SER provides North American social entrepreneurs and nonprofit enterprise directors with practical news and information, business tools, and inspiration to help you improve the profitability and impact of social purpose ventures.

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Social Enterprises Featured in Crain's Chicago Business Magazine

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Chicago's Growing Home Inc. and Shorebank social enterprises, among others, were recently featured in this leading business journal of the midwest. Click here to read the story.

GKP Forum on Social Entrepreneurship

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The Global Knowledge Partnership has posted video clips of their Tiger's Lair SE biz plan pitching sessions and talk show: Social Entrepreneurs Spearheading a Better Future, held at their May 21, 2008 Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, held in Kuala Lumpur.

The four young social entrepreneurs who pitched plans to VC "Tigers", were selected through the GKP Youth Social Enterprise Initiative Programme, (www.ysei.org). The GKP will also hold a Social Entrepreneurship Forum: Empowering Youth, on August 13, 2008 in Quebec City in conjunction with the World Youth Congress.

To download the video clips, go to http://www.globalknowledge.org/gkps_portal/newsmaster.cfm?&menuid=2&acti...

Social enterprise planning tools

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Connecting Green Jobs to Energy Efficient Housing

Emily Kirsch, Bay Area organizer for the Oakland, CA-based Ella Baker Center's Green Collar Job Campaign, wants to develop the demand for more green jobs by financing retrofits of existing homes. Oakland has approximately 47,000 dwellings, 30% of which have deferred maintenance, and 60% are renter occupied.

By developing the financing and incentives for low-income property owners to retrofit their dwellings and rental units, the EBC hopes to not only lower the city's residential energy consumption, but provide job skills and employment for its Green Collar trainees.

Join the Social Enterprise Working Group

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Will Morgan is facilitating the Social Enterprise Working Group for The Small Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP) Network. Will needs your help:

* Sign up for the first online conference "Defining Social Enterprise" (July 15-30) to discuss a SE positioning paper with a broad audience
* Recruit 5-10 of your personal contacts to join this online conference. Send them to The Social Enterprise Working Group online workspace, or forward this post.
* Contribute and discuss specific examples of Social Enterprise programs.
* Decide if SEEP should be a home for a SE program or platform.

Participate during the conference with as much time as you can offer. Both long thought-out comments and short, quick comments help advance discussion and provoke new ideas.

Craigslist Foundation's Nonprofit Nights on Earned Income

Event: Earned Income for Nonprofits: Strategies for Sustainability
Dates: 7/1
Time: 5:30-9:00pm
Cost: FREE to attendees
Venues: Baruch College
Program:
* 5:30-6:30 – Welcome reception
* 6:30-7:30 – Earned Income for Nonprofits Panel & Q&A
* NYC Panelists include Julius Walls (Greyston Bakery), Dr. Jeffrey Robinson (NYU), and a representative from Zazzle.com
* 7:30-8:15 – Breakout groups
* 8:15-9:00 – Networking

Go to http://www.craigslistfoundation.org/nonprofitnightnyc for more info and to RSVP.

The Mind Trust's Education Entrepreneur Fellowship

The Mind Trust's Education Entrepreneur Fellowship

A nationally unique incubator for transformative education ventures

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The Mind Trust

The Mind Trust’s Education Entrepreneur Fellowship is a nationally unique incubator for transformative education ventures. The Fellowship offers promising education entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop and launch their break-the-mold education ventures and the support necessary for success. Fellows receive two years of salary, benefits, coaching, customized training, a travel budget and more. With this support, fellows will be able to realize their visions and achieve extraordinary results for some of the nation’s most underserved students.

Adapting to Change

Green Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy

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Andrea Buffa

These days, everyone is talking about the “green economy,” and labor unions are no exception. The Blue-Green Alliance, an organization that’s jointly led by the US Steelworkers and the Sierra Club, just sponsored a conference in Pittsburgh, PA called “Good Jobs, Green Jobs” that drew some 1,000 participants and covered such topics as scaling up to meet the challenge of the green economy, and green public policies and private investments. On the West Coast, an upcoming conference sponsored by the California Labor Federation’s Workforce and Economic Development Program, “Adapting to Change,” will explore the convergence of climate change policy, the transition to a green economy and growing economic insecurity.

