The Pipeline Fellowship Announces Call for Applications in NYC and Boston

Archive for the ‘Social Entrepreneurship’ Category

The Pipeline Fellowship Announces Call for Applications in NYC and Boston

August 23rd, 2011, by Sloane Berrent. No Comments »

When I first heard of Natalia Oberti Noguera, the Founder and CEO of the Pipeline Fellowship I was instantly drawn to what she is actively creating – a network of women angel investors. Women have a long history of giving back – philanthropy – but have not made the same impact in the investment community. I simply had to meet her!

Natalia and I first spoke over the phone and she invited me to a really special and unique one-day conference she held this spring where women (and some men) gathered to learn the nitty-gritty of investing. It wasn’t fluffy inspirational talks (though they have a time and a place!) it was really tactical information. A lot of it was way over my head – a good thing – since the women in the room have a net worth way over my head too and were moving towards becoming accredited investors.

In the past few months, I’ve been thrilled to see Natalia speak at Microfinance USA and read features on her and articles about Pipeline in Forbes, Women2 and Next Billion – and these are just the ones I stumbled across!

So for all of those reasons and a thousand others, I wanted to help spread the word about their current applications that open until next Monday, August 29th. More information is below and here is the application to apply. Stay tuned for more in the fall about the new class of Fellows!

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The Pipeline Fellowship seeks to increase the number of women angel investors (only 13% of U.S. angels are women[1]) through its six-month angel investing bootcamp, which is specifically designed for women who are first-time angel investors. While Fellows come from a variety of backgrounds (law, finance, healthcare, the arts, small business, and more), they all share a common interest in learning to invest for good.

The program trains women philanthropists to become angel investors through education (modules on due diligence, term sheets, valuations, board governance, etc.), mentoring (matching each participant with an experienced angel investor to serve as a role model), and practice (participants commit to invest in a woman-led for-profit social venture at the end of the training).

The cohorts are intentionally small (10 women) and designed to encourage teamwork, co-mentoring, peer-to-peer learning, as well as group decision-making in the investing process. Each participant commits to invest US$5K for a collective US$50K investment in exchange for an equity stake in the woman-led social enterprise of the group’s choosing. The inaugural Pipeline Fellowship class (NYC 2011) will be announcing their investment in late October.

Applications for the 2011-2012 Boston- and 2012 NYC-based Pipeline Fellowship programs are now being accepted on a rolling basis until Monday, August 29, 2011. To apply, go to: http://pipelinefellowship.producteev.com

The Pipeline Fellowship trains women philanthropists to become angel investors through education, mentoring, and practice. In addition to an all-day conference, the program’s educational components include a series of workshops on topics such as portfolio strategies, due diligence, and valuation. Each Fellow is also paired with an experienced angel investor who serves as a role model and a sounding board, sharing feedback and advice. Lastly, the Fellows put their education to work by selecting and investing in a woman-led, for-profit social venture.

Take 5: Kiva Alums, Where Are They Now?

December 14th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 2 Comments »

Recently named to Oprah’s Favorite Things list, Kiva is a constant in many of my business and personal relationships. Much of that is from my time as a Kiva Fellow. One of the biggest perks of being a Kiva Fellow is being associated with the other amazing people who are also Kiva Fellows. While our time together is limited, we are only together in-person during a week long training at Kiva HQ in San Francisco, we are all linked together by our shared experiences in the field around the world. There are Kiva Fellows out there doing amazing work in sustainable development, microfinance, technology, getting their masters in business or public administration and running companies.

I wanted to take a moment to share some cool projects I do know about, there are many many others. But here are five of my favorite people I met through Kiva and a quick glance of “where are they now.” Support their organizations and follow these rockstars, they are on the cutting edge of their fields and amazing people to know. I also created a list on Twitter called “Kiva Fellow” which you can follow.

1. iMentor’s mission is to improve the lives of young people from underserved communities through innovative, technology-based approaches to mentoring. Over the past ten years, iMentor has transformed over 20,000 lives including matching over 10,000 mentor-mentee pairs, and partnering with 30 NYC schools and after school programs in four of New York City’s five boroughs and programs all over the country. Hanh Tran, a Kiva Fellow in Vietnam, who recently graduated from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, is now working at iMentor as a Program Manager.

