Over at Xigi.net, Martha has posted a great blog entry, Louisiana Government Leads the Nation in Promoting Social Entrepreneurship, that has garnered some comments, in particular one from Kelly Kleiman, the Nonprofiteer, who calls into question the appropriateness of government sloughing off its duties onto the private sector.

The Hurricane Katrina disaster has shown how unprepared and disorganized our government has become in addressing catastrophes on its own shores, so it is fitting that Louisiana should take the lead in tapping social entrepreneurs to assist government with coming up with innovative approaches to solving social problems.

See the SEblog post on the America Forward coalition, who proposes that government serve as an investor and catalyst, rather than a provider/controller of services. Does social entrepreneurship naturally lead to privatization of public services?

Are you passionate about making the world a better place? Have an idea about how to make your fellow students and your school more socially responsible? Want to turn that idea into a reality?

Conscious Lifestyle is accepting applications for its 2008 venture program.

Submit an application for the chance to win:

* Up to $1,000 in start-up funding
* Web space on consciouslifestyle.org
* Monthly skill-building workshops
* Personalized support
* Access to a network of social entrepreneurs

To learn more and download an application, visit www.consciouslifestyle.org/2008ventureapp.

Application Deadline: February 15, 2008.

San Francisco-based Community Housing Partnership hosted a Launch Celebration today for a new social enterprise: CHP Enterprises. CHP-E will provide front desk staffing and maintenance services to residential housing providers in the SF Bay Area. And it will create up to 50 jobs in a supportive work environment for formerly homeless adults, many of whom are residents in CHP housing.

Executive Director Jeff Kositsky announced that CHP has just been awarded a Community Economic Development grant of $350,000 from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services' Office of Community Services to help launch the new enterprise. CHP has also received assistance from REDF, the SF-based social venture philanthropy fund, becoming a new member of its investment portfolio earlier this year.

I was struck by the level of engagement and support from both the city's Human Services Agency and Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and from other local community development agencies that have stepped up to become CHP-E's first customers. Both Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and Rhonda Simmons, from the Mayor's Office, stated that CHP-E represented a sea change in how the city plans to tackle workforce development, which has not traditionally had a central place in the city's priorities. Dan Bernal, from the Office of Congresswoman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, lauded CHP's innovative approach to providing employment opportunities for the formerly homeless.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Aleta Dwyer-Carpenter, from the Chinatown Community Development Center (CHP-E's first customer), spoke of the healing role of CHP-E, both in terms of helping to reclaim the spirit and economic basis of the neighborhood by preventing displacement of families, and in terms of providing an extended family and role models for other residents who will be served by CHP-E staff.

San Francisco State University Prof. Raquel Pinderhughes has completed a case study of implementing a green job corps in Berkeley, CA - GREEN COLLAR JOBS: An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Businesses to Provide High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment. The study can be used as a guide for developing Green Job Corps programs in other cities across the countries.

Dr. Pinderhughes had spoken with me earlier this year about this research as part of her work developing a green collar job corps with the Ella Baker Center's Reclaim the Future initiative. Green collar jobs are "blue collar jobs in green businesses, manual labor jobs in businesses whose products and services directly improve environmental quality."

This report shows that "preparing men and women with barriers to employment for entry level green collar jobs, and ensuring that these jobs are consistently made available to them, are very effective ways to bring the opportunities and benefits associated with green economic development to low-income residents and communities in the Bay Area."

The study addresses seven major questions:

1.To what extent are green collar jobs good jobs?
2.To what extent are green collar jobs suitable for people with barriers to employment?
3.To what extent are people with barriers to employment interested in green collar jobs?
4.Are green business owners willing to hire workers with barriers to employment for green collar jobs?
5.To what extent are the green collar job business sectors growing?
6.What strategies are needed to grow the number of green collar jobs?
7.What strategies are needed to ensure that workers with barriers to employment can gain access to green collar jobs?

The study is a great example of collaboration between city planners, academics and local environmental justice advocates and can serve as a planning tool for extending green collar workforce development to other communities across the country.

What do you do when the dreaded moment arrives?

How do you react when an employee is arrested? When reduced funding causes layoffs? When changes in the market force you to shut down beloved programs?

In other words, how do you handle bad news -- especially the kind that goes public and shakes stakeholder confidence?

My friend Chris Klose has been a crisis communications specialist for more than 30 years. Based in Washington, D.C., he's seen corporations, government agencies and nonprofits stumble badly when faced with negative situations -- usually because they disobey four cardinal rules:

• Tell the truth
• Take responsibility
• Don't delay
• Show them you care

"Your ultimate goal," says Chris, "is to preserve trust in the organization. Even though it may be painful, telling the truth is rule number one. Always. Candor can defuse the most explosive situations.

"And Truman was right. 'The buck stops here.' Any attempt to dodge responsibility will just stir things up.

"And don't delay. Things will only get worse if you stall -- it can become a feeding frenzy. Remember things never turn out as badly as you fear -- unless you delay, obfuscate and dodge." In this era of Internet blogging, when news races 'round the globe in nanoseconds, you'll never have time to catch up unless you respond immediately.

Finally, Chris emphasizes you "have to get on their side of the table. Your stakeholders are less interested in what you know or what you did -- what they want to know first is whether you care. So acknowledge their pain or concern. You can't bloviate and fake it, either. Your response has to be genuine. You have to make a personal connection.

"If you're a values-based organization," he says, "and if you have a loyal set of stakeholders, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt. They'll forgive your mistakes. The American public is eminently reasonable. Ten per cent on the left and ten per cent on the right are whacko, but those aren't the people you're speaking to. It's your neighbor over the back fence, the guy on the bus, the teacher in your kids' school. Your stakeholders aren't wolves and hounds -- they want you to get through this and maintain their confidence."

