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For Social Enterprises
Ashoka »Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, we have elected over 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries.
Dell Social Innovation Competition »
The RGK Center at The University of Texas and Dell are looking for college students worldwide with ingenious ideas to change the world. Dream up a plan that combines creativity and innovation to tackle a pressing social issue, and you can win $50,000 to put your plan into action!
Echoing Green »
To accelerate social change, Echoing Green invests in and supports outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organizations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions. Through a two-year fellowship program, we help our network of visionaries develop new solutions to society’s most difficult problems.
Global Giving »
Unlike a traditional foundation, GlobalGiving does not directly offer grants or support. GlobalGiving uses its website to connect individual and institutional donors directly to social, environmental and economic development projects around the world via our "public" website, www.globalgiving.com. Potential donors can browse and select from a wide offering of projects, organized by geography or by themes such as health care, the environment, and education. GlobalGiving markets these projects through a number of channels, including corporations, employee giving campaigns, and direct consumer marketing partnerships. When donors come to GlobalGiving, they can find and fund projects that meet their diverse interests.
Global Social Venture Competition »
The purpose of GSVC is to actively support and promote the creation and growth of successful social ventures around the world. We define a social venture as an enterprise that has both financial and social goals integral to its purpose. Grand Prize: $25,000 2nd Place Prize: $10,000 3rd Place Prize: $5,000
Knight News Challenge »
We’re giving away around $5 million in 2009 for the development and distribution of neighborhood and community-focused projects, services, and programs.
Skoll Awards »
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship support social entrepreneurs whose work has the potential for large-scale influence on critical challenges of our time: environmental sustainability, health, tolerance and human rights, institutional responsibility, economic and social equity, and peace and security. These issues are at the heart of the foundation’s vision of empowering people to create a peaceful, prosperous, sustainable world.
Stanford BASES Social E-Challenge »
The Social E-Challenge is a business plan competition for entrepreneurial ventures whose primary goal is to effect social and/or environmental change. Participants range from for-profit businesses with a strong sense of social responsibility to nonprofits with sustainable revenue-generation models. The common denominator is that these companies seek to have a positive impact on our society and/or the environment. Social E-Challenge provides participants with $50,000 in final round prizes, as well as the resources and training to launch their startups, which include workshops, mixers, speakers, a mentorship program, and individual feedback from renowned judges.
Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial New Venture Competition »
Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Conference is focused on early-stage new ventures. The primary purpose of the New Venture Competition is to provide entrepreneurs of African descent the opportunity to present their ideas for growth companies to an illustrious panel of investors and venture capitalists. The top team will receive $10,000, while the 2nd and 3rd place teams will receive $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.
For Technology Start Ups
BootUp Labs »Bootup Labs is a startup accelerator in Vancouver, BC that helps founders and companies go "from zero to fundable." Bootup Labs recruits and supports promising entrepreneurs and provides mentorship, ongoing support and office space to help define their business and secure venture financing. Our nine-month mentoring and support program is designed to help you get to the next level with your company, and prepare you to receive your first round of funding. Read more about Bootup Labs, or contact us if you're ready to start talking to us about how we can help.
DreamIt Ventures »
The DreamIt Managing Partners have been investing in early stage companies since they sold the companies they started. In the last few years we have become enthusiastic about how quickly and inexpensively great companies can be launched. At the same time we have seen some very talented people with great ideas struggle to pull the pieces together and get over the startup hump. With the help and support of entrepreneurs, technologists, prominent law and accounting firms, angel investor groups and venture capital firms, DreamIt Ventures was born. Our goal at DreamIt is simple: Help great people with great ideas build great companies.
LaunchBox »
LaunchBox Digital is a place for cutting-edge ideas and cutting-edge talent. LaunchBox Digital helps entrepreneurs maximize their chance of success and get through the challenging early days of starting a new business.
Seedcamp »
At Seedcamp, we believe Europe has the talent, the role models, and the capital founders need to succeed. We want to provide a catalyst for the next generation of great entrepreneurs and help you take risks, think big, and succeed. Participating in Seedcamp will give you enormous validation and access to a world-class network of advisors to help you with every aspect of your business, plus a direct route to seed and venture capital.
TechStars »
TechStars only accepts about twenty companies each summer (about ten in Boulder, and about ten in Boston). In Boulder last year, 393 companies applied and ten were accepted. Getting in is hard, and it means something special. TechStars fills the startup funding gap by providing just enough capital to get your idea off the ground. Your new company receives up to $18,000 in seed funding.
