Blog posts on smallholder agroforestry, indigenous communities, and tropical timber.
Yesterday Obama signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which is good news for small businesses. The bill enables startups to raise equity financing for their businesses through crowdfunding platforms. This graphic courtesy of Crowdfunder.com provides a good explanation of the history and potential of crowdfunding. Click the thumnail for the full sized version.
Advisory Board member Ned Symes stands with a spiny cedar tree in PanamaLast Wednesday I had the opportunity to sit down with some grad students at American University's International Training and Education Program (ITEP) to discuss social enterprise.
The goal of the discussion was to give up-and-coming entrepreneurs a sense of the challenges behind starting and managing a nonprofit or mission-focused business. Three former ITEP students who have gone on to start their own enterprises also helped lead the discussion.
The two nonprofits represented, Access to Success and Simply Equal Education, are both young and obviously passionate about their work. As they described the challenges they were facing, I thought back on our own version of those same challenges. That's not to say that we're not still dealing with some of them—maintaining a flow of operating capital, managing our operations efficiently, and mission creep to name a few—but now we have the benefit of viewing our early mistakes in hindsight.
Some of the recommendations that came out of our discussion include:
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Liriano inspects a mahogany treeTriplePundit recently did a blog post entitled "Social Entrepreneurs Lag Behind Impact Investors".
Citing investor feedback from the SOCAP Europe and San Francisco conferences, the author posits that there aren't enough investment-ready social enterprises to meet the growing demand among impact investors.
At the same time, many of the investors at SOCAP Europe, and the SOCAP conference last September in San Francisco, could be heard noting that the supply of investment-ready social businesses is not adequate. It appears that there may be a mismatch between supply and demand, particularly in developing countries where entrepreneurs with great ideas and great companies lack the commercial sophistication, strategic thinking, and organizational systems to handle investments.
The article goes on to suggest that social enterprises need a support network similar to that found in the tech sector. In addition to venture financing, this network should provide idea incubation, mentorship and strong peer support.
From our perspective, the industry-wide need for venture capital is most pressing.
Thanks to our friend and former Peace Corps Panama volunteer Matt Gilbride for co-authoring this post. Matt is currently finishing his graduate work in Industrial Design at NC State University. Check out some of his work.
As Planting Empowerment expands in Panama’s Darien province, we find ourselves examining the questions raised by Bruce Nussbaum in his July 7th, 2010 Fast Company article.
The author poses a powerful question to all those engaged in humanitarian development and design: “Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism?” As former Peace Corps volunteers ourselves (and two of us with design experience) we have some perspective on Nussbaum’s article.
Planting Empowerment is a sustainable agroforestry company working with indigenous communities and smallholders in Panama.
