Academies for Social Entrepreneurship

ASE promotes the development of social enterprises, business ventures which address social problems. Social enterprises are more-than-profit businesses that use blended-value models to create a revenue-generating business with a social-value generating element. Although our work to date has been directed to not-for-profit organizations, our programs are designed to serve a broad range of social entrepreneurs. Our core program is the Social Enterprise Academy, which provides training and mentoring, as well as the opportunity to compete in a venture competition. In the past 4 years, working with a variety of strategic partners, ASE has produced 20 Social Enterprise Academies. The unique program has expanded capacity for over 200 social entrepreneurs, generating over $10 million dollars in new investment and earned income streams. In post-program evaluation reports, 65% of the participants generated new revenue within a year of participating and 94% said that their participation in the Academy had a valuable and significant impact in the way that they manage their business. A Social Enterprise Academy nurtures entrepreneurship and innovation with cohorts of not-for-profit organizations. Taking place over six to twelve, the goals are three-fold: 1. Enable not-for-profit organizations to develop the skill sets and resources that will enable them to attract growth capital and increase revenue from earned, rather than donated, income. 2. Build overall organizational capacity. (Academies enable not-for-profit organizations to improve organizational performance by applying business practices and analytical thinking to their everyday operations). 3. Create community-based change in the broader local not-for-profit marketplace by promoting convergence between the best practices of business and philanthropy.