Hi:

Below are brief summaries of organizations that FastCompany deemd to be the
best "social capitalists"; i.e., organizations that solve problems in an
innovative and cost-effective ways.

Peter

Fast Company

Social Capitalists: Profiles

From: Issue 78 | January 2004, Page 50 By: Fast Company

Accion International Entrepreneurship: A- Innovation: A Social Impact: A+
Aspiration: B+ Sustainability: B+ Boston, Massachusetts Maria Otero,
President and CEO www.accion.org

"We have taken traditional banking and turned it inside out," says Maria
Otero, president and CEO of ACCION International. ACCION has pioneered
microfinance--small loans used strategically to seed tiny businesses. Among
its successes:

Teresa, a Bolivian woman whom ACCION helped secure a loan for $100. Teresa
started a business making bread using the mud oven in her one-room house.
Six years and several loans later, Teresa has borrowed again--now for
$2,800--to expand to five mud ovens and a backyard storefront. By forging
partnerships with existing banks or creating new banks, ACCION helps
lenders turn a profit while financing the most humble businesses. In three
decades, it has distributed or enabled more than $5 billion in loans to
more than 3 million people. And 97% have been paid back.

Benetech Entrepreneurship: A Innovation: A- Social Impact: B+ Aspiration:
A- Sustainability: B+ Palo Alto, California Jim Fruchterman, Chief
Executive www.benetech.org

"Our common belief is that information is powerful," says Jim Fruchterman.
"And we try to put information tools into the hands of people who really
need them."

Fruchterman started Benetech in 2000 to focus on new ventures with a
socially conscious bent. The result is an eclectic technology conglomerate
catering to the disadvantaged. Among its newest projects is Martus, a
software program that helps human-rights workers document abuses using
encrypted technology. Bookshare.org allows the visually impaired to
download and listen to 15,000 books in six languages. In the works: a
program that will help teens with disabilities learn to read, land-mine
detectors for civilians, and wireless devices for the disabled.

Benhaven Entrepreneurship: B+ Innovation: A- Social Impact: A Aspiration:
B- Sustainability: B+ North Haven, Connecticut Larry Wood, Executive Director

Through its unique Learning Network, Benhaven has created a model program
to put kids with autism in regular classrooms. Benhaven's staff works with
teachers, parents, peers, and autistic kids themselves to design a vision
for a child's life one year out, and to identify steps necessary to make
that real. The team approach has allowed Benhaven to expand tenfold the
number of clients it touches. That's part of what differentiates it from
other mainstreaming efforts, say experts. For autistic adults, meanwhile,
Benhaven's Real Lives employment program aims to make quality of life a
target outcome--something the rest of the field has yet to embrace.

Citizen Schools Entrepreneurship: B+ Innovation: A Social Impact: A
Aspiration: B+ Sustainability: B Boston, Massachusetts Eric Schwarz,
President and Cofounder www.citizenschools.org

After school, kids can go home and play video games until they can no
longer blink, or they can cruise the streets aimlessly. Or, in nine cities,
they can hang at Citizen Schools, an after-school program designed to teach
children skills that aren't part of their regular curriculum. In two-hour
classes taught by volunteer teacher apprentices, kids study every subject
from law and architecture to cooking and art. Since 1995, Citizen Schools
has expanded to 20 schools across the country and now serves more than
2,000 children. The kids have produced 50 Web sites, written nine
children's books, and designed public spaces and architec-tural designs.

"The teaching apprentices work with kids to make an amazing change," says
cofounder Eric Schwarz. "For the adult, it's a chance to connect with the
energy that kids have, and for the kids, it makes learning real."

City Year Entrepreneurship: B+ Innovation: A Social Impact: A+ Aspiration:
A- Sustainability: A- Boston, Massachusetts Alan Khazei and Michael Brown,
Cofounders www.cityyear.org

Alan Khazei and Michael Brown had a powerful idea while roommates at
Harvard Law School: Recruit diverse young people to devote a year to
community service in exchange for an educational stipend. In 1988, the two
launched a 50-person pilot in Boston. Since then, City Year has grown to 14
sites nationwide, and 6,000 17- to 24-year-olds have logged nearly 11
million hours of service. Now, City Year faces its biggest challenge yet: a
surprise 45% cut in funding, the result of last year's decimation of
AmeriCorps. In response, City Year has limited enrollment to 750 kids, down
from 1,000, for the 2003-2004 program--and, as of early November, it had
only enough money for 550 of them. The setback seems temporary, though;
Congress reinstated funding to support 1,000 corps members next year.

