Do you like investment? Interested in learning how investment can have a social impact? Meet Antony Bugg-Levin, CEO of the Non-Profit Finance Fund and one of the leading architects in the field of impact investment. Antony is coming to Durham on Tuesday, December 6th from 4:00-5:00pm and will speak at the Geneen Auditorium [...]]]>

Do you like investment? Interested in learning how investment can have a social impact? Meet Antony Bugg-Levin, CEO of the Non-Profit Finance Fund and one of the leading architects in the field of impact investment. Antony is coming to Durham on Tuesday, December 6^th from 4:00-5:00pm and will speak at the Geneen Auditorium on Duke’s campus! Join Duke’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) as they preset him with the 2011 Leadership in Social Entrepreneurship award. What is impact investing you ask? Impact investing refers to investments that not only look to gain financial returns but also analyze the social and environmental impact of those investments—basically it is the social entrepreneurship of investment.

If his receiving of a major award, serving as CEO and working at the Rockefeller Center isn’t enough to entice you, Antony is also the author of the book Impact Investing: Transforming how we make money while making a difference. He will talk about his leadership in the field and discuss the unique opportunities and challenges facing this exciting and burgeoning industry. This event is free and open to the public and a reception plus book signing will follow. RSVP encouraged, click here in order to do so and to learn more about Antony.

Capitol Broadcasting and NC IDEA have teamed up to launch Groundwork Labs, a technology startup accelerator in Durham. Opening in downtown Durham, just across the railroad tracks from BCF, Groundwork Labs is an accelerator start-up designed to help grow new technology companies through an intensive three-month program. To be launched in [...]]]>

Capitol Broadcasting and NC IDEA have teamed up to launch Groundwork Labs, a technology startup accelerator in Durham. Opening in downtown Durham, just across the railroad tracks from BCF, Groundwork Labs is an accelerator start-up designed to help grow new technology companies through an intensive three-month program. To be launched in Spring 2012, companies selected to participate in the program will receive up to $20,000 in funding, mentoring support, office space, legal advice, and business consultation. Groundwork Labs will work to create and foster strong tech leaders in an effort to boost the region’s tech sector to create effects far beyond the companies that go through the program. Similar to BCF and in the entrepreneurial spirit, Groundwork Labs plans to offer a supportive and collaborative community with meet-ups, classes, advisors, mentors, socials, and general organizations in order to create a community between entrepreneurs, investors, and successful founders.

Groundwork Labs is not the first technological accelerator to dig its claws into Durham’s rich entrepreneurial spirit. LaunchBox Digital, founded in the fall of 2010, also served as an incubator for technological firms. But in June 2011 Executive Director Chris Heivly paused the accelerator company in order to reevaluate where the program fit in the technological and entrepreneurial landscape. Fortunately, Groundwork Labs has stepped in to fill the space LaunchBox has left and will continue to prep and prime the newest and brightest entrepreneurs in the industry. Groundwork Labs is looking for “innovative tech companies that are laying the groundwork for tech revolutions.” In an age where mobile technology is growing so quickly, Groundwork Labs says software and mobile app creators are great candidates for their three-month program. They are not looking solely for software and mobile app companies, information technology and medical device start-ups are also eligible for selection.

Groundwork Labs is an exciting addition to the entrepreneurial spirit of Durham. Start-up technological companies will now have a great opportunity to help grow their companies. For more information, click here to read an article about Groundwork Labs.

One way to nurture and propel local economic growth from the bottom up is by supporting and providing incentives for what [...]]]> As we work our way out of our economic straits, what could be more important than finding an innovative way to create job opportunities while helping to address some of our communities’ toughest challenges?

One way to nurture and propel local economic growth from the bottom up is by supporting and providing incentives for what are known as “social enterprises.” Whether working in real estate, education, social media, legal services, renewable energy or beyond, a social enterprise is a hybrid of a non-profit organization and a for-profit business. While it aims for financial viability and growth (in the process creating new jobs), a social-purpose business has a “double bottom line,” viewing profit as a tool to achieve social good—from creating opportunity for the marginalized to providing access to healthy food to protecting the abused and neglected.

Together our two organizations shine a light on this prospect by illustrating the value of social enterprises and introducing some strategies for nurturing them.

The Menkiti Group is a Washington, D.C.-based real estate-services company dedicated to providing attractive affordable-housing opportunities while enhancing the fabric of urban communities. This social enterprise has been strengthening neighborhoods in northeast Washington since 2004. It has hired local construction crews to restore more than 70 vacant, abandoned or foreclosed homes and more than 40,000 square feet of commercial property that is now leased to small businesses and non-profits serving the local neighborhood.

How can you capture the energy of latent or emerging entrepreneurs and, ultimately, help catalyze enterprises like the Menkiti Group in your community?

Social enterprises are often more difficult than traditional businesses to successfully operate. You need to mind bottom-line financial projections while keeping track of whether, and how, you are driving social impact. There is often no existing path cleared by those who have gone before you, and thus no existing networks or infrastructure of supports in place.

As a result, there are a number of common deficits facing new or growing social enterprises: business savvy, professional networks, talented employees, entrepreneurial confidence and the know-how to develop clear metrics of both economic and social impact.

Further, financial capital is often difficult to come by. Investors in a social enterprise potentially forgo maximizing financial return in favor of an additional “social” return. And because foundations cannot give to profit-making ventures, social enterprises like the Menkiti Group are also typically restricted from accepting philanthropic grants.
One way to address these challenges is to look to models like Bull City Forward, a Durham, N.C.-based intermediary that supports local innovators and creates an ecosystem to help social enterprises emerge and thrive (a model that, incidentally, is catching fire in other communities, including the launch of Queen City Forward in Charlotte, N.C.).