Y Combinator »
Y Combinator is a new kind of venture firm specializing in funding early stage startups. We help startups through what is for many the hardest step, from idea to company. We invest mostly in software and web services. And because we are ourselves technology people, we prefer groups with a lot of technical depth. We care more about how smart you are than how old you are, and more about the quality of your ideas than whether you have a formal business plan.
Good To Great Book Summary
The best business book I know of
Built To Last Book Summary
The second best business book I know of
Think And Grow Rich Full Book
Napoleon Hill's classic on spiritual, mental, physical, and financial wealth
Think And Grow Rich Workbook
A workbook based on Napoleon Hill's famous book
As A Man Thinketh Full Book
James Allen's book on the power of thoughts
Tribe Book Summary
Seth Godin's insights on building community
What's the point of progress?
I just saw Gandhi the movie last weekend at it reminded me of a quote he once said that "There's more to life than increasing its speed." He was more of a Flintstone. When you think about it, as children we were caught between the Flinstones and Jetsons. Somewhere in the middle of the stone age and the future, we had to to make conscious choice about which way we wanted to go. Was it cooler to have a car that you pedaled or a craft that flies? Was it cooler to eat a huge mammoth rib or a small pill that tasted like one? Was it cooler to have a dinosaur named Dino to lick the dishes or a robotic maid named Rosey to handle the dirty work?
So the 21st century is here and it appears that we've chosen the path of the Jetsons - bigger and faster is better. Despite our "progress" as a world, has anything really changed? Are we any better off within as people because of the technologies without? Where the hell are we rushing to or are we rushing to hell?
I've been rushing my whole life. I came out the womb a month early. I finished college a year early. I finished business school 4 years earlier than average. Now it's time to slow down. As a child I ate Flintstones vitamins. Symbolically, I think there are parts of the Flintstone's lifestyle that are healthy. I'm afraid that the world is going nowhere fast and we need to find a healthy balance between the Flintstones and the Jetsons. Our measurements of progress as individuals (ie income, materials) and a planet (ie economy, GDP) need to be reconsidered. More dollar bills don't mean we're build-ing and speed isn't always the best indicator of quality.
In-come is usually defined as the economic means someone earns through working and creating value. We typically earn in-come for some particular (expected) out-come. For me, in-come transcends money. In-come is the spiritual resource I allow to be poured into my soul so that I can create powerful out-comes in the world.
In July, I am preparing to leave my job and I won't be making an income. As the same time, I hope to produce powerful outcomes. I believe that the outcomes that I want to create in the world can only manifest if I let go of income and everything I had to do to earn it in order to create a clearing for those new outcomes by freeing my time. At this point, I must substitute my financial income with a spiritual in-come that feeds my creative Spirit which I have faith will result in financial income in the long term.
What's Your Highest Personal Velocity?
Manage (Your) Time. Make Money.
Whoever said “Time is money” has significantly impacted the consciousness of American and world culture for better or for worse. Unfortunately they were wrong...time is not money. Money is just one way to store value created with time. Yes…you can spend, save, invest, and waste both time and money, but you can’t save time for later like money nor can you buy time with money. The richest person in the world can not buy an additional 100 years of life. When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go (healthcare or no healthcare...Whole Foods or no Whole Foods).
We talk about time and money management without truly knowing what time and money are. How can we manage something we can’t even define? I define money as a mechanism created by us to measure and store our ability to create value. To me, time is a mechanism created by us to measure our ability to condense the space between two events (event #1: where someone/thing is and event #2: where someone/thing wants to be).
In the same way that we pay a premium for airplanes, trains, and cars according to the velocity (distance/time) in which they can condense physical spaces, other people (ie clients) and organizations (ie employers) will pay you for helping them get from point A to point B financially, organizationally, spiritually, mentally, etc. If you are able to powerfully close space between two events (aka your velocity) for yourself, another person, or another entity, you will create value, which you can store for later use as money. Airplanes use the sky. Trains use tracks. And cars use roads. Therefore, in order for us to create and capture the most value we can and get rich (spiritually, financially, etc), we must become aware of where our personal velocity is the highest and stay on that path.
Climbing the Corporate Ladder and Waiting Until Later
research by Srully Blotnick 1960 to 1980
A survey of 1500 MBA students taken prior to graduation
| Number | Millionaires | Millionaires |
Make money & then do what I love | 1245 (83%) | 1 | 0.08% |
Do what I love | 255 (17%) | 100 | 39.2% |
Instead of rising rapidly in the beginning and flattening out later, the earnings curves of most those who eventually become millionaires was the reverse; their income increased slowly, if at all, for many years. And then after two to three decades, it suddenly went through the roof. The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing. The long term study of people who eventually become wealthy clearly reveals that their ''Luck'' arouse from the accidental dedication they had to an area they enjoyed. -Srully Blotnick
