Mike is a friend who we got to know through Sandbox. He is the founder of Sparkseed - an accelerator for social entrepreneurs. The Sparkseed School kicked off with a fantastic webinar on funding with Tom Suddes that I recommend to everyone who is seeking fresh inspiration.
1. Mike we are huge fans of Sparkseed. Please tell our readers why Sparkseed is meant to be a game changer?
Sparkseed is a game changer for two reasons. First, we aim to incubate the most impactful social ventures in the world. To do this, we target an especially creative and bold group of entrepreneurs: college students. Knowing that college students have founded companies like Microsoft, Dell, Apple, and Facebook, we know they can start social ventures that are equally significant. Therefore, we have three programs that identify the top student-led ventures in the U.S., incubate them, and then invest in them like a venture capitalist would…Which leads me to the second reason why Sparkseed is a game changer. We are a 501c3 non-profit organization, but we are also committed to earning our own revenue. By making equity investments in some of the ventures we incubate, we will be able to eventually fund all of our programs with the investment income we earn. Once we prove this model to be effective, it can be replicated by scores of other organizations in the nonprofit sector.
2. What impact does social entrepreneurship have today already on our global society?
To answer that question we need to agree on a definition of social entrepreneurship, which is a long-standing debate. To make things easy (yet still accurate), let’s just say that a social entrepreneur is someone who builds an organization with business best practices to address a significant social or environmental issue. This person – the social entrepreneur – could lead a for profit or nonprofit organization, so long as she does it like an entrepreneur would in a regular business (as opposed to government or traditional nonprofits). With that said…
Social entrepreneurship has had a varied impact on the world and the results are still out on many ventures. I thin there are two important things to note. First, social entrepreneurship changes the way do-gooders operate. I think less things are taken for granted. For example, when you have to generate your own income, making payroll takes on a who new life. You have to be scrappy, innovative, lean…and all the other entrepreneurial clichés that are actually very important when you’re building a social venture. Secondly, social entrepreneurship is, perhaps, more empowering to those it helps than hand-outs. For example, microfinance helps people start small businesses and generate their own income, so they are paying for their kids’ education, food medicine, and so on, rather than the government or NGOs giving hand-outs. This has an important psychological effect that will pay dividends for generations.
3. What role does the Sparkseed School play within the Sparkseed universe?
The Sparkseed School is the place where our webinars and video conferences are held. Each month we host a webinar on topics that are important to social entrepreneurs – business planning, managing a team, pitching to investors, etc. We’ve tried a variety of platforms and Supercool School has been the best.
We are also starting peer-to-peer video conferences for our student innovators around the country so they can learn from one another. Supercool School allows us to do this.
4. How can people get in touch with you if they want to join Sparkseed?
They can reach out to me directly at [email protected]. They can also follow us on Twitter @sparkseed.
5. Anything else you would like to share with us?
The biggest lesson that I’ve learned is that success is often predicated on one’s ability to 1) discover what people are best at and what they love, and 2) give them opportunities to do those things for one’s venture. At Sparkseed, we’ve been blessed to have incredibly talented people help us and help our ventures. We are excited to meet more of those people, perhaps through this blog post.
------------------
Build your own online school here: http://www.SupercoolSchool.com
Thanks for this information that you have shared. I have been so interested with this.
Posted by: 21st century education | February 11, 2010 at 11:41 AM
I found a networking site, it gathers young business people around the world from different industries.
www.YoungEntrepreneurSociety.com , also their new movie about young people and their business ideas, is amazing.
Posted by: Keith | February 12, 2010 at 06:22 AM
Fantastic blog. Full of useful information for people like me. Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Pennsylvania personal injury lawyer | February 20, 2010 at 12:57 PM
very informational... educative as well, i've been a very good follower of your blog... all am gonna say is good job!
Posted by: Acai Optimum | March 29, 2010 at 11:50 PM
I was very impressed with the interview of the principal of Sparkseed School, Mike Del Ponte, and his vision to develop a means to accelerate social entrepreneurs. He is correct that college students are a great human resource to target and that they have founded many impressive start-up companies over the years.
Personally, I started my own company as a long-term funding source for the construction of global church-orphanages. Linking businesses and societal concerns is a great way to build businesses with an inherent social responsibility component.
Posted by: John | September 05, 2010 at 08:37 PM
Stop-action animation is indeed overlooked by not only the Academy, but the public, as well. Too many times has animation in general been snubbed and been dismissed as child's play, impervious to profundity and sophistication.
Posted by: viagra online | September 29, 2010 at 10:18 PM
Anyone who wants to start his or her own business are very practical. With recession happening today, I see and hear on news that people are quitting their jobs and taking risks on starting their company. It's good actually. I used to work in a big company. I wasn't really experiencing the effect of recession in a big scale. But at my early 30's, I think I have saved up some useful amount of money in the bank already. I'm now arranging to put up my own restaurant in our town in Sioux Falls. I have applied for merchant loans and just waiting for my dad to help me with the whole thing.
- John
Posted by: Merchant Loans | October 20, 2010 at 08:59 AM
I agree with your idea.You look like very talented.It is very happy to meet you. Thank you!
Posted by: coach outlet | November 04, 2010 at 07:04 AM
really good idea thank you for sharing.
Posted by: Sebastia | July 01, 2011 at 04:42 PM
Thank you very much for the extensive explanation, it's very interestingly.
Posted by: ryska kvinnor | July 07, 2011 at 02:37 PM
Thank you for sharing your stuff on blog. It is doubtless that we have similar interests. Something are very helpful to me.
Posted by: LouisVuitton | September 26, 2011 at 11:07 AM