Social Entrepreneurship

Echoing Green has some exciting news for all you social change techies! The Tech Awards is now accepting nominations for 2010.

Less than a month remains to support a number of great ideas in the Unreasonable Finalist Marketplace.

The 2010 PopTech Social Innovation Fellows Program application is now open!

PopTech is looking to invest in the leadership of people with big ideas and innovative solutions to economic, environmental, and social challenges. PopTech Social Innovation Fellows recieve training from influential, prominent leaders in the social sector. Additionally, fellows participate in the annual PopTech conference (October 20-23, Camden, ME) where ideas and inspiration are spread.

We have exciting news for those with ideas for social change. Pepsi will be giving away up to $1.3 million dollars in grants each month to support initiatives of any size.

The Corporation for National and Community Service released a Draft Notice of Funds Available for the Social Innovation Fund. The Social Innovation Fund was designed by 2009 Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act to create new solutions to pressing social challenges.

Fify million dollars will be awarded to five to seven intermediary organizations that will then disperse the awards to community organizations working in the areas of economic opportunity, youth development and school supports, and healthy futures.

In the past week, two articles challenged previous assumptions about two of the hottest topics in social entrepreneurship: microfinance and charter schools. Tim Harford writes about the backlash microfinance receives in "Perhaps microfinance isn’t such a big deal after all," which was published in the December 5th edition of the Financial Times.

October seems to be a hot month for inspirational and innovative philanthropic projects!  Here are three new initiatives that caught our attention this week:

Google's Project 10 to the 100

We’re less than one month away from The Feast conference on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 in New York City.  The conference is organized by the fine folks at All Day Buffet and Echoing Green is proud to be a sponsor.  

What is The Feast?

The Feast Conference gathers the world's greatest innovators from across industries and society to empower, inspire and engage each other in creating world-shaking change.

Are you a twitterer? Do you tweet? Are you twitty? If you think I’m writing in a foreign language, you need to join Twitter, a social networking service that’s taking the internet by storm. We know how fast paced the nonprofit and social entrepreneurship fields are, so we’ve compiled a list of twittering Echoing Green Fellows to help you stay updated. Follow them and see how they are sparking social change around the world!

Doug Ulman
Livestrong
1999 Echoing Green Fellow
@LivestrongCEO

We’re thrilled to be a part of the new Jobs for Change website launched last week by Change.org.   The site features job postings from nonprofits, government, and social enterprises as well as blog posts and career advice.  The site is useful, easy to navigate, and it looks really really great.  Congratulations to the team that put this together! We look forward to building a movement together that values careers with meaningful impact.