This Week in Social Entrepreneurship

In our “This Week in Social Entrepreneurship” series, each Friday we will feature the top stories in Social Entrepreneurship for the week that we find to be noteworthy, novel, and thought-provoking. What are your favorite stories this week in Social Entrepreneurship? Let’s start a discussion!

If you are looking for some inspiration and a quality weekend read, look no further than The Schwab Foundation’s Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs brochure. The brochure showcases hundreds of Schwab Fellows along with a brief background and explanation of what change they are creating in the world and how. Find inspiration in learning how these leaders saw opportunities where many just see problems and how they seized these opportunities to create change.
Are you considering using a coworking space for your business? Social Earth may persuade you to take the leap into the coworking environment with The Top 5 Reasons Why Coworking is for Social Entrepreneurs. Coworking provides countless networking opportunities, can help jumpstart your creativity via inspiration from others, gives you access to experts from a variety fields that may help expand your project, allows you to share resources, and, of course, helps you save money that you can use to create more good!
So you have a game-changing idea but you don’t know how to act on it. What are the next steps in the entrepreneurial process? BrazenU presents The Big Idea: Discover Your Passion and Make it Your Business. This is a 4 week online course that will take your idea and help you turn it into a business that will make an impact. The course includes live web conferences, online networking events, and personalized investor feedback on your business plan and pitch. The course starts March 5 so enroll soon.
The Global Journal released its first ever list of the Top 100 Best NGOs. The Wikimedia Foundation (creators of Wikipedia) tops the list—make sure to check out the full list, which includes names like the Acumen Fund, Teach for America, TED, and Ashoka. Which NGOs are you most excited about? Who didn’t make the cut this year that deserves to be recognized?
Hub Ventures, “a startup accelerator for entrepreneurs building a better world”, can help you build and launch your world-changing venture. As part of a 12-week cohort program, you will collaborate with peers, attend workshops, and receive mentorships with highly successful entrepreneurs. The deadline for the Spring 2012 cohort is March 5.
With the World Economic Forum taking place in Davos this week, it’s refreshing to see a group representing the social entrepreneurs of the world. A total of 30 social entrepreneurs, including Muhammad Yunus and Darell Hammond, made their way out to Davos this year to promote socially responsible business practices. Ariana Huffington attended the social entrepreneurs’ special dinner the night before the World Economic Forum began and invited them to post on her site any special coverage, commentaries, videos, images, etc. that could help them spread their message—Putting Problem-Solving Above Money-Making in Business, Toward a Common Purpose, Dispatch From Davos: The Power of Collective Impact, Why I Disagree With Professor Porter—are just a few among many other articles that you can find in the social entrepreneurship section of the Huffington Post.

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Social entrepreneurs, have you been inspired to start your own good? Do you have a social enterprise, a non-profit, or an amazing idea that needs some momentum to take off? Visit our site to find out how to start your own campaign today. Still have questions? We have answers—check out our FAQ section.