Andrea Buffa is the Communications Specialist at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu.

Theater as Social Enterprise

Theater as Social Enterprise

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Carol Brzozowski

Economic life could not have looked more bleak for residents of Colquitt, a southwest Georgia town in early 1991. Many residents lost their jobs after a sewing factory and five family businesses shut down. But Colquitt residents refused to wave a white flag. The non-profit Colquitt/Miller County Arts Council jump-started an effort to resurrect the town’s financial dignity by instituting a profit-generating theater venture.

Building Workforce Partnerships Conference June 11 in LA

I recently spoke with Andrea Buffa, the new Communications Analyst at the University of California Berkeley Labor Center. The Labor Center has developed a new education and research program on green jobs in California and is assisting with the development of a green jobs workshop track at the June 11-13 Workforce and Economic Development Conference in Los Angeles.

Expected workshop topics include what and where are the jobs; green manufacturing possibilities; job quality and the green economy; and best practices in environmental/labor collaborations; among others. This track, developed in partnership with the Apollo Alliance, and the Ella Baker Center, will explore the extent of retooling and what it means for industry and labor, the opportunity for new employment in “green collar jobs”, and how to build new educational, economic, and social supports to make the transition successful.

The Building Workforce Partnerships conference takes place June 11-13, 2008 at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel Los Angeles.

WED Green Jobs Workshops include (not a complete list):

What and where are the jobs?
-Michael Renner, Worldwatch Institute; or Jill Kubit – Cornell Labor Center
-Janet McGenty, Economic Strategy Panel
-Jennifer Oliver, Director, Greater Silicon Valley Center of Excellence)
-Jason Walsh, GreenforAll

Successful environmental/labor collaborations
-Jose T. Bravo, Executive Director, Just Transition Alliance
-Dave Campbell, Secretary Treasurer, SWA Local 675
-Ricardo Hidalgo, Organizer, International Brotherhood of Teamsters
-tentative: Adrian Martinez, Project Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council

Training for entry and re-entry populations
Ian Kim, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Raquel Pinderhughes, San Francisco State University
Sal Vaca, Richmond Build

How our sector is responding to change
-Eric Emblem, Sheet Metal Workers
-Mike Massey, UA – United Associated of Plumbers and Pipefitters
-Von Ton Quinliven, PG&E

Green manufacturing possibilities
-George Sterzinger of the Renewable Energy Policy Project
-and others …

Funding for green job creation

Community College Green Job Training Programs
-Peter Crabtree
Dean of Instruction, Vocational Technology Division, Laney College, Oakland CA
-Roger Ebbage
Director, Northwest Energy Education Institute , Lane Community College, Eugene OR
-Greg Newhouse, Associate Dean/Special Projects Manager, Advanced Transportation Technologies
Mirmar College, San Diego CA
-Reid Strieby, Professor, Bronx Community College CUNY, Bronx NY, Principal Investigator of Environmental Entrepreneurship Program, Center for Sustainable Energy, Bronx Community College
-Moderator: Marcy Drummond, LA Trade and Technical College

How labor can get involved with climate change legislation
-Dave Foster, Blue-Green Allliance (tentative)
-Sharon Anderson, CA Air Resources Board
-Carol Zabin, UC Berkeley Labor Center
-Barbara Byrd, Oregon AFL-CIO

Ensuring Union Jobs in Green Construction
-Myung-Soo, LA Federation of Labor
-tentative: Madeleine Janis, LAANE

Emerald Cities
-Kate Gordon, Apollo Alliance
-Fred Lucero, Richmond BUILD/Solar Richmond
-Elsa Barboza, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE), LA Apollo Alliance
-Joan Fitzgerald, Northeastern University, New York University

Jade States
Robb Smith, Massachusetts office of economic development
Wendy Patton, Ohio governor's office
Patrick Neville, Washington State Apollo Alliance

Go to http://www.wed-works.org/info.html for more info.

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