Recently in Social Enterprises Category

To get some background on this trend, there's a good piece on HeraldNet.com. 

So, what is a social entrepreneur?  According to Ashoka (which is a global organization of about 2,000 social entrepreneurs): 

"individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system."

There's also a new book on the topic; that is, David Bornstein's How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition.

To get more information, click here to check out the article in HeraldNet.com.

While at the Digital Hollywood conference, I had a chance to meet up with upstart company, SocialVibe.com.

Essentially, it's a combination of social media (especially Facebook and MySpace ) with consumer brands and causes. 

That is, you select a charity to support as well as a brand (some include Coca-Cola, NBA, Sprint and Nestlé).  The result is that you can earn points for charitable donations.

It's an interesting concept.  And so far, the site has raised about $30,000 for 14 charities like the World Wildlife Fund, PETA, charity:water, One Laptop Per Child, Surfrider Foundation, Direct Relief International, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Invisible Children and Donors Choose.

There's an interesting piece in the NYTimes, which talks about the emergence of the "social enterprise."  Essentially, it's a for-profit organization that has some type of social mission.

Some of the notable examples include:  Mozilla Corporation (which develops the Firefox browser), TechSoup (which distributes tech products to nonprofits), and the Internet Archive.

If anything, the new Web 2.0 technologies - and open source software -- are making it easier to launch such ventures.  Basically, the cost barriers are much lower. 

Also, new business models - such as using Google AdWords - makes it easier to find ways to monetize things.

Finally, check out Ideablob.com (which is something we launched last year).  It's a platform for new business ideas.  Interestingly enough, there are many that are social enterprises.