I saw Van Jones speak last week at the Sustainable Industries Forum. It was my first time hearing Van, founder of Green for All and author of the newly released The Green Collar Economy, speak and I have to say that he lived up to the hype. He spoke on three themes: Invent, Invest and Include.

Invent
We need to invent a system where we stop paying the polluters and instead make the polluters pay which can come from a cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions program. The money from the carbon proceeds is taken and invested in jobs, transportation, and new technology. That is when the US will be come a “leader in solutions, not a leader in pollution.”
Invest
We need to invest in greening America which means retrofitting and weatherizing all homes. Green For All and its partners are proposing a Clean Energy Corps that includes a revolving loan fund to finance the ambitious retrofitting of the nation’s building stock. An investment of less than $3 billion per year would provide financing and can be expected to create close to 120,000 green jobs a year and 600,000 over five years, while also lowering home heating and electricity bills for homeowners and small businesses. We also need to develop a smart grid roll-out plan. He said we have “the Saudi Arabia of wind” in the Plains states, and a “Saudi Arabia of solar power” in the Sun Belt, but that so far, we have no way to get that power to our population centers. He said we need breakthroughs in transmission — the wires we use now lose too much along the way — and in storage. An increase in wind turbine production alone could bring massive amounts of individuals, both from the auto and steel industries who have suffered layoffs, back in the working fold.
Include
The green movement needs to move away from the “eco-elite” image. The only way that we are going to effect large scale change is through including all individuals and communities. Weatherizing low income homes through government assistance programs will help individuals through providing jobs in the short term and lowering bills in the long term.

Overall, I walked away from Van’s talk feeling more informed and empowered to educate myself on the green movement and the changes that need to be made to push the fold. Looking forward to reading the book.

NetSquared’s Net2ThinkTank focused this month on an issue I recently raised regarding lesson’s learned from the Obama administration’s use of social media and mobilizing networks, specifically looking at nonprofits, although the answers can also be applied to social enterprises. I thought the most interesting answer was around the use of imagery:

The MixedMedia blog picked up on the DIY message of the Obama campaign - “I have a hunch that more people made more use of Barack Obama’s imagery - and made it their own - that at any time in history. At the same time, more people independently produced more images, videos, songs, raps, apps and sites to promote Barack Obama’s candidacy *in their own voice* than at any other time.I think this is powerful - politically, socially, and culturally.”

The power of an image is amazing. I am reading Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” right now and it talks about the start of the internet revolution, specifically around flickr and the coverage on the tsunami and how much attention that galvanized towards the relief effort. I wonder how the stories we have seen about the image of Obama turned into video, song, poster etc can be applied towards increasing awareness of social enterprises and opportunities. Kiva has given us thousands of faces for microfinance, but who has given imagery to the SME’s and grassroots business organizations that deserve funding? The community built a platform and strategy to disseminate Obama’s image as a method of increasing awareness to his campaign. How do we get the faces of community leaders out to increase awareness of market opportunities, specifically in the developing world?

We’re off to NYC for the Social Capital Markets Mixer. The Mixer will take place in the Refectory at the Desmond Tutu Center in Chelsea. We are almost at capacity for this event, so it should be an energetic and fun night. We look forward to seeing you there!

Event: Social Capital Markets Mixer

Date: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 from 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM (ET)

Hosts: Good Capital, SoCap, and Criterion Ventures

Sponsors: Mission Markets, Growth Philanthropy Network, and City Light Capital

Location:
Desmond Tutu Center
180 10th Ave.
New York, NY

For more information click here: Social Capital Markets Mixer

I recently attended the Full Circle Fund’s annual forum. Sheryl Sandburg, COO of Facebook, was the keynote speaker. The main point of her inspiring address was to remember the “invisible victims” when it comes to philanthropy. Not to detract from the necessity of giving when emergencies arise, but to remember that 250,000 individuals died in the tsunami which brought on an influx of funds and emergency aid in response to the tragedy. Yet, every six weeks, that same amount die of malnutrition across the globe and there is no consistent stream of funds. These are the “invisible victims” that we need to keep in mind. The talk got me thinking about the “invisible investments” that we hope to channel awareness to that can truly affect grand scale change. We need to spread awareness of the opportunity to invest in SME’s and grassroots business organizations. Traditional invesment institution, family offices, wealth advisors must be clear to their clients in sharing information on screened portfolios and new socially responsible investment opportunities. Hopefully someday soon, both the “invisible victims” and “invisible investments” will be seen a lot clearer across the world.

