Comments on: The Social Venture “Scalability” Model

By: Are Hybrid Organizations Half Bad, Half Good, or Just Confusing? | Lessons I Learned

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:31:25 +0000

[...] and I added the comment below which relates to other thoughts I have posted on my blog about social venture scalability. [...]

By: Is “Sustainability” Development’s Atlantis? | Lessons I Learned

Is “Sustainability” Development’s Atlantis? | Lessons I Learned — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:43:22 +0000

[...] “Financial sustainability” focuses on one variable — money — so it is easier to measure than sustainability in NGOs. Merely taking into account financial factors in order to rate an NGO’s overall sustainability is too limiting. Likewise, rating NGOs only by looking at their overhead to program budget is not a successful way to rank the “best” NGOs. Both of these disregard the main reason NGOs (should) have been started in the first place: the “impact” of their work. (Note: For further disucssion of financial sustainability and how this relates to social ventures check out this posting). [...]

By: Daniela Papi

Daniela Papi — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:41:35 +0000

I just read a piece on Social Edge: http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/the-learning-curve/archive/2009/10/10/challenges-of-investing-in-social-change which relates to this post. Here is a quote which resonates with me:

“On the other hand, there are development challenges that will never be solved by business models that depend on bottom-up revenue or self-sustainability. Here, there might be a very high cost involved (medical research and development for example) that can never be borne by the target audience and are only conceivable when there are significant subsidies from philanthropists, governments and corporates.”

By: A Theory of Scalability « The Emergent Fool

A Theory of Scalability « The Emergent Fool — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:46:17 +0000

[...] of the hidden themes of The Feast this past week has been how to scale successful social ventures. This has been on my mind a lot recently as I have been working informally with both Self [...]

By: Paul Miller

Paul Miller — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:29:13 +0000

Better World Books is a for-profit social venture that operates just like a business. We receive books via donations, contracts with libraries (business relationships), and purchasing books (thrift and college buyback). We put the books up for sale online and generate funding for our non-profit partners that mostly focus on literacy. We provide them with funding, usually unrestricted, as well as books in some cases. The social impact is baked into the business because we rely on the work of our partners to drive book donations and motivate consumers to purchase our books. Without great non-profit partners this wouldn’t be possible. But as a for-profit entity we are financially sustainable and are still showing and projecting rapid growth. Because of this we have been able to scale much faster than if we were to have gone the non-profit or even hybrid route, and as a result create a much larger social and environmental impact. Of course, the challenge is to stay grounded in and focused on our commitment to our social and environmental mission while continuing to be profitable and financially sound (the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit).

By: Tweets that mention The Social Venture “Scaleability” Model | Lessons I Learned -- Topsy.com

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:12:39 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Daniela Papi – PEPY. Daniela Papi – PEPY said: Should financial sustainability be our goal? Do profitable social ventures exist? A social venture scaleability model: http://bit.ly/3dQ3KN [...]