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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
By Rolfe Larson on September 22, 2011
If you haven’t heard about it yet, check out the Social Enterprise Summit, put on by Social Enterprise Alliance. For those interested in social enterprise, there’s no better way to learn, network and get inspired by the incredible people who organize and put on these conferences. I’ve been to ten of them, and gained something [...]
By Rolfe Larson on September 12, 2011
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 [...]
By Rolfe Larson on June 21, 2011
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.
By Rolfe Larson on June 8, 2011
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.
By Rolfe Larson on May 20, 2011
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 [...]
By Rolfe Larson on April 29, 2011
The way you hear some social enterprisers talk, you’d think it’s an inherently good thing to lose money, or if you have to make a profit, keep it small. For example, the new Low-Profit Limited Liability (L3C) corporate structure, which allows an SE to have social objectives and attract investors, has that low profit mentality [...]
By Rolfe Larson on March 24, 2011
Evaluating the impact of a social enterprise is often difficult to do. For most sectors, there are no agreed-upon metrics to rely upon to tell others how successful you have been. But you don’t have to start from scratch. Here are some perspectives and suggestions that might be helpful:
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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