Bull City Forward builds pipelines of future entrepreneurs through school and university partnerships, recruitment of outside talent and more. It provides a strong environment to incubate and accelerate new ideas through physical space for co-working, a comprehensive assistance network and access to critical support resources including financial capital.
In recognition of the political nature of public problem-solving, Bull City Forward also advocates for buy-in from local- and state-government officials. Through an ecosystem approach, it pays attention to the broader landscape, including regulatory barriers, the policy environment and the need to build public support in uncharted waters—especially around economic-development strategies.

Here are some key lessons we have learned that might be helpful for public officials considering the potential of social enterprises in their communities.

Where will the money come from? Many private-sector investors are afraid to live at the margins, even though it is often where change occurs. More foundations should be able to make program-related investments as the number of states recognizing low-profit, limited liability companies (L3Cs) grows. Government loan funds for community development, such as the federal Economic Development Administration’s green-economy acceleration grants, also are starting to be reconfigured for social enterprise.

But money is only part of what social entrepreneurs need. The Durham Chamber of Commerce, the city government, local community foundations and Duke University, among others, have backed the launch and scale-up of Bull City Forward. They are attracted to the promise of new jobs and employment opportunities and to making progress on the environment, poverty alleviation and more.

How do you show material progress? Bull City Forward’s target is a dramatic increase in the number of high-growth social enterprises and, ultimately, a high return on investment of two types: positive economic growth and social impact. It is focused on economic-development measures that include the density of the social-enterprise cluster in Durham, growth in the number of local jobs and the tax base, and investment in local enterprises. Other tangible metrics include retention of entrepreneurial talent, citizen engagement in entrepreneurial solutions and social impact.
You will also want to track the progress of individual enterprises. A positive social impact means you will count people served—not just jobs created—when calculating the overall benefit of encouraging social enterprise. The Menkiti Group, in addition to its restoration and development successes, has created more than 300 temporary and full-time jobs. It also has helped more than 400 families purchase and maintain their first homes while brokering the sale of over $160 million in real estate.

What about the risk of failure? Most of the financial risk falls on the entrepreneur starting a double-bottom-line enterprise. In the case of the Menkiti Group, the additional growth risk was underwritten by friends-and-family “angel” investors. The political risk probably outweighs the financial risk to a city official looking to create a hub or incubator such as Bull City Forward for social enterprises.
Bull City Forward mitigates its risk by carefully selecting enterprises to support. It takes significant expertise and time to identify good ideas that are financially sound and market-ready, and that will have a social impact. Bull City Forward also maintains a high degree of accountability with its portfolio. If an investment’s impact in a community is not measurable, Bull City Forward diverts its resources elsewhere.

Becoming a fertile environment for social enterprises has the potential to boost your community’s economic, civic and social well-being. Imagine the pitch: Let’s cultivate entrepreneurial spirit in a way that produces jobs plus a positive social impact.

Bo Menkiti
Bo Menkiti is CEO of the Menkiti Group, founding partner of Keller Williams Capital Properties and former COO of College Summit.
E-mail: bo@menkitigroup.com

Christopher Gergen
Christopher Gergen is founding executive director of Bull City Forward, CEO of Forward Ventures, a fellow with the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University and co-author of the book “Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives.”
E-mail: cgergen@bullcityforward.org

To be held at various venues [...]]]> Be a part of something special! Join local entrepreneurs, small business owners, and investors at the inaugural Triangle Entrepreneurship Week on November 14^th-November 18^th. This is a week designed for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs and attendees will walk way with applicable knowledge, resources, and opportunities specific to their industry.

To be held at various venues in Downtown Raleigh and Downtown Durham, TEW 2011 “is a multi-faceted symposium that aims to increase awareness of North Carolina’s startup entrepreneur community, provide a networking platform, and foster creativity.” The week will feature a smorgasbord of small forums and panel discussions designed to pair educational opportunities with interactive discussion, social functions for networking opportunities, and a variety of established entrepreneurs as speakers.

If this amazing week wasn’t cool enough, BCF has partnered with TEW to provide our members FREE registration for all the events offered during the week. Using the registration code “BCF” — attendees can register for events and this will get them into events for free. Beware, the code does not work for the weekly pass, only for individual events.

For more information and a full schedule of speakers and events, please check out their website: http://www.triangleew.org and we hope to see you all there!

At Innovation Cafe, Wednesday night, the incredibly dynamic duo of Bob and Maria Kingery presented on the founding and growth of their company, Southern Energy Management.

What struck me most about Bob and Maria was their mutual commitment to culture.  Generally, corporate culture falls into [...]]]> Bob and Maria Kingery, Inspiring our socks off!

At Innovation Cafe, Wednesday night, the incredibly dynamic duo of Bob and Maria Kingery presented on the founding and growth of their company, Southern Energy Management.

What struck me most about Bob and Maria was their mutual commitment to culture.  Generally, corporate culture falls into one slide of a ten slide presentation, but for Bob and Maria, it came up in every topic.  This is not a department at SEM, it’s a set of values that weaves through all of their work.  It’s the platform upon which they launched this company and a driver of their growth.

Maria shared with the crowd that she opens the all-staff meetings with this quote:

Shine On!

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others

- Marianne Williamson