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Definition: so•cialen•tre•pre•neur•ship(n.)

Bill Drayton of Ashoka defines a social entrepreneur as one who applies creative, innovative thinking to a previously intractable social problem.

The Center defines it as the application of entrepreneurial principles to address social concerns. Social enterprises can be for-profit, non-profit, or hybrid. Independent of their financial goals, all measure success by their social impact.

Solar Sister ‘11 eradicates energy poverty by empowering women with micro-franchises to sell solar lights in an Avon-style direct sales network in rural Africa.

BUILDING The Capacity of Social ENTERPRISES

At the Center for Science, Technology, and Society, we believe that entrepreneurship is the most effective tool to address poverty. More than international aid or pure philanthropy, local enterprises empower community members with jobs, retain expertise necessary for economic growth, and often provide essential services, such as energy and health care.

Social entrepreneurs provide clean energy to fuel the night-time education of working children, safe drinking water for communities ravaged by disease, or vital goods and services for remote, rural villages. Yet despite developing breakthrough solutions for devastating problems, social entrepreneurs often struggle to build organizations that deliver social impact long-term and in a financially sustainable way.

Our signature program, the Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™), addresses the gap between good intentions and skilled execution. Each year, over a 10-month period, the GSBI equips social entrepreneurs with the business discipline to grow their social ventures and amplify their impact. Open to any social enterprise regardless of legal form and with the help of a network of GSBI Discovery Partners, the program attracts a broad pool of social entrepreneurs from around the world. After surviving a four-month selection process, which includes preliminary exercises and feedback, the most promising entrepreneurs receive up to 20 of the coveted scholarships each year.

GLOBAL SOCIAL BENEFIT INCUBATOR

S a n ta C l a r a Un i v e r s i t y

Mentor-Guided Approach Focused on Financial Sustainability

Honed over 10 years, our proven approach pairs scholarship recipients with experienced Silicon Valley mentors, who guide them through structured assignments in virtual workspaces. The exercises refine mission and strategies and elicit a deep understanding of the social entrepreneur’s business model. By fine-tuning their business plans, GSBI participants learn to grow their businesses in a financially sustainable way to best serve more beneficiaries.

In August, the cohort and the mentors convene on the Santa Clara University campus for an intense, two-week “boot camp.” Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm, and Al Hammond of Ashoka and author of The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid are among the experts and faculty who share pragmatic application of business concepts to social problems during this period. Participants sharpen their business plans and learn to effectively communicate with potential investors through daily practice and feedback sessions with their mentors. Their Silicon Valley experience culminates in a final presentation and Q&A session to a broad audience of more than 400 impact investors and thought leaders in the social innovation field and private sector.

The entrepreneurs return to the field to face real implementation challenges and two more months of virtual work with their GSBI Mentors. Each social entrepreneur who completes the GSBI leaves armed with an elevator pitch, business plan presentation, investment profile, a one-year operations plan, and the confidence and insights to grow a social venture that will change the world.

An Unbeatable Combination: Volunteer GSBI Mentors draw on an average of 25 years of experience each as serial entrepreneurs, corporate executives, or venture capitalists to augment their social entrepreneur’s deep knowledge of a targeted social problem.

A Community that Supports Success

When the program concludes, entrepreneurs join a GSBI community invested in their success and their potential to increase social impact. Following the 10-month program, GSBI Mentors and other “boot camp” experts continue to coach GSBI Alumni informally and refer resources from their networks.

Each cohort forms a tight bond, which has sparked no small number of peer-to-peer collaborations. Year after year, the larger GSBI Alumni community is enriched by new members who share inspiration, best practices, successes, and failures. The value of the GSBI is evidenced by the fact that a third of our applicants are referred by GSBI Alumni.

