Tag Archives: social venture funding

Want Social Venture Funding? Prepare Yourself

Interested in getting funding for your social venture? Think about these three areas: 1) building a solid business (yes, it must be able to sustain itself financially), 2) identifying the right investors and 3) preparing yourself. I write this blog to help you build strong businesses and I’ve identified 25 potential investment sources for you […]

The 15 Top Posts on Good Business of 2010

In order of popularity (ranked by page views), here are the 15 most-read pieces on Cause Capitalism from the last year. Below are some observations on the list. 1. 15 Social Venture Capital Firms That You Should Know About 2. 10 More Social Venture Capital Firms That You Told Me About 3. Will B Corp’s New […]

Who Are Today’s Social Entrepreneurs? Echoing Green’s Lara Galinksy Talks Trends

Within the world of social enterprise, there’s a subsect of organizations that help incubate and scale social ventures.  These entities, from veterans Ashoka and Echoing Green to young buck Unreasonable Institute, play varying roles of investor, connector, teacher and trend-chronicler of a rising-star sector. To look beyond the magazine gloss and speculation and get a […]

4 Funding Options for Your Social Business Venture

I’m wrapping up Social Business Venture week with a look at funding options for the breed of businesses that generate profits but exist primarily to fulfill a social need.  The legal structure of your business should take into account how you plan to operate and earn revenue. Neither of these decisions can be taken lightly […]

How Better World Books Built A Multimillion-Dollar, Venture Backed Social Enterprise–with David Murphy

In this 7-minute clip, Better World Books President and CEO David Murphy talks about the company’s fiduciary commitment to its nonprofit literacy partners and how it received funding, initially with an SBA loan and later through Good Capital, a social investment firm. Right-click and download for the MP3. [Audio clip: view full post to listen] […]

The Best Kept Secret to Social Venture Funding?

Consider becoming certified as a B Corporation. If you’re looking for mission-aligned capital for an existing business, B Corp status will help, and if you’re looking for traditional investing, it won’t hurt. B Corporation certification signals to investors, consumers and employees that you are use business to solve social and environmental problems. For companies looking […]

How He Turned His 20 Years on Wall Street Into a Hub for Impact Investing –with Mike Van Patten

Michael Van Patten used to give out his entire allowance when he lived in Ecuador during high school.  This went against common practice to ignore people with their hands and pretend they weren’t there.  The poverty he saw stuck with him for years but didn’t affect the way he made a living, until recently. Click the […]

10 More Social Venture Capital Firms You Told Me About

“A BUSINESS THAT MAKES NOTHING BUT MONEY IS A POOR BUSINESS.”  — Henry Ford In response to an email I received asking about sources of social venture capital, I published this list of 15 social investment firms. Based on tweets and suggestions I got from people like you who are using business to meet social or […]

In Response to ‘What’s Your Life About?’ He Founded Good Capital–With Kevin Jones

I created Cause Capitalism to answer the question of how you can have a stronger business and help change the world.  The problem with such a nifty concept is that it’s still new, which means that all the ‘market mechanisms’ aren’t in place to help your early social enterprise scale to serve more people. As […]

15 Social Venture Capital Firms That You Should Know About

Building a business is hard. Getting the funding you might need is tough.  But, as you know, when your business satisfies a social or environmental need, your options for funding are even scarcer.  One of the things I hear a lot from social entrepreneurs is the tough time they have finding people willing to fund […]