2. It’s hard to pick one venture of Halle Tecco’s, so I’m going to include two. First, before becoming an intern at Kiva, Halle founded YogaBear, a national 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting more opportunities for wellness and healing to the cancer community through the practice of yoga. Yoga teachers and studios around the country provide free services to those in the cancer community. This past year she authored with friends, including another Kiva intern Analisa Shah (a powerhouse herself), The Flexitarian Cookbook, a cookbook for carnivores and vegetarians, with recipes from chefs around the country. Proceeds from The Flexitarian Cookbook benefit Slow Food USA and Yoga Bear and can be purchased here.

3. You all know Habitat for Humanity, right? Founded in 1976 by Millard and Linda Fuller, the organization has built over 350,000 houses around the world, providing more than 1.75 million people in 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter. Dave McMurtry, a Kiva Fellow in Libya, now serves as the Senior Vice President of Strategy for Habitat International. In his role, he travels the world to visit projects and is hard at work at new and innovative strategies to take Habitat forward. I always love hearing about his exciting travels.

4. Worldreader’s mission is to make digital books available to all in the developing world, enabling millions of people to improve their lives. Where many schools and villages lack a library because they cannot keep current books in circulation, worldreader provides an endless amount of learning with one device. Zev Lowe, a Kiva Fellow in Indonesia, leads worldreader.org’s finance and research, and supports trial development while based in Barcelona. Zev, also known as an international man of mystery, is an enigma. Worldreader is so lucky to have him.

5. Pando Projects is a nonprofit that empowers people to step up as leaders and develop new, local solutions to the problems in their communities and called “the next big thing” by Kiva CEO, Premal Shah. Milena Arciszewski (who wrote a guest blog post on The Causemopolitan this summer) is the Founder and Executive Director and has been working on Pando since she returned to the States earlier this year from a yearlong Kiva Fellowship in Bosnia, Kenya and the Philippines. Launching in 2011, they are currently looking for 10 people (age 18+) with ideas that can be executed within 3 months in the New York City area. You can find out more about submitting a project here. Milena is a true social entrepreneur. I have loved hearing about Pando from an idea she described over dinner at the Bohol Bee Farm in the Philippines to seeing it executed on the verge of launching, it’s the makings of an incredible success story.

Any Kiva Fellows Alumni reading this, please send me your updates or leave a comment below and I’ll include you in an upcoming post!

Take 5: Newsletters I Love

December 8th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 1 Comment »

Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans. Click here to visit NOLAlicious and download this image for your computer, iPhone or iPad.

I like information small and bite-sized and I know most people feel the same. With so much information out there nowadays how are we to find the good stuff? I’m taking a page from Rachael Ray’s Take 5 Ingredients to give you a series I’m calling “Take 5″ but instead of recipes (baby steps people, baby steps) it’s going to include five examples of websites, newsletters, nonprofits, places, people, things (you get the point right lovlies?) that I think rock and get IT right.

This does two things. One, let’s face it, I’m not called “ever-observant” for nothing. I’m always consuming information and it brings me great joy to share what I find. Second, I can’t write posts on each of these things individually – or I could but it would just about break me since there is so much great information to share. So in my quest for stronger and more cohesive content to bring you I’m starting with a topic that I happen to know a lot about. Email newsletters. I get more than the average bear and sorting through them I’m looking for information that tells me something, provides more information about that topic and is designed well (which can be a very simple design, don’t confuse simplicity for lacking in style). I’ll write more at another juncture about what I’ve learned makes a good newsletter, a topic I learned an intense and exhastive amount about this past year running NOLAlicious but until then, let’s start simple.

MY 5 FAVORITE (AND BTW FREE) EMAIL NEWSLETTERS:

1. Startup Digest – Self-designated members of the “email mafia” this newsletter calls itself “the insider’s guide to the startup world.” It is curated by city and provides the best in startup events, what you need to read and jobs at top startups in your city. I subscribe to three editions; New Orleans, New York and Pittsburgh – I could easily find more of interest but these three are a good swatch of what is going on in those cities. Their lists are rapidly growing, they host a pancake breakfast in different markets around the country to meet subscribers and have an awesome blog sharing tips about enewsletters. All around win.