10 Years of Empowering Social Enterprises

Launched in the wake of C.K. Prahalad’s seminal treatise on “base of the pyramid” markets, the Center is proudly celebrating the 10th anniversary of the GSBI. Over the past 10 years, the GSBI has experimented with the most effective methods to empower social entrepreneurs with financially sustainable business models. Working with more than 1,000 applicants and 150 successful GSBI Alumni has allowed us to learn from their feedback and continuously improve our approach. In addition, more than 40 laureates, winners of The Tech Awards for technologies benefiting humanity, have enjoyed basic capacity building from GSBI Mentors and faculty.

As we enter our second decade, to achieve the Center’s vision of bettering one billion lives, the GSBI must itself scale. We are adding new programs to take advantage of the pervasive spread of the Internet and a network of mission-aligned partners to serve more of the social entrepreneurs who are making the world a better place. And we are focusing our core program to better serve the needs of scalable social enterprises.

GSBI Online: GSBI Online offers an affordable, all-online version of our current GSBI Silicon Valley program. This allows the Center to offer the GSBI to many more social enterprises compared to the limited 20 slots of the GSBI Silicon Valley program. Using the same mentor-guided approach, program participants work through structured assignments with an in-country mentor (and optionally, a Silicon Valley mentor). The in-country mentor adds knowledge about on-the-ground conditions and provides long-term support and access to local resources.

GSBI Network: We are also leveraging the global network of Jesuit universities and partnering with incubators and other institutions who share our values to develop in-country adaptations of the GSBI program. The GSBI Network builds on the GSBI’s work over the past decade, sharing knowledge and insights to help social entrepreneurs advance around the world.

GSBI Silicon Valley: The next generation of our on-campus GSBI program will engage and accelerate those social enterprises that have demonstrated impact, are expanding operations, and are ready for the next round of investment. The newest version of this Silicon Valley-based program will address the issues that plague more sophisticated organizations, such as developing human capital, expanding distribution channels, managing supply chains, and, based on research from our Impact Capital program, choosing the right investment vehicle. Most importantly, the program will focus directly on identifying and assessing organizational milestones and growth triggers and matching social entrepreneurs with impact investors who can fund their growth.

The NEXT DECADE— Extending the GSBI’s BREADTH and DEPTH

GSBI Network

• ESADE, Ramon Lull University• XLRI School of Business and

Human Resources• C.K. Prahalad Centre, Loyola

Institute of Business Administration

• Ateneo de Manila University• Pontificia Universidad

Javeriana - Cali

Clean Energy Focus Because energy is the second largest expenditure for the poor after food, addressing energy poverty is fundamental to resolving many issues in underserved communities. In addition, “dirty” energy, such as the widespread use of kerosene, compounds problems with respiratory illness and environmental pollution. Our “off-the-grid” energy sector focus consolidates lessons from over 50 social enterprises, highlighting effective technologies and business models including solar light, village electrification, biofuels, and clean cook stoves.

Select Discovery Partners

• World Bank Development Marketplace

• Skoll Foundation• Acumen Fund• PopTech• Ashoka• Schwab Foundation• Draper Richards Kaplan

Husk Power Systems (HPS) provides affordable, reliable, and value added clean energy service in India and East Africa. In about four years, HPS has scaled to reach more than 300 remote, rural villages, serving more than 200,000 people. Its standalone mini power plants generate affordable electricity from gas produced from waste biomass, such as rice husks, rice straw, or corn cobs, at a total plant capital cost of less than USD $1.3/Watt. Operated by a local entrepreneur in each village, each plant is financially self-sustaining, and offsets approximately 150 tons of CO2 per year, providing income from sales of electricity and carbon credits. In addition, the waste product of the biomass gasification process, Rice Husk Char, is converted into useful products like incense sticks, which are then sold in the retail market. So far, HPS has raised over USD $4 million in capital, including equity, debt, and grants. HPS plans to light 10,000 villages by 2017 to realize its mission to take millions of people from darkness to light.

