A 2005 Social Enterprise Reporter article on Campus-Community Catalysts profiled David Dey when he was the Director of the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship, an experiential learning program based at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY. He is still Director of the Institute, which went with him when he left Roberts, but as he says in the SERadio interview you can listen to below, "You get to the point where what you're doing has to have tangible outcomes that touches somebody other than the campus. A lot of the research that I did [at ISE] now has to be implemented so I've had to change hats."

David has recently incorporated RISEGO, a 501c3, whose focus is to create social entrepreneurs in the schools and communities of Rochester, NY. RISEGO is a social venture, building entrepreneurial capacity and addressing the issue of youth development in an urban setting. A critical part of RISEGO's mission is involving youth, in and out of school, as well as youth attending juvenile drug court. David hopes that it will be a model for other communities across the state.

The community has come out in force to donate their time, resources and talent to rehab the site of RISEGO's new Social Entrepreneurship Center. When David did not have access to cash or credit, his friends, family, church members and community members have lent their skills and talents to bring about the development of the Center. Local youth, architects and skilled tradespeople emerged as volunteers because "the concept was noble and people saw the value that it would provide in advance of completing the site." The building is 7500 square feet with the base level having four commercial rental offices and RISEGO's training center, and the second level having residential rental apartments available.

Click on the MP3 link below to listen to or download the audio file of his interview. Check out David's Citizenship Blog at WXXI Public Broadcasting for Greater Rochester. David was also recently featured on WXXI-TV's Need to Know video feature.

Three leading lights of sustainable local economies, Majora Carter, Charles Turner, and Michael Shuman will be speaking at the Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures on October 27, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It's great to see that the Local Economy movement, of which the E.F. Shumacher Society has long been a supporter and think-tank, is making a strong connection with the greening social enterprise movement.

Majora, interviewed here on SERadio, Executive Director at Sustainable South Bronx, is one of the leaders in the "Green the Ghetto" movement that brings social enterprise into the green tech/clean tech wave of new industries. Carter also co-hosts Sundance Channel's "The Green," television's first regularly scheduled programming dedicated to the environment.

Michael Shuman, also interviewed for the SEReporter is a noted economist, attorney, author, entrepreneur, and vice president for Enterprise Development for the Training and Development Corporation. He is the author of "The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition" and "Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age."

Charles Turner is a Boston City Councilor and a leader at the Industrial Cooperative Association (now the ICA Group).

Tickets are 20 BerkShares or 20 dollars and 15 BerkShares/15 dollars for members/students/seniors. Register online at www.smallisbeautiful.org, by calling 413.528.1737.

The Oakland, CA-based Ella Baker Center is launching a new national initiative, "Green For All," in New York City at the prestigious Clinton Global Initiative. The initiative will create "green pathways out of poverty" for 250,000 people in the United States over four years (by greatly expanding federal government and private sector commitments to "green-collar" job training, employment, and entrepreneurial opportunities).

To add your support for the EBC call for the federal government to allocate funds for a national green jobs training corps, contact Alli Chagi-Starr, Outreach & Events Director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Green For All Initiative; 510.428.3939 x227; allistarr@ellabakercenter.org; or sign-up for more information at greenforall.org.

Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman will deliver the keynote address, entitled ‘Technology Serving Humanity’ at the upcoming “Revolution Through Social Enterprise” conference presented by Pepperdine University Center for Entrepreneurship and the Law. The conference will take place on September 21, 2007 at the Graziadio Executive Center on campus in Malibu, California.

Contact Kimberly Retts at Kimberly.Retts@pepperdine.edu or 310-506-4292 for more info.

Join Nike and Changemakers in the global search for the most innovative solutions that use sport to unleash social potential and transform communities for the better. If you are passionate about sport, enter the collaborative competition and share your ideas. Approximately 12 finalists will be chosen and three winners will receive cash awards of $5,000 each.

Let’s play - together we can make a difference.

Enter the competition at:
http://www.changemakers.net/competition/sports

Earlier this year, Carla Javits took the helm at REDF, the San Francisco, CA-based venture philanthropy fund, formerly known as the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund. REDF is one of the longest standing VP funds with a focus on fostering social enterprise, and I had a chance to speak with her about her perspective on social enterprise and her priorities at REDF.