2. Jauntsetter – Every week this enewsletter introduces me to somwhere new I want to go, a hotel to stay at, and a fellow traveller who shares their greatest travel tips and recommandations. They archive and keep everything on their website, but the weekly enewsletter is where it’s at. While aimed at New York travel-lovers, I’ve gotten it practically since they launched and it’s by no means only for New Yorkers. The editors are totally that person you want to sit next to in an airplane and exchange travel stories. Their simple layout helps me with ideas for upcoming trips and this summer when on a whim we ended up in New Paltz without a place to stay, Taylor was looking up places on Google and I went straight to Jauntsetter’s website on my iPhone and found the incredibly affordable and awesome Clove Cottages which was exactly what we were looking for. Curated content beats a google search anyday of the week.

3. Listings Project – This weekly email provides living and workspace for rent, sublet, swap, and sale focused around the arts community of New York and is curated by Stephanie Diamond. What I love about this is the options it provides. It’s like a curated Craigslist and has short and long term options for people looking for a place in New York. From temporary to permanent, art space to brownstone apartment, I browse through and find I’ve learned a lot about neighborhoods, about pricing in different places and it’s just a guilty pleasure to dream about living in one of these awesome places in New York. This enewsletter was recently written up in The New York Times, something that might catapult it past the very grassroots feel it has now, I just hope it keeps the same integrity of listings.

4. The Hired Guns Gig Alerts – The Hired Guns is a recruiting firm that focuses on the digital space. What better way to get the word out about your clients and also increase traffic to your website for job seekers than an enewsletter! The gig alerts are listings of the jobs they have available, networking events and courses they have at The Hired Guns Academy. I like this newsletter first because the copy rocks. Seriously, they write some of the best copy I’ve ever seen. Second, while they don’t say who their client is, it’s very interesting to look and see who might be hiring and what types of jobs are out there. I use this for conversation with friends at agencies and in the digital space and in general to keep me hip about what’s happening. I’m also dying to attend one of their workshops which look awesome (How to get a literary agent for one) and think it’s savvy marketing to combine workshops and a newsletter to an industry where you help place people in companies.

5. New Music Tipsheet – Scott Perry is like the cool rock n’ roll older brother of a friend where you want to break into his room and look at his record collection and dig through his box of concert stubs. New Music Tipsheet gives everyone, from someone like me who is a lifelong music fan to industry insiders, a look at the entire music industry including upcoming releases, TV listings, news, and headlines from today’s top music blogs. I’ll see what’s new, might check it against some of the music blogs, samples a few tracks while I’m working and slowly work my way down the Tipsheet during the week listening to new music and checking out who’s on tour and might be coming to a city near me (since I’m always on the move) and then rinse and repeat the next week. I like that it’s not editorialized, it’s straight information and I can decide for myself what I want to buy and what new artists I want to hear more of.

Well there you have it. A “Take 5″ look at email newsletters in my inbox. Are these new to you? Are you going to sign up for them? What are some of your favorite newsletters? Leave a comment and I’ll look to include feedback I get into an upcoming “Take 5.”

Finding The Social Entrepreneur In All Of Us

November 4th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 2 Comments »

Everyone Can Be A Social Entrepreneur – Dublin Web Summit 4

View more presentations from Sloane Berrent.

Last week I had the priviledge of going to Ireland (my first time) for not one, not two, but three reasons. First, one of my clients, ezetop, is located there. I conducted a day and a half workshop with their online communications and marketing team on a wide variety of buckets we created in advance based on their needs with emphasis on how social media and online communications can help get their message across.

Next, I spoke at the Dublin Web Summit, which is where the above presentation comes from. There I spoke to the nonprofit/NGO track about finding the social entrepreneur in all of us. What does that mean? That all of us have the ability to look at a problem and find a way to solve it in an entrepreneurial way that ties in social innovation.

Last, I attended F.ounders. An invite-only event that was two nights and three days in Dublin. Everything was included from the pub crawl to dinners to panels and walking tours. 200 founders of companies got together to talk, network, learn and just be together to see what happens. It was an ambitious project and a huge success. Truly one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to, from start to finish, not a detail was overlooked.

