Solvation

Obama Accepting Nobel Peace Price - Video & Text

Quick PSA Post: If you would like to read the Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, that's a bit quicker. Or if you have about 40 minutes, here it is in broadcast:

Water Innovation

Looking for ideas for green jobs projects in California or the Southwestern US?  Or are you a social entrepreneur focused on other drought-ridden areas of the world? Watch this TED India talk: 

Goodguide Political Contributions Widget

I found this widget via FastCompany. It's fascinating.

I encourage you to click through and play with the filter - on Goodguide, you can scroll and mouseover for more information.  Also, you can select by industry or sort the output in different ways. The top one is the financial industry, sorted by how much the total contributions were. (The half-check box is Deutschebank.)

Democratic

Republican

GoodGuide.com political contribution data for the finance sector

And if you're wondering where to shop, here's this:

Democratic

Republican

GoodGuide.com political contribution data for the retail sales sector

GoodGuide.com political contribution data for over 100 companies
View data for other companies at GoodGuide.com

Metrics and Outcomes and Intuition, Oh My!

Well, it's Thanksgiving, and time to think about what we're thankful about. At the Social Capital Markets blog, we've started a blog roundup (#socap #thankful) and of course this first abbreviated month is about stories of thanks.

During the discussions about topics, Kevin Jones at one point said, "Quantify the good for which you are thankful. Does measuring it make it grow in your mind or memory? So what's the good of social metrics? If they take away from thanksgiving, what earthly good are they?"

As it turns out, this is a topic near and dear. (HINT: What that means is this is going to be a long, rambly post, and now you've been warned!)

Are You a Social Entrepreneur?

"Social Capital" and "Social Entrepreneurialism" are evolving terms that have fuzzy meanings. So, instead of adding another definition, I'm going to give you a check list to help you decide whether you might be a Social Entrepreneur.

You're a Social Entrepreneur when:

(1) Whether for-profit or non-profit, your entity was founded and continues to exist in large part because of an identified social need, rather than a market need. There might be both; however without the social need, the entity just wouldn't be the same. The employees feel that their work is purposefully contributing to a greater good.

(2) That social need might be related to providing for the growth or development of any kind of intangible asset(s): intellectual assets, relationship building and conflict management, the environment (water, land, air), health -- mental, physical, and spiritual.

(3) Your entity is market-driven when it comes to finding resources: people feel it's within the entity's mission to find donors or capital because they have a transaction of value to offer. (This is in contrast to having people donate because they should support the entity due to moral or ethical reasons. That type of entity has a role also, but it's a charitable role.)

(4) There is a growth strategy, and it can encompass merging with another entity. With traditional non-profits, one persistent issue is that some non-profits have a concept of "territory," as though non-profits were monopolies in their particular specialty. In that case, merging with another entity -- even if services can be delivered more efficiently that way -- can be perceived as a loss of status (which is then related to difficulty in fundraising).  In a socially entrepreneurial venture, there are other mechanisms to increase revenues, so more flexibility is available for merging separate operating entities.

How to Evaluate the Projects of Social Enterpreneurs

What has struck me recently are the number of tremendous people thrown down hard in this economy. With no revenue, with layoffs everywhere, and most people having plenty of time to raise their skill sets, what's an enterprising innovator to do? Why, create social good of course!

Today I'm going to address what do you do if you're one of the people who still do have financial assets and an intact career, and feel beleaguered by the masses of excellent people and fascinating projects asking you if you'd like to be their Sponsor.

The simplest thing is to turn all of them down, but if you wanted to do that you probably wouldn't be reading this post. You can make allocation based on the strength of your relationships - and truly there is nothing wrong with that, though you may feel that you're not investing as wisely as you could be, and just that thought alone might make those relationships weaker. So if you do want to help rebuild the economy and solve emergent social problems, how do you evaluate amongst the choices? The same way as you always make decisions: know your own mind, first.

(1) Decide what you, personally, think are the challenges that affect your environment and the world at large. Climate change or pollution? Water access? Political instability? The Skoll Foundation is establishing the Urgent Threats Fund to address climate change, water scarcity, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and Middle East conflict, as an example of top-level threats to the world. There are others.  And there are specific issues that need to be addressed that we know have immediate leverage, not to mention the business of business, simply identifying a clear market need and servicing it.

(2) To the extent you would rather not put your own revenue stream at risk, but you do see large-scale risks as problematic, you may want to contribute to those solutions. To the extent you simply want to see economic recovery, you can invest in those projects that will bolster "the size of the pie."

(3) Pick your area of interest, then decide what the antecedents are -- those things that must happen in order to make progress in whatever issue area you have interest. Don't have any idea? Then the first step might be to research the antecedents, which can be as simple as a literature survey.

(4) Then you can look at your deal flow with a stable foundation from which to make decision: do the deals presented to you manage one or more of the antecedents? What is the competitive landscape of that antecedent, and how well is the assembled team able to gather the resources -- financial, knowledge, human, technological -- to address the issue?

(5) Specifically, you can look at the growth of intangible assets as antecedents to an eventually stable economy, or you can look at how those assets can manage risks to other assets.

In the piece I did for IFTF.org in 2007, "Finance Perspectives for the 10-Year Forecast," I describe intangible assets and created a grid to encourage discussion about how these risks offset each other.

Once you've identified the antecedents to growth and the mechanisms by which these antecedents affect each others' risks, you can parse your requests with supreme confidence!

Social Media Strategy for Non-profits (& Small Businesses) - in 5 Steps

This question came up, and I'm going to give you the answer that has evolved over five years of thinking in this space, first on the Board of the Fremont Education Foundation, and most recently through my work in online community development for The Groupery.