Carla comes to REDF from the Corporation for Supportive Housing, where she had experience working with employment programs for people living in supportive housing. Carla comes to REDF at a time of change with the launching of a new portfolio of investees, a few which, including the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Alameda County and the Community Housing Partnership, have a significant housing component.

REDF will double the size of the current portfolio and is looking for organizations like SVdP and the San Francisco Conservation Corps, that are tied into national networks. Carla would also like to forge stronger relationships with the for-profit sector to develop business opportunities for investees and job opportunities for trainees and clients transitioning out of these social enterprises.

(Note: there is some street noise and brief distortion on the MP3 audio).

I spoke with Ian Kim, Policy Director of the Reclaim the Future initiative at the Oakland, CA-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Ian and his coalition partners at the Oakland Apollo Alliance are working on a Green Job Corps pilot project, recently funded by the City of Oakland, that will launch a Green Business Council of local employers who would employ interns from the inner city.

The Ella Baker Center is a catalyst and convener for the local infrastructure needed to support the green job training programs serving the trainees and employers. EBC works with area workforce development programs, including the Youth Employment Partnership, Unified School District, Community Colleges, the Private Industry Council, Workforce Investment Board, and helps move low-income and disadvantaged youth into stable jobs with a future.

According the Ian, EBC's Reclaim the Future initiative is trying to solve two problems at once: the "eco-apocalypse" and urban poverty. And they are doing this by harnessing the growth potential of green and sustainable businesses as a pathway out of poverty for at-risk, low income and disadvantaged youth and the working poor who have been locked out of the pollution-based economy. Said Ian, "Nonprofit workforce intermediaries provide a bridge to pathways out of poverty... [and] green jobs are in the sweet spot for social enterprise."

EBC's Executive Director, Van Jones, has helped the U.S. House of Representatives with crafting and passing the Green Jobs Act of 2007 as part of the Clean Energy Jobs Bill (H.R. 2847) that authorizes $125 million for green jobs training in sustainable industries. This Bill will help to change the economics of how we get and use energy.

EBC/RTF is starting small, looking for 20 businesses to participate in the Green Jobs Council, who will commit to hiring 1-3 paid interns. But Ian's work is creating a model that others can use to replicate green jobs corps across the country.

This is in response to a posting about the best MBA school for social enterprise: Don’t forget about Kellogg! Kellogg has an excellent program in social enterprise called SEEK: Social Enterprise at Kellogg. It also has an incredibly active Social Impact Club, as well as numerous other clubs for students interested in social enterprise (the Global Health Initiative, Education Industry Club, Business and Healthcare Club, Neighborhood Business Initiative, etc.). Kellogg hosted the national Net Impact Conference in 2006, and in 2007 is putting on its own Innovating Social Change Conference. Kellogg alums have gone on to start such social enterprise organizations as the One Acre Fund, and courses in social entrepreneurship help support students in these endeavors. For more information, see: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academic/seek/index.htm and http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/student/club/social/home.htm.

Ashoka’s Changemakers.net - in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - launched an online competition designed to find innovative ways that video games can be used to help people manage their health and improve how their care is provided. The competition, called “Why Games Matter: A Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care,” challenges game developers, researchers, health organizations and others to demonstrate how games can help improve health and health care.

This latest contest will feature a panel of judges who will select approximately 12 finalists, after which online votes will determine the top 3 winners, each of whom will receive $5,000. As an added bonus, all finalists will also be given the opportunity to attend the “Why Games Matter” Change Summit at the upcoming 2008 Games for Health conference.

For more information on the competition, or for instructions on how to enter your own ideas, visit http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/competition/healthgames

I recently spoke with Lynda Gratton about her new book, Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces and Organizations Buzz with Energy--and Others Don't. Lynda is Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School and directs their Centre for Women in Business, the first research center of its kind in Europe. You can listen to her interview by clicking on the link below and learn more about Hot Spots at hotspotsmovement.com.