Vancouver Social Enterprise Forum: [Conference] Social Enterprise Conference 2007 -Harvard Business School

On Wednesday the second Canadian Conference on Social Enterprise will draw to a close. So far it's been ... nice.

You might be able to listen here.

But on the heels of Davos ...

Let's look forward to March 4, and the Social Enterprise Conference at Harvard.

The Conference speakers include:

Cheryl Dorsey - President, Echoing Green

An accomplished social entrepreneur with expertise in health care, labor issues and public policy, Cheryl Dorsey was named President of Echoing Green in May 2002. She is the first Echoing Green Fellow to lead the social venture fund, which has awarded nearly $25 million in start-up capital to over 400 social entrepreneurs worldwide since 1987.

Dr. Dorsey served as a White House Fellow from 1997-1998, serving as Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, advising the Clinton Administration on health care and other issues. She was later named Special Assistant to the Director of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Labor Department. Most recently,Dr. Dorsey served as the first Director of Public Health Initiatives at Danya International, Inc., where she developed products and services aimed at substance abuse treatment and prevention, child and family services, minority health and community outreach.

Dr. Dorsey has received numerous awards and honors for her commitment to public service, including the Pfizer Roerig History of Medicine Award, the Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award and the Manuel C. Carballo Memorial Prize. She currently serves as a board member of CORO, a leadership development organization.

Dr. Dorsey holds a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, an M.D. from the Harvard Medical School and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Victoria Hale - Founder and CEO, Institute for One World Health

Dr. Hale established her expertise in all stages of biopharmaceutical drug development at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Drug Evaluation and Research; and at Genentech, Inc., the world's first biotechnology company. She presently maintains an Adjunct Associate Professorship in Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is an Advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) for building ethical review capacity in the developing world, and has served as an expert reviewer to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the topic of biodiversity. In 2004, Dr. Hale and OneWorld Health were included in the Scientific American 50, the magazine’s annual list recognizing outstanding acts of leadership in science and technology. Dr. Hale’s recent honors include being named Executive of the Year by Esquire Magazine (2005), receiving The Economist Innovation Award for Social and Economic Innovation (2005), as well as the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation (2005), being selected as a Fellow by Ashoka, Innovators for the Public - a global organization that identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs (2006), and being named one of the “Most Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs” by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in Switzerland (2004).

Jay Coen Gilbert - Acting Co-Chair, Investors Circle, AND1, B-Lab/B Holdings

Despite having no game, Jay Coen Gilbert co-founded and sold AND 1, a $250M basketball footwear and apparel company based outside Philadelphia. Jay is Acting Chairman of Investor’s Circle, a national network dedicated to “Patient Capital for a Sustainable Future.” Since 1992, Investors’ Circle members have invested over $107 million in 171 deals, in such areas as environment, healthcare, education, women-led companies and community development.

Jay is currently co-creating two related organizations: B Lab and B Holdings. B Lab is a non-profit organization whose mission is to build the For-Benefit sector. The For-Benefit sector is a new sector of the economy, sitting between the for-profit and non-profit sectors, which harnesses the power of private enterprise to create public benefit. The For-Benefit sector is comprised of a new type of corporation -- the B corporation – which is purpose-driven and creates benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. B Holdings is the Berkshire Hathaway for purpose-driven investors, a For-Benefit holding company focused on consumer products, financial services, and media.

Jay is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a Board member of the Philadelphia chapters of KIPP, a national public charter middle school, City Year, a leading Americorps youth service program, and Monteverde Friends, U.S.

Bill Shore - Founder and Executive Director, Share Our Strength

Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, the nation's leading organization working to end childhood hunger in the United States. Shore is also the chairman of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength, that provides consulting services.

Shore founded Share Our Strength in 1984 in response to the Ethiopian famine and subsequently renewed concern about hunger in the United States. Since its founding, Share Our Strength has raised more than $200 million to support more than 1,000 anti-hunger, anti-poverty groups worldwide. Today, its priority is to end childhood hunger in America ensuring that the nearly 14 million American children facing hunger have access to the nutritious food they need to learn, grow and thrive.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Shore earned his B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the board of directors of The Timberland Company, City Year, College Summit, and Venture Philanthropy Partners. In October 2005, US News & World Report selected Shore as one of America's Best Leaders, an accomplished group selected by an independent committee of judges assembled by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

And there are panels ... lots of panels ..

Measuring Value in Cross-Sector Partnerships – Perception vs. Reality

Corporations have traditionally supported public or nonprofit activities either through direct giving (philanthropy) or joint marketing programs (sponsorships). These investments are usually small relative to the overall corporate budget and they are primarily designed to increase the general reputation of the company. However, using new models of CSR leading companies have begun to look more carefully at the specific benefits of social impact investments that eventually accrue to the corporate bottom line. The trend has been for managers of private firms and nonprofit organizations to “walk in the other person’s shoes” and demonstrate the value they provide to corporate profits and social welfare respectively. But have cross-sector partnerships been oversold as “win-win” situations for the firm and society?

Making People Care: Successes and Challenges in Engaging Public Support for Social Enterprise and Global Development

The panel will explore some of the creative ways organizations are engaging the North American public -- through outreach, awareness campaigns, and opportunities for action -- in support of social enterprise and/or anti-poverty efforts in the developing world. Panelists will discuss successful approaches as well as enduring challenges in moving people from caring to long term, effective engagement to alleviate poverty.