What's the best way to launch a social media strategy for a small non-profit (or business)?

(1) A blog. This is your content management system and can be your website. You can have one tab that explains about your organization, one or more for programs, and blog posts that ensures your public presence is absolutely current! I'd suggest considering making everyone on the Board an author, with each person responsible for an article on a rotating schedule with a frequency that is manageable. If there are five people on the Board and once per month is plenty, then fine, do a weekly article.  The Board can come up with content guidelines, and in the spirit of "more frequent is better," (and yes, yes, my blog is a victim of "the cobbler's children go unshod"!) I would suggest that a survey of the relevant news is just fine. Have as a regular part of the monthly Board meeting what information can and should be released to the blog and who will do it. Blogs are much easier to manage than traditional websites - it's likely if you choose a hosted blog someone within your organization can take that on without even being a "technology person."

Another advantage of a blog? Your sponsors can have more than their logo on your webpage - if it provides value to them, you can offer to allow them to contribute a guest posts!

(2) Then, I would put everyone in the organization on Facebook, and have them set up to follow the blog on Networked Blogs. Some may need help getting through connecting with those friends and people they know who are already on Facebook; for others they may want help setting up two (or more) different types of "friends." 

Even for those who do absolutely nothing on Facebook, being connected to your community there, will ensure that everyone you are connected to will have the opportunity to see your blog posts. Other than having the blog posts show up on their profile, people in the organization don't need to do a thing on Facebook.

(I don't think a Fan page is as critical than this first step plus the ones that follow, but of course there are ways to do advertising, outreach, and publicize events on Facebook that can be very helpful. Also, in some communities, MySpace would be a better choice than Facebook, or doing both would be warranted.)

(3) Then I would also set up Twitter accounts. The organization will have a Twitter account and set up a list of people in the community and news feeds that it follows and also announcing each blog post. Each person will have a private Twitter account that is for the purpose of discussing major donor account and the nuances of community connection in a timely way "Just met Mr. Targetdonor at local event - very interested in xyz program but wants to be alone until after holidays." This ensures a coordinated and respectful approach to donors, even in small communities. If committees or working groups would like to do the same thing to communicate small amounts of information quickly, that can be done on Twitter also. (If desired, people can have public Twitter accounts too, but it's of secondary benefit.)

Another advantage of an organizational Twitter presence is that if you serve a community that has no internet access but does have cell phones, you can be more present in their lives. Particularly in this case, the organization should list those people by name who are contributing "tweets." It's important to know who you're talking to!

(4) Next, I would set up a monitor for the issue area(s) in which the organization is involved. There are several blog and Twitter (etc.) scraping software packages that make this much more efficient depending on what you need, including whether someone in the close by environment is publicly airing grievances online but not bringing them to the non-profit. Then the results of that are in one place for a quick survey every day of what's going on.

It is a natural progression that once you know what is going on, it's a far better way to do media and community relations, because you can step in when the topic is raised in an important venue. This can be a good way to for some key volunteers to contribute.

(5) Finally, I would create a YouTube channel, and encourage the non-profit to tell stories about themselves there. There are many freelancers in the video arena, and several good story tellers. (I know some and can lead you to others.) There are many ways to get the message out with social media that are compelling and relatively inexpensive or even free, and are also fun! A flip video camera is under $200 and fits in your pocket!

Differentiating Spiritual from Social

Begin reading at the bottom.

When you finished (or read it the first time), did you feel pain?

Many do. That pain is evidence that we're connected. We imagine these two young men; we imagine or remember our own losses. That's Spiritual. Even those of us who do not know these people nevertheless feel their pain.

I need to pause here. I do also want to say how heartbreaking it was to hear, and express my condolences to those who knew Vijay personally, his family and Mike in particular.

I'm drawing connections into the financial world after the jump.

Financial and Social Capital - an Example

I just posted a financial analysis I did in 2006. The challenge was to canvas the entire space of novel materials (except bio), with particular interest in nanotechnology; look for a viable publicly traded alternative energy company; and then buy and hold that for three years with no risk management (e.g. options).

The name of the company has been obscured, but here's the graph. It was $9 when I recommended it, and roughly $31 now. (Between $25-30 in June '09, so the ROI would be about 3x.)

Of course I was looking not only at traditional financial performance but also applied social capital ideas to the analysis.

Look in the direction you want to go!

The Financial Times has recently posted a few informative and anxiety-provoking articles about the US economy.

The first is about the degree of underemployment as gauged by food stamp applications, and notes that now 40% of applicants have some earned income. (“I’m sort of stunned, it seems like a dire warning . . . that even the jobs people are retaining in this recession aren’t at the wage level and hours level that they need to provide for their families,” said Heidi Shierholz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute.) 

The second is about the financial capability of cities. ("For 2009, 88 per cent of city finance officers said their cities were less able to meet fiscal needs than in 2008 [up from 64% when asked last year]... Nine out of 10 predicted the situation would be worse in 2010.")

The data's important, because we need accurate status checks, but the anxiety and handwringing has everything to do with expectations.  If we were on our way *up* we'd be in an entirely different mental space right now! We have a lot of resources: financial resources (still!), knowledge, skill, creativity, trust, love, health, beauty. We do need an accurate snapshot of what we have, but more importantly we need to know where we want to go, and going "to where we were before" cannot possibly be the right answer!

Here’s the secret – if you’re in a skid, whether understeer or oversteer, look where you want to go. Let me say that one more time, because it’s so important – look in the direction you want to go. Your hands will naturally turn that way too, and you’ll be doing the right thing.

If you look at the wall, you’ll hit the wall.

So, folks... where to?