Fellowship

These days, a lot of us talk big about failure: "Embrace it; share it; learn from it!" Funders (or at least some) are pushing for more transparency so that money can be allocated more effectively. Young people are beginning to take more risks, some that may lead to some big fails, to help find a career with meaning. FailFAIRE takes the notion of "learning from your failures" to a whole new level.

You can tell you’re going to have “one of those days” pretty early on. Before 9 AM, I had forgotten to bring shorts to the gym (so I worked out in pants), forgotten my cell phone charger (and my phone ran out of battery as soon as I got to work) and as I got ready to make my morning coffee, I spilled the grounds all over the kitchen (when that all happens before 9 AM, you should probably go home and start over).

We're gearing up for this year's Fellowship selection cycle. On Monday, December 5, 2011, we'll open up the 2012 application process. For all you budding social entrepreneurs out there, you'll have until January 9, 2012 to submit your social change business plans. We love this time of year—we get so inspired by the passion, commitment and visionary thinking expressed through the fellowship applications. So bring it!!!

Congrats to the thirty social entrepreneurs featured in Forbes’ Impact 30 list of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Echoing Green is thrilled to see six of our Fellows as well as board member Andrew Kassoy on the list of leaders in social change.

In the current economic environment pretty much every American is trying to increase their savings and reduce their debts. My friend and I started wondering how we could make that easier in a different way.

For a late summer outing, the Echoing Green team recently made an exciting site visit to 2008 Echoing Green Fellow Jessamyn Waldman’s Hot Bread Kitchen.

Our blogpost, Where are the Women?, caused quite a reaction! It obviously struck a nerve and raised a number of questions about gender, social change, and why it matters.

Steve Jobs is an awe-inspiring failure. Truly, an inspiration to failures everywhere. Because when Steve Jobs fails, his success is undeniable.

As Jobs retires from his position as the CEO of Apple, I am reminded of his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University. That day, Jobs listed some of his favorite failures—dropping out of college, being fired from Apple at the age of 30, and the apparent failure of his body in the face of a terrifying cancer diagnosis.

Over the last several years, Echoing Green has seen a decrease in the number of women Fellows selected relative to men. The last six out of seven Fellowship classes have been majority male and the past two years have seen a particularly sharp dip in women Fellows.

This has us thinking. What’s going on?

Ruth DeGolia was among the first Echoing Green Fellows I met. And one of the youngest too. Walking beside her seven years ago, I saw in Ruth an extraordinary trait that I have since witnessed in each of the social entrepreneurs Echoing Green supports: Ruth had the fierce determination that she had to do her work. For Ruth, "the work" was to launch Mercado Global with her Yale classmate, Benita Singh.