Innovation Awards

Check out the latest award winners from the Drucker Institute and the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative. These innovative solutions to challenging problems will get your creative juices going.

2008 Drucker Innovation Awards
1st- Kickstart
2nd- Hidden Harvest
3rd.-Calvert Foundation

2008 Social Entrepreneurship Awards

William E. Simon Lifetime Achievement Award: Doe Fund

Social Entrepreneurship award-winners:
Careers through Culinary Arts Program

Girls Educational and Mentoring Services

Beacon Hill Village


St. Bernard Project


Center for Neighborhood Enterprise

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Good Job is the Best Way to Fight Poverty

Image
That fact has formed the foundation of my career leading Belay Enterprise's over the last 18 years. I have seen first-hand how good jobs in faithful organizations transform lives.

Employment helps people move beyond the problems of being disadvantaged. It ends homelessness and prevents individuals from returning to prison. It allows people to support their families and engage in the creativity God intends for all to enjoy through work.

Work also provides the environment for people to learn about God in faithful businesses.

Since 1994, Belay Enterprises' mission has been to partner with the church to start businesses that employ and job train individuals rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison. Over the past 24 years, Belay has incubated six projects in Colorado that have hired hundreds of individuals.

At different points over the years, Belay has set various goals of starting a certain number of businesses by a future date. But increasingly we realize that t…
Read more

Catherine Rohr's Excellent Argument for Hiring Ex-Offenders

I was excited to see Catherine Rohr's essay "Why You Should Hire Ex-Cons" in Inc today. She makes a wonderful case that I hope many employers will read. I've long hoped the case for ex-offender employment would start getting a wider audience.

As I've written before, employers need not fear hiring ex-offenders. They provide a excellent source of dedicated workers desiring to move beyond the mistakes of their past.

And while you are at it, check out the great work Rohr's organization Defy Ventures is  doing in NYC.

Many business owners have overlooked a great source of untapped talent: former inmates. Many former drug dealers and gang leaders have skills and attributes you value most in employees, including charisma, resourcefulness, resilience, a willingness to take calculated risks, and strong management skills.  "Why You Should Hire Ex-Cons," Catherine Rohr in Inc, June 25, 2012 Read rest of the story here.
Read more

Five Things I've Learned in Business as Mission

Image
For the last 18 years, I have been working in the challenging world of business as mission at Belay Enterprises. Someone recently asked me what would make up my list of five important lessons for a faith venture. As a reminder, I define a faith venture as a for-profit or non-profit business that creates employment and opportunity for a disadvantaged population. In no particular order, here’s my list:

1. Let the business lead the ministry- A faith venture has two bottom lines. It seeks business profits in order to support itself and grow. It also hopes to change lives by accomplishing its ministry. The great danger is that sometimes these two goals conflict with each other. In certain cases pursuing the mission will cost the mission and vice versa. I believe that if one is pursuing a Christ-centered business then all of business is ministry. So it then becomes acceptable to let the business lead the ministry because without a focus on the bottom-line this unique ministry …
Read more