Meet the Blog’s Host
Rolfe Larson provides consulting and training in areas such as strategic planning, market research, feasibility analysis, business planning, marketing and implementation strategies.
[Read more ...]Earned-Income Generation
SE: Empowering Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs (Marc Lane)
Marc Lane, arguably the most prolific writer in the social enterprise sector, last year wrote another one of his useful books, entitled: Social Enterprise: Empowering Mission-Drive Entrepreneurs. It’s a good book to glance through, and even more important, to have nearby on your bookshelf for when you have a legal question about social enterprise. For [...]
State of Social Enterprise: 2012
Following President Obama’s State of the Union speech last week, we thought this would be a good time to evaluate the state of the social enterprise sector. So here is the npEnterprise Forum’s official, revised* State of the SE Sector 2012 address. Emerging Private Sector SEs Private sector SEs are now gaining momentum and recognition. Truth [...]
New! Social Enterprise Shopping Guide
Have you ever gone online to order something and then wondered if you could buy it from a social enterprise? We often have, which is why the npEnterprise Forum created the Social Enterprise Shopping Guide. Support the SE sector while shopping online! Here’s the web address for the Guide: http://bit.ly/qsDUzN
What Is NOT a Social Enterprise
Steve Jobs once said: “I am as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.” So also it should be for the social enterprise sector. There are plenty of great things that are not SEs. To gain credibility and traction in the marketplace, the SE field cannot be all things [...]
New! Sales Strategy for Rhode Island Social Enterprises
For years, some of us have mused about some kind of national system to drive sales to social enterprises. The basic idea is that there are government agencies and socially-minded companies who might be willing to purchase large quantities of goods and services from social enterprises, provided someone would identify qualified suppliers and make it [...]
Financing Fantasy #1: Angel Investors
Everybody wants to be on the side of the angels. And while angel investors aren’t divine, many social enterprises labor under the mistaken assumption that they represent a ready source of capital. Unfortunately, very few social enterprises secure financing this way, and frankly, even if you could get such funds, in most cases they’re not [...]
Finding Good Venture Ideas (Part 3)
This blog was written by guest writer Jan Cohen. Today we venture up the Risk Chart to explore New Markets for Existing Services or Products. The focus is on researching who else could use, and pay for, what you already provide.
Finding Good Venture Ideas (part 2)
This blog was written by guest writer Jan Cohen. As we discussed last time, when most nonprofit staff and Boards think about earned income, they typically think about doing “something new”. This Risk Chart helps organizations to clearly see how risk increases as they go from “things and people they know” to those they have no [...]
Finding Good Venture Ideas (part 1)
This blog was written by guest writer Jan Cohen. When most nonprofit staff and Boards think about earned income, they typically think about doing “something new”. The Risk Chart helps organizations to clearly see how risk increases as they go from “things and people they know” to those they have no experience with.
Using social media to sell stuff (Part II)
Given the explosion of social media for networking, relationship-building, communication and awareness, I’ve been surprised at how few social enterprises seem to be using it specifically to attract and retain customers. The good news is that this is changing, and, well, the more I look the more ventures I come across taking advantage of these [...]