I made the trip to Stanford University’s Center for Social Innovation last week to hear U.S. Business Editor of the Economist and Keynote Speaker at SoCap08 Matthew Bishop talk about his recently released book “Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World.” It was great to hear Matthew speak again. He spoke of particular moments during his interviews with some of the world’s most prominent philanthropists that had a major impact on him. Three examples were relevant to the work that we here at SoCap Media are engaging in and got me thinking:

1. The Importance of Working with Government:Bishop spoke of his interview with Bill Gates who talked to the idea that quickly upon beginning his research into investing in drugs for the developing world, he realized that the major problem was not just improving the drugs, but convincing people to take them. Advocacy and working with government institutions needed to be a major focus area.

2. Emphasizing the “Social” in “Social Capital”: Matthew Flannery of Kiva emphasized that that Kiva has not only become a well-known way to individually micro-lend, but more-so serves as a social networking site around giving. It is an early example of harnessing the power of the masses both to mobilize action while providing a community environment.

3.Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is:It was great to hear audience questions around how socially responsible investing plays into the idea of philanthrocapitalism. A great example that Bishop used to highlight the importance was hearing how Jeff Skoll was in negotiations for his company Participant Media to produce “Fast Food Nation” and made the decision to divest his shares in Young Brands, owners of KFC and Pepsi Co.

Check out South African investment banker Euvin Naidoo as he explains why investing in Africa can make great business sense on Ted.com

Just came across this blog by Mike Lee on Socialedge on Sustainable Capitalism in Emerging Economies. There are some interesting responses on where the private and public sector need to meet in order to create a strong structure for a support system for serving the BOP.

For everyone not in attendance at the Social Finance Forum, happening right now, there are a number of ways to get engaged with the action. Here are a few:

• Twitter feed: Watch sff2008 for microblog on the conference proceedings.  If you’re on Twittering the conference, please tag tweets with sff08.
• Presentations on Slideshare are tagged with sff08.

So far there have been panel conversations around clean/green tech, microfinance, and scaling international dev programs to name a few.

#sff08 BYoung: panel trend: it’s tough to get enough scale to make a BIG difference. It’s creative entrepreneurial ways of finding solutions

#sff08 BKopperson: in europe, the renewable sector is really grassroots. 50% of renewable in Germany is locally owned.

“Although donations and grants are still their primary revenue source, the Girl Scouts sell over 200 million boxes of cookies every year generating a huge amount of earned income and sustainability. One enterprising scout, Jennifer Sharpe from Michigan recently sold a record 17,328 boxes just by setting up shop on a busy street corner. Is Jennifer our next great social entrepreneur?”

This is a great quote from a recent Triplepundit.com post. A topic on my mind lately has been about the power of the masses. The energy devoted by millions into the Obama campaign proved that giving real power to the people and showcasing how they are effecting change on a daily basis works. Now that we’ve got the framework, where does this take us? For the Obama camp, it moves into instilling that same level of commitment into American culture with The Serve America Act and frequent updates and addresses on change.gov. Just as they are changing the structure of political participation, how do we as proponents of changing the structure of business mobilize the masses? We had an interesting meeting with the founder of Virgance last week who has created a for-profit company based around the idea of “Activism 2.0,” mobilizing their networks to support projects such as Carrotmob and One Block Off The Grid. Both of whom rely on community organizers to fuel their particular brand of social change, not just in conversation but physically mobilizing groups to action.

I started website hopping to do a little research on what’s out there, Found Thepoint.com on Change.org. Exciting stuff, Kiva meets Carrotmob model.

I’d love some feedback on this topic. Other than the girl scouts, whose getting it right?

What do incarcerated youth and Oscar-winning producers have in common?

For one thing, both are constituencies served by the Bay Area Video Coalition, one of the four ‘Big Bet Investments’ supported by ZeroDivide that presented at SoCap08 as part of our ‘Pitching in Action’ panel.

All four pitches are now up online in podcast form here. In addition to providing insightful snapshots of the current status of innovating social enterprises, I found the sessions to be interesting examples of how to “pitch a community enterprise venture to potential investors and other entrepreneurs.”

After you give the podcasts a listen here’s my question - If you had $50K to invest in one of the four companies, which one would you pick and why?