“Live-blogging” the Social Enterprise Summit

I am here at the Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) Summit, getting ready to give an armchair keynote with the Lt. Governor of Louisiana, Mitch Landrieu. The Lt. Governor started the first ever Office of Social Entrepreneurship in the country.

I used to be a Social Enterprise Alliance board member, and we at Root Cause have partnered with SEA to develop a Policy Track for this year’s Summit. As I have been walking the halls and chatting with people, I am reminded about the incredible niche the Social Enterprise Alliance has carved out over the past 10 years to support organizations who use earned-income strategies to drive social impact. This model, which is an incredibly powerful tool to sustain change in tough social issues such as workforce development, is one that the government may welcome. Why? Because it might be one of the easier ways to show government that investment in enterprises like these can save taxpayers money while simultaneously dealing effectively with social issues. For more, see the case study in my SBA chapter on ITNAmerica.

More to come…stay tuned!

Andrew Wolk, Root Cause Founder and CEO

Andrew Wolk is the founder and CEO of Root Cause, a nonprofit research and consulting firm in Cambridge, MA that partners with nonprofits, philanthropy, government, and business to advance solutions to today’s toughest social issues. Please visit Root Cause's website at rootcause.org.

Despite the billions of dollars and millions of nonprofit and government programs devoted to addressing social issues here in the United States and abroad, proven innovations often do not spread and endure. Even the most successful programs are only reaching a fraction of the populations in need.

In an era of limited resources that requires leaders in all sectors to do more with less, the future of society’s health and ability to advance depends on tackling today’s challenges in education, health, job creation, and environmental sustainability.

No one organization or sector has the resources to tackle today’s difficult social issues alone. Instead, leaders in nonprofits, philanthropy, government, and business must work together to identify effective solutions. They must also provide access to resources and distribution systems that will lead to widespread impact.

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8 in 10 low-income families cook dinner at home 5X/week. As income decreases, dinner at home increases http://t.co/0Cg0b44y @CookingMatters about 9 hours ago from bitly

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About Andrew

Andrew Wolk is Founder and CEO of Root Cause, a nonprofit organization that advances enduring solutions to social and economic problems by supporting social innovators and educating social impact investors.

He is also a senior lecturer in social entrepreneurship at MIT and was recently appointed a Gleitsman Visiting Practitioner in Social Innovation at David Gergen’s Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University. He holds an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Management from Boston University and a B.A. from Lehigh University.

Andrew Wolk