NYfA First Annual Holiday Party - 12/9

This year has been a great success for New York for Acumen (NYfA), so it's time to celebrate, learn more about our community, and plan for the year ahead.

Come join us on Wednesday, December 9 from 6-9pm at the Bubble Lounge for NYfA's First Annual Holiday Party! The event will include happy hour drink specials, raffle prizes, and the opportunity to speak one-on-one with a member from our leadership team about how you can get more involved with NYfA.

2010 is going to be a very active year, and as a group of talented and passionate New Yorkers dedicated to advancing the mission of Acumen Fund, we are excited about what we can achieve next year.

We are incredibly grateful for your ongoing support and look forward to seeing you next week.

Details:

NYfA First Annual Holiday Party

Wednesday, December 9, 6-9pm

The Bubble Lounge (228 West Broadway) - Map

Suggested Donation: $10

*Please note that this blog will not be in use in approximately one month. All future NYfA communications will be posted on the Acumen Fund community site.

NY Chat Series with Founder & Director of The Ayllu Initiative, Melissa Richer - Nov 11th

Come join us on Wednesday, November 11^th at 7:30pm to learn about the challenges and successes of founding your own non-profit or social venture. Melissa Richer, Founder and Director of The Ayllu Initiative, will discuss her decision to move to Brazil and found The Ayllu Initiative, a non-profit that brings together mature social enterprises with local microfinance organizations to provide microfranchising in low-income markets: a high-impact market-based solution to poverty.

Over the past year, Melissa has navigated the process of gaining official 501(c)(3) status, gathering a core union of donors and supporters, working to build sustainable revenue streams, leveraging the talents of friends who have wanted to help, and working directly in an emerging economy where her initial contacts were limited. She will be sharing her experiences, successes and struggles of founding a sustainable social enterprise and offering advice to those seeking to do the same.

Space is limited. To attend, please RSVP to NYchatSeries@gmail.com.

After the Chat Series there will be an open networking session that anyone is welcome to attend and interact with others sharing a similar vision of founding a non-profit or social enterprise.

Details:
Wednesday, November 11th, 7:30pm
Jimmy's 43
43 East 7th Street (between 2nd & 3rd Avenue on the North side of the Street) MAP
$10 at the door
Limited to 30 attendees

New Yorkers: WE NEED YOUR HELP!

So often, many of you ask what you can do to help Acumen Fund. Well, right now the answer is easy:

HELP US RAISE $10,000 by December 31, 2009.

As the founding chapter in a global web of volunteers for Acumen Fund, we here at New York for Acumen Fund (NYfA - formerly the Young Professionals) want to show the rest of the world that when it comes support, we are the best. Not only are we committed to spreading the word about the work of Acumen Fund, but also we actively raise critical funds for transformative businesses across the globe.

To make it easy for you, we’re using a great website called First Giving that lets you create your own fundraising page that you can send to friends, family, colleagues – whomever! Click on this link to set up your page: www.firstgiving.com/acumenfund (click Get Started, then New York for Acumen Year End Campaign).

AND – the person who raises the most funds by November 15 will be invited to attend the evening cocktail party during Acumen Fund’s Annual Investor Gathering on November 17 in New York City.* This is an incredible opportunity for anyone interested in meeting, greeting, and networking with the contemporary leaders in social enterprise, and the brilliant investors whose support keeps Acumen up and running and changing lives.

Since our fundraising efforts will go through the end of the year, the person who raises the most funds by December 31 will be featured on Acumen Fund’s blog for all the world to see!

Like Acumen Fund, we encourage innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit, so feel free to get as creative as you want. Please be sure to include the acronym NYfA in the body of your page so we can track your progress! www.firstgiving.com/acumenfund

Fundraising is not as difficult as it seems, and any funds raised will greatly support Acumen's work in providing sustainable solutions to global poverty. Consider some of these ideas:

• Give up your birthday and ask friends/family to donate instead!


