Social Network for Non-Profits

I was at the AlwaysOn Media conference in New York last week. It was mostly a caucophanous jumble of people hoping to get funding for the next generation of technology that can insert advertising in yet more places (watch for ads dynamically embedded in video and queued to the spoken text in the clip soon -- it's going to make ads even more ubiquitous than ever). The lesson these whiz kids need to learn is that an ad isn't relevant because it is aligned with the content; it is relevant when it is aligned with a consumer's desire to buy. Only a fraction of one's Web activity is shopping.

But one company I was pleased to learn about is ammado.com. They are a social networking platform specifically for non-profits and the philanthropic community. Their primary focus is to provide a networking tool to organizations with a widely dispersed staff, volunteers, and supporters (e.g. there is a network for Amnesty International). They aren't a network looking to aggregate individuals but rather to facilitate organizations doing.

There seems to be a dozen new social networks every day. "Hi, I'm starting a social network" seemed to be the standard opening line at the cocktail party at this event. But I think that these folks are on to something. They have an impressive roster of organizaitons signed on to date. It's nice to have a social networking environment that is more contextually appropriate for non-profits that the big public sites. On the other hand, there is a limit to how many networks one can maintain.

Social Enterprise Presidential Debate

The social entrepreneurs I've met in the U.S. are among the most innovative, passionate, and thougthful people in the country. They are in touch with many of the pressing social and environmental challenges that will face the next president.

I would like to propose an on-line debate among the presidential candidates moderated by and with questions posed by social entrepreneurs. It can be online -- let's keep the carbon footprint small, the reach large, and the time impact on the candidates' schedules minimal.

And if the candidates themselves won't make time for us, let's take surrogates for the candidates. It might actually make it a bit easier to focus on the issues rather than the personalities.

For McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Paul it would be a chance to engage with the entrepreneurs they continually celebrate in their speeches. SEs are (often) providing free market solutions to societal challenges. For Clinton and Obama it would be a chance to engage with a group driven to address the problems of poverty, hunger, health, environmental degradation, and other issues that they say are at the heart of their campaigns.

For all of us, it would be a chance to get beyond the usual questions and canned answers that everyone must be tired of by now (Wolff Blitzer was still asking Hillary to declare her Iraq war vote a mistake -- no matter how you feel about the vote, you know she's responded to this about a million times so far).

Join me. Let's pressure the campaigns to address social entrepreneurship.

The High Cost of Meat

There was a pretty amazing piece in Sunday's New York Times on the incredible amount of pollution that results from meat production and consumption. I'm a confirmed omnivore but I certainly vowed to eat less meat when I read that "if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius."

For the meat that one still consumes, grass fed results in far less collateral damage than grain fed.

I'm not ready to completely give up meat or ask others to do that. But a 20% reduction is relatively easy to accomplish.

Factory farming is at the center of this waste and pollution. It is unfortunate that we are so disconnected from our food production because I think that seeing the process that gives us abundant food at low prices would make more people willing to pay a bit more for humanely raised food.

So take away that cheeseburger and give me a plate of grilled vegetables.

Green Shelter

This may not qualilfy as social enterprise but it was still nice to read about a green shelter for the homeless opening in Oakland. It is a marriage of social missions that deserves more attention.

"Most homeless shelters opened in the 1980s in churches, synagogues and abandoned warehouses, said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington. Mr. Stoops, who has worked in the field for 35 years, said he believed Crossroads was the first green homeless shelter and should be 'a model for others around the country.'"

As we look for new ways to move forward, this project can be a model.

Backlash on Entrepreneurship?

Jeff Wexler of Uncivilsociety.org has an interesting post about shared space and its lessons for social enterprise:

"What we are seeing today with the backlash against entrepreneurial rhetoric reflects a failure of social enterprise to respect the design logic of nonprofit form. We could view what's happened as shared space in reverse, eradicating cues in context to rely primarily on nominal signs. The problem: when the only thing visibly distinguishing nonprofit from for-profit is the word itself, the distinction becomes incoherent.

The core question, in short, is not whether nonprofits should adopt the values of the market. Such values have been their all along. Rather, we need to focus on how we can transform market relations into an identity beyond exchange. Then, and only then, will nonprofit social enterprise be sustainable."

Social enterprise embraces the ideals of market relationships and makes concerted efforts to curb the excesses and correct the flaws in imperfect markets (news flash: all markets are imperfect). Mainstream capitalism has become an extractive exercise -- stripmining the market and the enterprise to put value created into the pocket of a relatively few shareholders. Social enterprise, by striving for sustainability and mitigation of negative impacts on ecosystem in which it operates, both defines value differently and distributes it more broadly. It is not just entrepreneurship with a benevolent face.

NYU to Establish Social Entrepreneurship Center

NYU sees a future in social entrepreneurship. The Stern School is advertising positions for a new social entrepreneurship program. If I was ready to move back to NY, I'd apply. If you are, give it a shot.

Is Sustainability Sustainable?

Here's an excerpt from interesting letter from the FT:
"Sir, Let us all hope that Stefan Stern’s prediction of “sustainability” as the Next Big Thing in management comes to pass in 2008 (“Goodbye to corporate social responsibility?”, Comment & Analysis, December 31). The prospects for sustainable enterprise will be bleak indeed if the world is not able to tackle successfully issues such as climate change, collapsing ecosystems and endemic poverty and the social, political and economic consequences these imply."

While the need is clear and general public acceptance of the concept is coming, we still live in a society where the economy is driven by over-consumption. We've just finished the holiday season with its paper, ribbon, and bows wrapping so many gifts that will soon sit unused on closet shelves. Stores opening at 4 a.m. or, in the case of Macy's in New York staying open for four days around the clock, are just the latest in the drive to keep us all spending and acquiring.

We have to figure out how to slow this consumption down without sending the economy into a downward spiral. In the U.S. we are so dependent on consumer spending that it's hard to do -- especially when we are already on (or over) the precipice to a recession thanks to the excesses of the financial whiz kids and their zeal to peddle sub-prime mortgages and the related financial instruments.

The true test of the sustainability of sustainability will be whether it can last through a recession. I'm afraid we're about to find out if it can.