Industree is a hybrid social enterprise that connects rural artisans with urban markets in India. Industree Foundation develops the design and technical skills of rural artisans to empower them to create their own enterprises, doubling artisans’ incomes. Historically known for its innovation using agricultural by-products and natural fibers such as banana bark, corn husks, river grass, date palms, wheat skin, sisal, bamboo, and water hyacinth, Industree has now extended the capabilities of these micro and small enterprises into wood, ceramic, leather, and lighting production units. Industree Crafts Private Limited designs and distributes fashion and home merchandise and exports natural fiber products sourced from over 7,000 artisans and 100 producer groups, with more than 40 percent supplied by producer groups that it incubates itself. Backed by India’s largest retail chain, Industree has tripled sales revenue to USD $3 million through the launch of its eco-friendly Mother Earth brand and retail chain stores in Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai in the past five years.

Lifeline Energy (formerly known as Freeplay Foundation) provides access to information, education, and light; the enterprise also designs and distributes reliable low-cost technology that works in harsh environments. Based entirely on a contributed income business, Lifeline Energy’s solar-powered and wind-up radios have been distributed to more than 500,000 orphans, women, and refugees in sub-Saharan Africa, conservatively reaching an estimated 20 million listeners. Lifeline Energy has integrated its radios into dozens of radio communications and education projects throughout Africa. In addition to increasing the information, education, and income impact from its radios, Lifeline Energy has also conducted extensive research into the negative effects from the use of fossil fuels by women and children in several African countries. Lifeline Energy recently founded a new for-profit product development and trading arm, Lifeline Technologies Trading (GSBI ‘12), which has developed a second-generation Prime radio (that also integrates a bright light), and a digital MP3-enabled Lifeplayer recorder and radio.

GSBI ALUMNI Around the WORLDGSBI alumni work on five continents in issues ranging from clean energy to sanitation, and human rights to education. The alumni include prominent social ventures like Kiva (www.kiva.org), the online lending platform that has enabled over USD $300 million worldwide in microfinance loans from individual donors.

Mentor-Guided Approach Focused on Financial Sustainability

Honed over 10 years, our proven approach pairs scholarship recipients with experienced Silicon Valley mentors, who guide them through structured assignments in virtual workspaces. The exercises refine mission and strategies and elicit a deep understanding of the social entrepreneur’s business model. By fine-tuning their business plans, GSBI participants learn to grow their businesses in a financially sustainable way to best serve more beneficiaries.

In August, the cohort and the mentors convene on the Santa Clara University campus for an intense, two-week “boot camp.” Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm, and Al Hammond of Ashoka and author of The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid are among the experts and faculty who share pragmatic application of business concepts to social problems during this period. Participants sharpen their business plans and learn to effectively communicate with potential investors through daily practice and feedback sessions with their mentors. Their Silicon Valley experience culminates in a final presentation and Q&A session to a broad audience of more than 400 impact investors and thought leaders in the social innovation field and private sector.

The entrepreneurs return to the field to face real implementation challenges and two more months of virtual work with their GSBI Mentors. Each social entrepreneur who completes the GSBI leaves armed with an elevator pitch, business plan presentation, investment profile, a one-year operations plan, and the confidence and insights to grow a social venture that will change the world.

An Unbeatable Combination: Volunteer GSBI Mentors draw on an average of 25 years of experience each as serial entrepreneurs, corporate executives, or venture capitalists to augment their social entrepreneur’s deep knowledge of a targeted social problem.

A Community that Supports Success

When the program concludes, entrepreneurs join a GSBI community invested in their success and their potential to increase social impact. Following the 10-month program, GSBI Mentors and other “boot camp” experts continue to coach GSBI Alumni informally and refer resources from their networks.

Each cohort forms a tight bond, which has sparked no small number of peer-to-peer collaborations. Year after year, the larger GSBI Alumni community is enriched by new members who share inspiration, best practices, successes, and failures. The value of the GSBI is evidenced by the fact that a third of our applicants are referred by GSBI Alumni.