College Summit Entrepreneurship: B+ Innovation: A- Social Impact: A-
Aspiration: B+ Sustainability: B+ Washington, DC J.B. Schramm, CEO and
Founder www.collegesummit.org

Each year, an estimated 200,000 American high school seniors are ready to
go to college but don't. Enter College Summit, which works with schools and
colleges to help low-income students make the leap. In the spring, partner
schools appoint and train influential juniors as peer leaders to work with
teachers to help other students complete college applications. Schools then
share student data with colleges seeking more diverse classes. Now, says
founder J.B. Schramm, 79% of College Summit's participants have enrolled in
college--nearly double the national rate of seniors at the same income
level--and 80% of them have graduated or are still enrolled within six years.

"The young man who is the first in his family to go to college ends poverty
in his family line forever," Schramm says. "It is irreversible progress."

First Book Entrepreneurship: A Innovation: A- Social Impact: A- Aspiration:
A Sustainability: A- Washington, DC Kyle Zimmer, President and Cofounder
www.firstbook.org

"The only difference between First Book and business is what we do with the
product," says Kyle Zimmer, a former corporate lawyer and now president of
the organization, which enables disadvantaged children to own their first
book. "The laws of economics are not suspended when you step into the
nonprofit world."

To that end, First Book has developed partnerships with companies such as
Walt Disney and Lincoln Mercury. First Book gets money; the companies get
publicity. The results: a "pipeline" that supplies books to after-school
programs at poor schools, and the National Book Bank, which distributes
publishers' surplus books through literacy-building programs. In the past
two years, First Book has provided 15 million books in more than 800
communities.

Jumpstart Entrepreneurship: B+ Innovation: B+ Social Impact: B+ Aspiration:
B+ Sustainability: A- Boston, Massachusetts Rob Waldron, President and CEO
www.jstart.org

How do you solve a national teaching shortage and help disadvantaged
preschoolers at the same time? Try a Jumpstart. Jumpstart pairs college
students with 3- to 5-year-olds who need help with reading and social
skills. Its strategy: Give tots one-on-one mentoring, encourage college
students to become teachers, and involve families in their kids' education.
Jumpstart's 1,600-plus student teachers now work with more than 6,000
children in 44 communities. And Jumpstart kids show an average 20%
improvement in reading and social skills. President and CEO Rob Waldron
aims to have 25,000 kids in the program by 2006.

"I hope that in 20 years," he says, "people will look at Jumpstart as they
look at Habitat for Humanity and the Girl Scouts today."

KaBOOM! Entrepreneurship: A- Innovation: B+ Social Impact: A- Aspiration:
A- Sustainability: B Washington, DC Darell Hammond, Founder www.kaboom.org

When he was young, Darell Hammond lived in a Chicago orphanage with seven
brothers and sisters. Now, he's giving kids in hundreds of
"playground-poor" communities a place to play. KaBOOM! works in low-income
neighborhoods to create common space for children and adults. Its projects
start with a design day, when children map out their dream playground. A
neighborhood group spends four months planning construction. Then in a
single, explosive day, residents join with corporate volunteers to build
the new facility. So far, KaBOOM! has completed 576 playgrounds, 6 skate
parks, and 1,300 neighborhood-restoration and park clean-up projects in 43
states.

MicroBusiness Development Corp. Entrepreneurship: B+ Innovation: B+ Social
Impact: A Aspiration: B Sustainability: A- Denver, Colorado Kersten
Hostetter, Executive Director www.microbusiness.org

Soon after Kersten Hostetter became executive director of the MicroBusiness
Development Corp., a teen named Lizard approached her.

"I can make $1,200 a week selling drugs," he said. "What can you offer me?"

A lot, as it turned out. Lizard joined MBD's staff and now mentors other
teens. In addition to helping youths, MBD provides loans and training to
minority and low-income Denver entrepreneurs. Since 1994, it has helped
create 3,278 jobs and disbursed more than $2 million in loans to 550
entrepreneurs. It says 96% of its loans have been repaid, and 464 of its
550 borrowers are still in business. Most important, Hostetter says, MBD
seeds self-sufficiency.