Best part? All attendees got a “gold key” that provides a fully paid return to Ireland to futher explore business and investment possibilities in Ireland. So while I didn’t make it too far past Dublin this time around, I’m looking forward to returning soon and seeing more of the country and deepening the conversations and relationships I met while I was there.

Hope you enjoy the presentation above, I loved giving it! Thanks to Paddy Cosgrave and the whole Dublin Web Summit and Founders (#dws4 & #founders respectively on Twitter) team for a terrific experience.

Baking Cause Into Your Company

September 30th, 2010, by Sloane Berrent. 1 Comment »

Who Dat! How social entrepreneurs bring people together for a cause.

View more presentations from Sloane Berrent.

Recently, I was invited to speak at The Combine, a conference bringing together movers and shakers in creativity, community, culture, capital and code from across the country. Held in Bloomington, Indiana, I was especially excited to attend seeing as Indiana was one of only 7 U.S. states I’ve left to visit! But more than that, I love boutique and smaller conferences, it’s a great opportunity to really get to know people and interact and the rise of these smaller conferences in growing technology sectors is a great opportunity for additional exposure to that region. Other examples of these boutique conferences are TribeCon (where I spoke last year) and Big Omaha.

The title of my talk was: Who Dat! How social entrepreneurs bring people together for a cause. Here are the main highlights, and you can view the presentation on slideshare.

Know who it is that we’re talking about. Definition of a social entrepreneur: A mass recruiter of local change makers in society — a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything. – Ashoka
Historical Examples of Leading Social Entrepreneurs:
•  Susan B. Anthony (U.S.): Fought for Women’s Rights in the United States, including the right to control property and helped spearhead adoption of the 19th amendment.
•  Vinoba Bhave (India): Founder and leader of the Land Gift Movement, he caused the redistribution of more than 7,000,000 acres of land to aid India’s untouchables and landless.
•  Dr. Maria Montessori (Italy): Developed the Montessori approach to early childhood education.
•  Florence Nightingale (U.K.): Founder of modern nursing, she established the ﬁrst school for nurses and fought to improve hospital conditions.
•  Margaret Sanger (U.S.): Founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she led the movement for family planning efforts around the world.
•  John Muir (U.S.): Naturalist and conservationist, he established the National Park System and helped found The Sierra Club.
The most dangerous word in the English dictionary is “someday” – you have to make someday today. Start small, start anywhere to make things happen.
Always have a plan of attack. If you are looking to build a social enterprise or cause into your company, all of the pieces don’t have to be perfect, but you should have a plan and a reason for your nonprofit partnerships just like you would with for-profit partners.
Not everyone has to be an entrepreneur to make a change. Some people are intrapreneurs working within large organizations for change. Examples include Tide Loads of Hope and Disney CSR.
Entrepreneurs don’t let opportunities pass them by. But they don’t jump on every bandwagon either. You have to pick your battled.
Bake cause into your company as early as possible. The social gumbo will help build your company and also help strengten your commitments.
Integrate cause into your brand and listen to your shareholders. Ultimately, they have to support and endorse what you do. Every company has shareholders and influencers, engage them early to get feedback to any new program, campaign or longterm initiative you’re looking to launch.
Don’t keep it a secret! Share what you do and why. Transparency is more important than ever before.
Quanitfy your campaigns. Cause campaigns aren’t charity campaigns. They still should tie to the bottom line and track them as such.
Make the information easy to find. If people visit your website, can they find information about your cause-based campaigns or partnerships? Don’t make people dig to find the good you do.
Highlight your partners. Highlighting others helps highlight you. It’s that simple.
It’s easier to get started than you think. If you’re starting from zero, even a little bit will help. If you have a program in place or are looking to launch a new social entrepreneurial endeavor there are many resources to help you get your product, service, website out the door. Launch, analyze, build – then rinse and repeat.

If anyone has any questions or would like to contact me to speak at your conference, please drop me a line and I’d love to have a conversation with you. As a final note, I loved Bloomington, that place is amazing! I can’t wait to go back.