Google “social enterprise” and you’ll get 2.1 million citations. I kid you not.
So, if you want to be more selective, here’s a quick guide on what we’ve found to be the most useful online sources of practical information about how to succeed with social enterprise (SE). (Full disclosure: I’m affiliated with several that I’ve marked with *’s)
- Social Enterprise Alliance*. North American membership association offers many resources, some available to all, others members only. (Well worth $75, IMHO.)
- REDF. San Francisco based funder that’s probably started and supported more successful SE’s than anyone else. Web site chock full of practical advice.
- Community Wealth Ventures. Washington DC consulting firm founded by Bill Shore; resources include SE database, franchising report, L3C report, and more.
- npEnterprise Forum*. Free, global, 7000+ subscriber listserv focused exclusively on social enterprise. Post a question and you’ll likely get five answers in days.
- IdeaEncore. Many tools and techniques, some free, some for a small fee.
- Rolfe Larson Associates*. Denver consulting firm with a Free Resources section with practical work sheets and templates on starting an SE.
- Free Management Library*. Section on Social Enterprise and Business Planning packed with resources and links about the field. Weekly blogs also.
- Wikipedia. Nowadays every research project has to include Wikipedia, although in this case, it is a bit sparse on practicality.
- RootCause in Boston has an excellent free guide to SE business planning.
- Aperio in Toronto offers some good articles and case studies.
And if you want more, well, you can always go back to those 2.1 million Google citations…