The Emerging Role of Private Capital in Economic Development

Access to capital is core to any countries recipe for economic development. Traditionally, this role has been filled by NGO’s such as the IMF and World Bank. This is now changing. Private capital is playing an increasingly critical role in economic development. Developing economies, in particular India and China, are receiving increased interest from Western Banks, private equity and venture capital firms. This interest is just beginning and will likely grow unabated. While the West’s financially deep pockets are of great importance, they also raise fundamental questions.

Emerging Career Paths in Social Enterprises

Social enterprises are now attracting top talent. How is the infusion of top MBA's unfolding in these social enterprises? What are the emerging career paths? This panel looks at economic and international development jobs in the social enterprise space.

Public-Private Partnerships in Urban Development

The public-private partnership has been seen most often in the urban development sphere where federal, state, and local agencies partner with private contractors in search of a win-win situation. This panel takes a close look at both the performance of such partnerships and the future for this form of partnership.

The Arts as a Tool for Social Change

This panel will address how the arts succeed in engaging the community and the powerful role of the arts in social and economic development. In light of recent press surrounding the issue of the changing nature of philanthropy, this panel will also seek to address supporting and funding the arts in the context of other philanthropic causes. Social entrepreneurs from different artistic mediums will discuss the ways in which the arts can serve as a tool for empowerment, education and community engagement.

Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Agriculture

Agriculture faces four challenges in becoming sustainable. First, hunger: today more than 850 million people lack sufficient food for an active and healthy life. How will we become able to feed them? Second, trade: negotiations have been suspended primarily because of disagreements on agricultural protections. How do we reach a consensus acceptable by all parties? Third, the environment: agriculture has a tremendous impact on the two most pressing environmental issues: global warming and access to water. How can agriculture minimize its environmental impact? And fourth, health: from obesity issues to supply chain security, the impact of agriculture on health has become a major issue in the public debate. How can our food become more healthy?

Foundations

What does “social entrepreneurship” mean to leading foundations in the U.S.? Is it a meaningful concept or an ephemeral buzz-word with more hype than substance? Are these foundations seeking to fund social entrepreneurs, and, if so, what do they use to identify grant recipients? Senior representative from three of the largest tech-funded foundations in the U.S. will debate and discuss their views. If you are or aspire to a grant-maker or grantee, this is a panel not to be missed.

Global Health

Over the past decade, product development public-private partnerships have formed to develop safe, effective, and accessible interventions to combat the spread of infectious disease. By combining non-profit commitment to international public goods for health with private-sector business models and product development capabilities, these partnerships bridge public- and private-sector interests with a view toward resolving the barriers to industry involvement in the development these products. This panel will examine the relationship between the private, public, and non-profit sectors in developing and delivering such pharmaceutical interventions.

Microfinance

The panel seeks to push the limit on microcredit models, expanding the conversation from traditional projects to ones that may include things like microinsurance or the bundling of microcredit with the delivery of social services. How can microenterprise effectively expand the level and quality of its services in ways that more effectively achieve goals of poverty alleviation? How far can we push traditional models without losing focus? Does the role of profit in microenterprise advance or hinder the sector’s collective goals of poverty alleviation?

Social Venture Capital

Venture philanthropy and social venture capital operate between ‘traditional’ models of philanthropy and for-profit investment funds. What has been their impact so far, especially in developing countries? What are the pros and cons of loans versus grants? Can these models make a sustainable impact on global poverty?

Emergency Response

Field practitioners will debate the positive and negative implications of the new and emerging mechanism of cash distributions. While the western world consistently uses cash distributions (e.g. FEMA and Red Cross credit cards to those affected by Katrina), there is a continued reluctance and lack of trust for using similar type of mechanisms for emergency responses in developing contexts. Cash distributions have proven to be extremely effective in both conflict (e.g. the West Bank) and natural disaster (e.g. tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka) responses by decreasing logistics and administrative costs, speeding response times and increasing respect for the beneficiaries. Representatives from the traditional models of emergency response (e.g. UN) and pioneers of the cash distribution model will discuss their viewpoints.

Entrepreneurship in Experiential Education

Experiential education is a “hot topic” in education reform and draws proponents and critics throughout the profession. Social Enterprise adds another perspective in bringing “rule breakers” (instead of “rule takers”) to education who seek reform outside the constraints of the establishment. Can these two perspectives coexist?

Bottom Up or Top Down: Does It Matter Where and How a Social Enterprise Begins?

This is a topic that should be of interest to all those interested in social entrepreneurship, new or practiced. It strikes at the very heart of why the social entrepreneurship model began. Are we in danger of losing the raison d’etre of the movement, or merely exploring new ways to expand its possibilities? Should every partnership be explored? Is the purpose of social entrepreneurship charity or empowerment?

Climate Change and the Media

With the increasing power and global reach of both new and old media, what has been the impact of the media in covering the nexus between climate change and environmentally damaging business practices? This panel examines areas where the media has provided pivotal editorial coverage and has reported on green initiatives and practices.

Can the Success of the For-profit Business Incubator be Replicated in the Social Sector?

In most communities today, social enterprises are still just happening by chance. The for-profit sector has shown that business incubators can rapidly increase the number of successful new businesses being created. Universities such as Stanford, Harvard, and others have introduced SE Incubation Labs in their teaching programs. How do we get these models into communities where people live and feel the social needs every day?

Socially Responsible Investing

What is socially responsible investing (SRI) and what are the pros and cons of common SRI strategies such as screening, shareholder advocacy, and community involvement? As the SRI field matures, what new products are in the SRI pipeline and how can the field be taken more seriously by the rest of the investment community?

Interested? Here's a summary of the 2006 conference.
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