Showing posts with label civic ventures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civic ventures. Show all posts

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Building a Pipeline of Next Gen Social Investors

Building a Pipeline of Next Gen Social Investors is the heart of Fast Forward Fund. So what infrastructure do we need to build this? What tools do we have? what's missing? One cool new tool getting attention in the social change ecosystem is the recently launched Social Entrepreneur API. Check it out and join the discussion on Social Edge!

Developed by Social Actions (full disclosure: led by one of my favorite colleagues, Peter Deitz), the Social Entrepreneur API is "the first open database of information about social entrepreneurs who have won fellowships and awards from social enterprise funders. The tool allows philanthropists, investors, press, and fellow entrepreneurs to find social entrepreneurs based on keyword, location, cause area, population served, and a variety of other factors." "Civic Ventures (sponsor of The Purpose Prize), The Draper Richards Foundation, ideablob, PopTech, The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and The Skoll Foundation have pooled their data to create an open database of information about vetted social entrepreneurs. "

Sounds good in theory; how does it hold up in practice? To answer that question, let me call on next gen social investors to play around w/Social Entrepreneur API ! From your perspective, how is it helpful? how could it be more helpful? how could it inform and advance the efforts of social investors? Tell us how to shape this pipeline!