"Our job is, the next time they need a loan, they don't need us," she says.
"That's creating opportunity, not charity."

New Leaders for New Schools Entrepreneurship: A- Innovation: A- Social
Impact: A+ Aspiration: B+ Sustainability: B+ New York, New York Jon Schnur,
Cofounder and CEO www.nlns.org

In his six years working on education for the Clinton administration, Jon
Schnur learned this: Great principals make great schools. So his New
Leaders for New Schools recruits would-be principals to undergo intensive
leadership training, a yearlong residency, and on-site coaching. By the end
of next school year, NLNS will have placed more than 200 principals in
Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, affecting the
education of almost 100,000 kids in urban areas. By 2012, NLNS hopes to
have 2,000 principals and 1 million children nationwide. Says Schnur: "One
day, adults will look at schools that aren't performing and instead of
saying what's wrong with these kids, they'll ask what's wrong with us."

NewSchools Venture Fund Entrepreneurship: B+ Innovation: B+ Social Impact:
A Aspiration: B Sustainability: B Venture Fund San Francisco, California
Kim Smith, Cofounder and CEO www.newschools.org

Kim Smith, a Stanford MBA and CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund, is
determined to make private-public partnerships work for America's sagging
education system. Her model? Venture capital. NewSchools has started two
investment funds, totaling about $65 million, which focus on charter
schools and performance. It has committed $22 million to 11 for-profit and
nonprofit ventures--from GreatSchools.net, an online service offering
performance data to parents, to Teach for America, the well-known nonprofit
that places talented college graduates as teachers in needy schools. To win
investments, groups must show that their projects will have not just
immediate impact, but also longer-term systemic effects. They also have to
prove a viable bottom line.

Room to Read Entrepreneurship: A- Innovation: B Social Impact: A-
Aspiration: A- Sustainability: B+ San Francisco, California John Wood,
Founder and CEO www.roomtoread.org

In 1998, Microsoft executive John Wood, trekking through Nepal, was
dismayed to find a 45 % literacy rate, few schools, and barren libraries.
Two years later, he returned, this time as founder of Room to Read. Since
then, his group has helped build 700 libraries, 63 schools, and 20 computer
and language labs. The organization has donated more than 300,000 books to
villages in Nepal, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam. And it has given 412
scholarships to girls who otherwise couldn't afford to go to school.
Participating villages become co-owners of projects, often providing up to
half the resources.

"My personal goal," Wood says, "is to help 10 million children to gain an
education. I don't see any reason why we need to think small about this."

Share Our Strength Entrepreneurship: A- Innovation: B Social Impact: B+
Aspiration: B+ Sustainability: A- Washington, DC Bill Shore, Founder
www.strength.org

If you don't recognize the name Share Our Strength, you'll certainly
remember its most successful campaign: Charge Against Hunger, wherein a
portion of your restaurant tab went to hunger-fighting causes. With such
campaigns, Share Our Strength has distributed more than $70 million to more
than 1,000 programs in 20 years. Bill Shore, a former staffer for Senators
Gary Hart and Robert Kerrey, founded and still runs SOS. Shore says his
organization creates its own wealth. In other words, he has mastered the
art of partnering for serious profit. Now, with partners ranging from Evian
to Yahoo! (and American Express, which backed Charge Against Hunger), Shore
says he doesn't have to compete with other nonprofits for a share of the
philanthropy pie. Rather, his organization works to expand it.

Working Today Entrepreneurship: A- Innovation: A Social Impact: B+
Aspiration: B Sustainability: B+ Brooklyn, New York Sara Horowitz, Founder
www.workingtoday.org

Working Today acts as an insurance- benefits manager for people who don't
have one. Since 2002, about 4,000 freelancers, part-time employees, and
contractors in New York have tapped into its Portable Benefits Network to
pay insurance rates similar to what full-time employees at big companies
do. Sara Horowitz, Working Today's founder and executive director, says
that as America's employees grow more mobile, their safety nets have become
more porous. Working Today establishes logical groupings of mobile
workers--by geography, industry, or both--to advocate on behalf of members.
It's the next union--and, some argue, the future of the labor market.


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