tech economy. Even in prosperous Seattle, however, some homeless live amongst the reviving core blocks with their new restaurants, stadia, concert halls and other cultural amenities for those who have access. SATURATION AND WORKSTYLE At the same time, some of those who have achieved access have reached a saturation point with the purchasable commodities available to them and with the systemic demands of working in lucrative positions in the new economy. Fast Company magazine details the lives and concerns of the mostly young people who are preeminent in the new network economy. Unlike the situation 10 to 20 years ago, many of these people are no longer ready to make the sacrifices necessary to reach and stay at the top of the access pyramids. Concerns are voiced about balancing work and family life and balancing private and communal life as well. (And some of the new organizations support their concerns.) Articles about new trends in the wireless Internet field are juxtaposed with articles about taking time off to do volunteer work or community service. There is a new sense of the importance of social service organizations as receptacles for the impulse to volunteerism, as well as possible avenues for social change. There is, I believe, a rising sense that a counterweight to unbridled global development is a rejuvenated nonprofit sector incorporating local culture, needs, and desires with the techniques of the managerial-technological revolution. The term — possible avenues for social change — is used since young entrepreneurs have voiced some skepticism about the capacity of nonprofits to use their assets effectively to create change. There is a sense on the part of the young entrepreneurs that a dependency on grants may have stifled the creative, entrepreneurial impulses of the nonprofits. Therefore, they are looking to support nonprofit organizations that have an organizational culture open to entrepreneurism and making changes from dependency to sustainability. Just as nonprofit social service organizations have been criticized for promoting dependency models for their clients, they have also been criticized for their unwillingness to develop more independent funding models for themselves. IMPACT OF SOCIAL INVESTOR FORUMS This then is the basic context from which the Social Investor Forums were born: The investors desire to help their community and rejuvenate the local culture and a desire to see nonprofit organizations maximize their assets through entrepreneurial fundraising and program development in order to create more community financial and social capital. The First Seattle Social Investor’s Forum on May 13, 2000 netted approximately $125,000 in direct donations (cash and stock) to the five nonprofits which presented their business plans. In addition, the Calvert Social Investment Foundation — the only foundation thus far participating as an investor — has a $250,000 recoverable grant in process (principal repayment deferred for several years and a low three to five percent interest rate). Some investors have continued the connection to the nonprofits by attending other fundraising events and/or providing free business consulting services to them. Other investors are still considering “investments” in the first group of five. The Second Seattle Social Investor’s Forum took place on November 28, 2000. The five presenters in this round were: Vision House: A faith-based provider of structured transitional housing and case management services for homeless single mothers and their children and separately for men recovering from substance abuse. Vision House proposed to start and operate a childcare center servicing current Vision House residents, low-income families and private pay parents. Summer Technology Learning Adventure: A technology day camp for students from Kimball Elementary School — 55 percent of whom come from low- to moderate-income families. Its mission is to eliminate the “digital divide” between children with access to technology and those without. YouthForce: An enterprise that combines the services of traditional youth employment programs with business strategies adopted from the staffing industry, to create mentored work opportunities for teens. YouthForce is dedicated to building opportunities for underserved youth that inspire and maximize potential, abilities and education goals. FareStart: A partnership with Starbucks Coffee Company to develop an eight-week Barista Job Training Program for homeless/at risk youth in the Seattle/King County area. The program will be sited in FareStart’s two existing cafes. The project represents an adaptation of FareStart’s food service training for homeless adults. United Indians of All Tribes Foundation: Development of the People’s Lodge, a gathering place for Indian people incorporating museum, performing arts, community, and retail space to help educate all people about the history and heritage of Native Americans, and to be an economic generator for the regional Indian community. Donations and hard commitments of $35,500 were acknowledged from the Second Forum. Although it did not raise as much cash as the first Forum, four of the five agencies reported conversations that led to facility tours or the exchange of additional information. Several also noted that dialogue regarding financial and/or technical support continues with Forum attendees. In addition, the Calvert Foundation is considering another recoverable grant in the $50,000-$100,000 range for one of the agencies and more than 90 percent of those registered said they would attend another Investors Forum. NATIONAL MARKETPLACE FOR SOCIAL INVESTMENT The city of Seattle served as the facilitator of the first two Social Investor Forums, in recognition of the new governmental role as a broker as well as a funder. The city indicated it wished to pass on the facilitation role to another entity for the Third Social Investor Forum scheduled for June 2, 2001 while continuing some financial support of the costs of the Forums. The withdrawal of the city government from active leadership required new leadership to emerge from within the nonprofit and social investor community to reinforce this new avenue for nonprofit access. The organization that stepped forward is SeaChange (Social Entrepreneurs Alliance for Change), which is launching a national marketplace for social investment, using both local real time events and the Internet. SeaChange, based in San Francisco, had been a partner in the Seattle Social Investor Forums and sees them as a model for national replication. Jim McClurg, vice president for Social Investor Relations, manages Sea Change’s Seattle office and noted that the city of Seattle has led the nation in terms of public sector recognition and support for social entrepreneurship. “Now it’s up to the private sector to maintain the momentum of this important Seattle event”, he said. SeaChange has reconvened the Steering Committee for the Social Investor Forums and is attempting to apply some of the lessons learned from the first two forums to develop an effective national model. Some of these apparent lessons included: Shortening the formal presentations to create more opportunity for investors to huddle with presenters; Survey social investor interest areas as a guideline for project selection; Provide an overview of the process at the beginning of each Forum, including a review of selection criteria; and Provide social investors with a greater sense of ownership in the event. On April 5, 2001, six organizations will be picked to make presentations at the Third Social Investors Forum on June 2, 2001. Some of the 12 semifinal applicants include: Washington Works (Copy Shop); A Temps (Temporary Employment); Boomtown Café (Catering Business); Cross Cultural Health Care; (Translation and Cultural Diversity Training); Earth Corps (Landscaping and Soil Conservation); and Friends of Youth (Teen Technology Center). In addition to the six presenters, six other organizations will have the opportunity to be present at the Forum and network with the attendees. The Social Investor Forums continue under other leadership. Seattle’s experience in supporting development of these social investor fairs, hopefully, will be seen as a pilot that other government agencies or foundations may want to emulate. The Steering Committee will continue to synthesize the knowledge gained and make it available to other interested entities. In the next two years, we expect local social enterprise activities in Seattle and other cities to greatly multiply, catalyzed by the work of SeaChange and others. Mark Pomerantz is the former Social Enterprise Partnerships Coordinator for the city of Seattle. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Seattle Social Investor Forums. He is also the Chair of the Host Committee and a board member of the National Gathering for Social Entrepreneurs. This organization will roll out a full slate of member services for social entrepreneurs in 2002 and will convene its Third National Gathering in Seattle September 12 –15, 2001. Mark can be contacted at marklp2@home.com. His website is found at http://homepages.about.com/marklp/socialenterprisemagazineonline/.
|
||||||||||||||||