Chris recommends that the first thing you do is write down your version of the facts -- then get them out to the public as quickly, honestly and concisely as possible, "in plain English!" Boil your story down to no more than three points, then share them with all your stakeholders. Invite questions. Respond truthfully. Keep the doors of communication open 24/7.

Eventually, the din will subside, the pain will ease, and life will return to its normal hectic pace.

Until the next time.

Which argues for creating a crisis communications plan well in advance of any bad news. Try bringing together a sub-group of Board and staff members charged with trying to anticipate everything that could go wrong. Then appoint an overall crisis management team and create a detailed response mechanism for each contingency, including a primary spokesperson (typically the CEO) and, if necessary, a technical expert.

Be sure to write the plan down and put it somewhere convenient -- including somewhere outside your office . . . one of my friends failed to do so and had to scramble when the office burned down. Then, when the dreaded moment arrives, reach for the plan -- and remember the four cardinal rules . . .

* * * * *

One more thing. It may seem odd, but bad news can also be an opportunity.

To begin with, it's a chance to reach out and reinforce your relationships with key constituents. A responsible reaction to bad news frequently translates into greater loyalty and admiration. Stakeholders volunteer to help as you regroup and possibilities emerge from potential disaster.

In addition, it's an opportunity to revisit your core assumptions, freshen your values and reinvigorate your sense of purpose.

So manage the crisis -- don't let it manage you.

Co-op America and Global Citizen recently co-sponsored the San Francisco Green Festival, one of the biggest of 4 annual Green Festivals that are also held in Chicago, Washington and Seattle. The April 2007 Chicago festival had record attendance of over 31,000 people and the SF Festival was expecting over 35,000, “which certainly demonstrates that green is now mainstream,” stated Co-op America Executive Director Alisa Gravitz.

I was impressed to see that the Green Festivals are not just about hemp milk and solar energy, but now incorporate social and economic justice and sustainability. The green economy is one of the most racially segregated parts of the economy, both in terms of suppliers and consumers. Van Jones, National Director of the Oakland, CA-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, spoke at the Chicago Festival about investing in eco-equity, the third wave of environmentalism (the first and second waves being conservation and regulation) that will help both the polar bears and the urban poor.

The following week after the SF Green Festival, the Ella Baker Center hosted a "green cities, brown folks" salon to recognize local social entrepreneurs and inspire people of color to take the lead in climate solutions. Speakers included Babak Tondre, co-founder of Dig Cooperative, an Oakland-based green design and building firm; Jason Harvey, a food justice organizer at Oakland Food Connection; and Sara Nuño, a team leader at California Youth Energy Services.

In his talk, Babak referred to the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the 1930's New Deal employment program, as a model for the Green Job Corps. Uniformed staffmembers of the East Bay Conservation Corps were in attendance at the Salon, evidence of the staying power of another youth employment program that was also started by President Roosevelt.

These entrepreneurs are bringing control of local food production and urban design back within the community, incorporating social enterprise, urban planning and equitable environmental solutions. The need for sustainable solutions was brought home by the tragedy of the Cosco Busan oil spill that unleashed 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the Bay a few days earlier.

• Do you have an incredible, new idea that could change your community, country, or world?
• Are you an entrepreneur who won't rest until your idea has been brought to life? Or a leader who has recently started an organization to do just that?

If so, apply for an Echoing Green Fellowship. You could receive up to $90,000 in seed funding and support to launch a new organization that turns your innovative idea for social change into action.

Follow in the footsteps of the founders of Teach For America, City Year, and over 400 other social change organizations and apply online by December 3, 2007.

Watch the video: http://www.echoinggreen.org/video

Find out whether you qualify: http://www.echoinggreen.org/shouldyouapply

Apply online: https://apply.echoinggreen.org

Questions? Contact us at apply@echoinggreen.org.

Ashoka's Changemakers and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are hosting a global competition to find the most innovative approaches to supporting young men at risk between the ages of 15-25, in realizing their great potential and reaching a successful and healthy adulthood. Young men today suffer from the societal ills of gangs, addiction, crime, violence, accidental deaths, and increasingly, mental health problems.

“Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation” seeks to collect groundbreaking approaches to addressing these challenges and to sponsor informed debate and comment on work being done to help young men thrive. The competition will award funding for the most innovative work in fields from music to mental health to support the expansion of their impact on a generation of young men.

Between November 7th, 2007 and January 23rd 2008, organizations are invited to submit their proposals. In February 2008, the Changemakers community will vote for three winners from the approximately 12 finalists who will be selected by our panel of judges. The Changemakers Collaborative Competition winners, the three finalists that receive the most votes, will be announced on March 11, 2008 and will each receive a cash prize of US$5,000.

Organisations are invited to join the dialogue, even if they do not enter the competition. All groups can join the online Changemakers community to make suggestions and recommend resources that will help refine and strengthen the strategies presented by competition entrants.

The competition will be open to all types of organisations (civil society organisations,

private companies, or public entities) from all countries. Entries will be considered that reflect the theme of the competition, Young Men at Risk, are at the demonstration stage and that show signs of success. The winners of this Changemakers Collaborative Competition will be those entries that best meet the following criteria: Innovation, Social Impact and Sustainability.

There are three main phases in the competition:

• Entry Stage – November 7, 2007 – January 23, 2008

• Online Review and Judging – January 24 to February 25, 2008

• Voting – February 26 to March 11, 2008

For more information on entering, the online review, and voting please visit the following website: http://www.changemakers.net/competition/men.