>
As every week, our team looked for the best articles on the web concerning social entrepreneurship and impact investing. Today we share with you interesting ideas and initiatives from Change.org, NextBillion etc.
And happy 4th of July!!
An honest look back at three lessons learned by Waste Ventures in their failure to secure a 2010 Echoing Green Fellowship. If we have heard it once, we have heard it a thousand times – sometimes failure teaches more than success. All entrepreneurs can benefit from these lessons whether they are talking with investors, looking to secure a partnership or competing for a fellowship.
Rishabh Kaul of Next Billion details his work with Sarvajal, a company utilizing a microfranchising model to provide clean drinking water in Gujurat, India. Rishabh spent a month working and living with Sarvajal franchisees in order to better understand the issues they face day to day. This article underscores the importance of understanding microfranchising models from the top down in order for francisees and franchisors to realize the most mutual benefit.
Kerri Feazell shares three ways a non-profit designation can hamstring an organization. The validity of the points themselves have generated lots of discussion in the comments section. Yet, we feel this continues to demonstrate the need for legal structures (B-corp, L3C) that split the difference between for-profit and non-profit.
Nathaniel Whittenmore comments on a New York Times article regarding the commercialization of university research. Undoubtedly we need to do better in taking some of the groundbreaking research being done today to market. Hopefully this initiative from the National Science Foundation’s Partnership for Innovation can lead the way.