10 Years of Empowering Social Enterprises

Launched in the wake of C.K. Prahalad’s seminal treatise on “base of the pyramid” markets, the Center is proudly celebrating the 10th anniversary of the GSBI. Over the past 10 years, the GSBI has experimented with the most effective methods to empower social entrepreneurs with financially sustainable business models. Working with more than 1,000 applicants and 150 successful GSBI Alumni has allowed us to learn from their feedback and continuously improve our approach. In addition, more than 40 laureates, winners of The Tech Awards for technologies benefiting humanity, have enjoyed basic capacity building from GSBI Mentors and faculty.

Lifeline Energy (formerly Freeplay Foundation)www.lifelineenergy.org

Industree (Mother Earth)www.industree.org.in

Founded in 1985, Fundación Paraguaya is a self-sufficient organization that develops and implements practical, innovative, and sustainable solutions to eliminate poverty and to create decent living conditions for families. The Fundación works through various inter-related strategies. These include an innovation called The Poverty Traffic Light and a microfinance program for rural micro-entrepreneurs that serves over 100,000 clients and has disbursed USD $230 million in loans. An agricultural high school program that teaches organic agriculture and business skills to low-income youth in rural areas covers all of its operating costs through a range of income-generating initiatives. Proof of the quality of the education is that within four months of graduation, 100 percent of each graduating class find good jobs, create their own small enterprise, or continue their studies at university. Through its UK sister organization, Teach A Man To Fish (GSBI ‘09), this school model has been replicated in 27 other countries.

Fundación Paraguayawww.fundacionparaguaya.org.py

Equal Access empowers people in underserved communities with critical information and education. Through innovative, culturally appropriate media and direct community engagement, it tackles the most critical challenges affecting people in the developing world, such as women’s and girls’ empowerment, youth life skills and livelihoods, human rights, health, and civic engagement. In fewer than 10 years, Equal Access has scaled to a regular listenership of 20 million across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Equal Access utilizes a range of cost-effective technologies: FM/AM/satellite radio, TV, video, street theatre, Internet, and mobile technologies. Approximately 90 percent of its contributed income goes directly to support programs. Equal Access has a global team of 120, almost all in-country nationals, as well as more than 120 trained community reporters. Their current annual metrics also include production of 1,700 hours of media content and the engagement of more than 166,000 people in leadership training, listening and discussion groups, and mobile theatre performances.

Equal Access International www.equalaccess.org

Husk Power Systemswww.huskpowersystems.com

Blue = Fundación Paraguaya Green = Husk Power Systems Orange = Equal Access Red = Lifeline Energy Yellow = Industree

Connect with us:

Support Us: Join the Center in supporting an international network of social entrepreneurs who are employing innovative approaches to tackle the world’s most challenging problems. Consider a gift to help support GSBI and its related programs, including:

• GSBI Silicon Valley to help successful social entrepreneurs raise funding to dramatically scale their impact.

• GSBI Online to allow more social entrepreneurs to receive mentored guidance and apply proven models to scale their enterprises.

• GSBI Network to form working partnerships with universities around the globe to share best practices and provide more social enterprises with the tools they need to serve more people.

• Impact Capital to research and enhance investment capital flow to promising social enterprises.

Our Mission: The mission of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society is to accelerate global, innovation-based entrepreneurship in service to humanity. Through an array of programs including its signature Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™), the Center engages an international network of business, investment capital, and technical resources to build the capacity of social enterprises around the world.

As a Center of Distinction at Santa Clara University, the Center leverages its programs to inspire faculty and students with real-world case studies, distinctive curricula, and unique research opportunities, advancing the University’s vision of creating a more just, humane, and sustainable world.

To learn more, please contact:

Christine Dindia, Director of External Relations at DonateCSTS@scu.edu408-551-7118

Santa Clara University Center for Science, Technology, and SocietyNobili Hall500 El Camino RealSanta Clara, CA 95053-0470

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