By Rolfe Larson on July 12, 2012
Social Impact is the world’s first social enterprise directory available on cell phones.
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By Rolfe Larson on April 17, 2012
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 [...]
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By Rolfe Larson on March 7, 2012
When you’re looking for financing, it may seem that anything will do. However, depending on the life cycle stage of your venture, some forms of financing are better than others. You want the right kind of capital for the needs of your business at that point in time.
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By Rolfe Larson on February 13, 2012
The following blog was written by guest blogger Cyndi Laurenti: The economic struggle the U.S. is facing today isn’t simply a matter of a few bad business decisions; for too long business practices have marginalized and preyed on their market base. The quest for corporate profits has caused similar degradation of social systems and the [...]
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By Rolfe Larson on January 19, 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 [...]
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By Rolfe Larson on November 10, 2011
One sign that the social enterprise field is maturing is the emergence of guides and directories. And one sign that the field has a ways to go is a lack of consistency in how to define social enterprise (if they define it at all) or what information they present about each listing. But now there [...]
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By Rolfe Larson on October 26, 2011
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
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By Rolfe Larson on October 17, 2011
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 [...]
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By Rolfe Larson on September 27, 2011
In August 2010, ShoreBank, the nation’s first, largest, and leading community bank, was shut down by regulators. It was a major blow to the social enterprise sector. For almost forty years, ShoreBank made more than $4 billion in mission investments and financed more than 59,000 units of affordable housing. It spearheaded the national movement of [...]
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Rolfe Larson provides consulting and training in areas such as strategic planning, market research, feasibility analysis, business planning, marketing and implementation strategies.
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