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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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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 [...]
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.
Measuring outcomes for social enterprises
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:
Social Franchises Mostly Fail
A recent discussion on the npEnterprise Forum (the global social enterprise listserv) revealed several key points about social franchises owned by nonprofit organizations. First, and foremost, they rarely succeed in meeting the nonprofit’s goals.
Tax/Legal Topics for Social Enterprises
Some of the most complex and confusing issues around social enterprise involve legal and tax topics. Will we get in trouble if we do it that way? Do we have to pay taxes on that revenue? Which tax forms do we have to fill out? Those concerns are made more difficult by the tendency of the [...]
Do Foundations Support Social Enterprise?
Well, yes and no. They all want their grantees to develop “sustainability” strategies, by which they mean they want you to continue into the future without their money. So if social enterprise will help an organization diversity its funding sources and rely less on philanthropic support, they’re all for it. They like reading about it [...]
Do Unions Help (or Hinder) Social Enterprise?
As the social enterprise movement grows, enters new markets, and works with new employees, it’s discovering new partners … and new adversaries. One of those adversaries, according to some practitioners, can be unions. Unions of course exist to balance the excesses of power of management, and seek to protect the jobs and increase the wages [...]
Connect with ~7500 SE fans
Just wanted to mention a listserv devoted exclusively to social enterprise. Its focus is learning more about how organizations can develop successful social enterprise strategies to generate earned income to pursue mission, build capacity and achieve greater sustainability. If you’re interested, you’re invited to join the 7500-subscriber npEnterprise Forum listserv, the official listserv partner of the Social Enterprise Alliance. [...]
