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.

Vote for Social Entrepreneurship in Google's 10^100 Competition

Here's the story... last year, the folks at Google created a competition called Project 10¹⁰⁰ (pronounced "Project 10 to the 100th"). They asked people for ideas to change the world. People submit thousands of ideas, and Google selects a handful to compete for up to $10 million in funding to implement these ideas. The aim is to help as many people as possible.

This year, Social Entrepreneurship was one of the 16 finalists. We're asking all of our supporters to vote for Social Entrepreneurship before this Thursday, October 8. After you've done that, go ahead and nominate Acumen Fund as an organization Google should fund. Then, spread the word either through Facebook, Twitter or email.

As supporters of Acumen Fund, we believe in the transformative power of social enterprise to alleviate global poverty. Go ahead and vote for Social Entrepreneurship. Your vote could help change the world.

Apply for the Class of 2010-2011 Acumen Fellows

We are excited to announce that the application process for the 2010-2011 Class of Acumen Fund Fellows is now open!

If you know exceptional individuals who should be part of our 2010-2011 class, we hope you will encourage them to apply. Please forward this email liberally throughout your networks so that we reach the strongest and most diverse candidate pool.

Applications will be accepted online until 11:59pm EST on Thursday, November 5, 2009. Detailed information about the program and application process, as well as the bios of current and past fellows, can be found on our website. To apply, or to send more information to others you know who might be interested, please click here.

We are looking for dedicated individuals with the practical skills, the creativity, the empathy and the leadership potential to affect change by leveraging market-based solutions to create social impact. Acumen Fund Fellows are drawn from a pool of talented, passionate people from all geographies, sectors, backgrounds and ethnicities.

Since graduating its first class of Fellows in 2007, the Fellows Program has continued to grow and expand, using the experiences of each class to continue building a unique training curriculum specifically focused on leadership and social enterprises. Fellows Alumni have called the program a life-changing experience, and one that allowed them to build critical business skills and a better understanding of the challenges involved in serving low-income consumers around the world.

We are also excited to welcome our new Class of 2009-2010 Fellows to New York. Over the coming weeks the 2010 Fellows will be training and actively preparing to support Acumen Fund investments. The Fellows have committed to sharing their experiences both from New York and on the ground, so expect to see frequent posts from them on the Acumen Fund blog.