• Ask for contributions based on the number of miles you run, bike, or swim – for fun or in a race!


• Tie it into the theme of Thanksgiving and ask friends to give!


• Throw a party and display a donation box or ask friends to bring a contribution instead of wine!


• Link your FirstGiving page to your status update on Facebook and Twitter accounts for a day (or week, or month…)


• Consider giving up Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or any other holiday that falls between now and 12/31/09**

Happy Fall, Happy Fundraising, and THANK YOU in advance for all your help in supporting Acumen Fund.

--The New York for Acumen Fund Leadership Team
(Bryan Brady, Mark Disston, Seth Nemeroff, Theos Stamoulis, Wendy Wecksell, and Nina Sharma West)

PS - if you need any help with your fundraising page, or have any fundraising-related quesitons, please contact Nina at ninaswest@gmail.com. Thanks!

PPS - don't forget to join NYfA's community page - community.acumenfund.org/group/NYfA - to share ideas, stay in the loop, meet other NYfA members!

*Cocktail Party admission for winner only. Transportation will not be provided.
**The contest for the cocktail party ends on November 15th, but we have until December 31 to raise the full $10,000.

Grants & Other Resources for Social Entrepreneurs

Social entrepreneurs are always looking for new opportunities to make an impact. The NCIIA (National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance) is an invaluable resource for university entrepreneurs (both students and faculty) looking for the training, funding and mentoring needed to build successful, socially beneficial businesses. E-Team grants and Venture Well are two particular initiatives that will help the next generation of social entrepreneurs transform their ideas into solid ventures:

E-Team Grants

E-Team grants - of up to $20,000 - support commercial outcomes by moving innovative products from the idea stage to prototype and eventually to market. The next deadlines for applications are December 4, 2009 and May 7, 2010. All E-Team grantees attend an Advanced Invention to Venture workshop and receive a further eight weeks one-on-one coaching (via phone) to gain more expertise and knowledge in entrepreneurship and venture development. See www.nciia.org/grants/eteam for more information or contact Jennifer Keller Jackson at jkjackson@nciia.org

Venture Well

Venture Well works to accelerate the growth of start-ups emerging from the university environment, by providing intensive mentoring and, in some cases, investment funding. Each year we work with a small number of student ventures that show the potential to have a positive social impact on the world. For more information, visit www.venturewell.org.

YP Name Change & New Acumen Fund Online Community

We wanted to make you aware of two exciting changes regarding Acumen Fund!

Firstly, we have formed a formal New York for Acumen Chapter (NYfA)! After discussions with the YP (now NYfA) leadership team and AF staff, we concluded that in order to be more inclusive of supporters who may not be young professionals and to be more reflective of our geography. Please note that the new email address for NYfA is NewYorkforAcumen@gmail.com, should you have any questions that you would like to ask the leadership team or AF.

If you are not in the New York area, don’t worry! Acumen Fund has created an Online Community on the Ning platform. It will evolve into a hub for all NYfA and AF communications and we will be transitioning the blog and email list to this site between now and January 2010, so we encourage you to sign up now.

We will continue to blog/ post announcements on the community site regarding NY related happenings and other groups are forming too! We have created a New York for Acumen Group as has the San Francisco for Acumen (SFfA) Chapter, along with volunteer groups in London and Dubai. You too can feel free to start a volunteer group or even start an official Chapter. To learn more about starting an official Acumen Fund Chapter in your area, read more about it here.

To begin using the Online Community is easy:

· First, sign-up!It takes 2 minutes to set up a basic profile

· Join NYfA (New York for Acumen) or other groups

· Introduce yourself and tell us why you joined the group

· Pose a question to the Acumen Fund community on the Forum page

In addition, you can announce an event, post photos, and find people who share a common passion for the work of Acumen Fund.

As a YP you are getting an early invite to the Community site, which will be launched in about a week. Since the site is still very new, please feel free to post a comment on our feedback forum or out to Jo-Ann Tan jtan@acumenfund.org for ways that we could improve the site.