Social Entrepreneurship Panel at Stanford

E-Week Schedule, Feb 24 - March 3

About 100 people gathered to hear about social entrepreneurship at Stanford's Wallenberg Hall, spilling out of the Peter Wallenberg Learning Theater and into the hallway.

Three leading executives from foundations that support the work of social entrepreneuers shared their insights into funding social entreprenuership projects.

The panelists included Lance Henderson, Vice President of Program and Impact for the Skoll Foundation, Kevin Jones, Principal of Good Capital, and Jenny Shiling Stein, Executive Director, of the Draper Richards Foundation.

Despite a malfunctioning microphone, there was a lively discussion.

Ms. Shiling Stein talked about the convergence of non-profit, business and government work in the growing social entrepreneurship field.

Shiling Stein also warned social entrepreneurs that the beginning stages of their work can be risky. "It's quite a hard, bumpy road. You're working with a big question mark," Stein said. But she also said that it can be very exciting to work with "daring folks from the very beginning."

Stein added that the Draper Richards Foundation looks to fund organizations that "from day one are thinking about how they are going to structure themselves for broad impact."

"You gotta sell [your idea], you gotta fundraise, and you gotta get the most capital," Stein said. "You have to be able to sell your vision."

"The nonprofit sector is tough because everytime you go into a funder's office you have to say, 'It is essential that I have this money,'" Stein said.

Lance Henderson said that the Skoll Foundation's mission is to support "academic institutions, practitioner communities, and [to provide] an enabling environment" for social entrepreneurs. "We're looking for 'the holy grail' of massive systemic change for the section that [the entrepreneur] is working in."

Kevin Jones added that Good Capital is "sort of like venture philanthrophy meets venture capital." Good Capital, he said, expects a return on the initial investment. "We give them the money, and people get the money back to do more good," Jones said.

Good Capital, Jones said, funds companies that are working on projects such as the digital divide and providing clean water to villages.

A member of the audience that previously worked at National Geographic expressed a skeptical attitude towards the social entrepreneur field. "We've already been doing this for a long time," she said.

"I don't think there's any intention to dismiss [people] that have already done astonishing work in the field," said Henderson.

Kriss Deiglmeier, Executive Director of Stanford's Center for Social Innovation, added that although this work has been happening in the non-profit sector for many years, the social entrepreneurship field started in the 1980s and 1990s.

Deiglmeir said in Silicon Valley, "a myriad of factors" came together to push social entrepreneurship to the forefront. One of the factors she pointed to was the emphasis of business principles on doing social good.