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Continuing our interview series, Ashoka Peace interviews Daniel Lubetzky, serial peace entrepreneur who is creating new models for bridging the for-profit and non-profit worlds, and showing our peacebuilding can be financially sustainable.

1. What is the innovation you are pioneering? What are you doing that nobody else is doing and why?

What we like to do is to build models where business and social interests are totally aligned and reinforce one another. It is not easy to do.  A lot of the area of “corporate social responsibility” is structured around perceived sacrifices to the bottom line in order to address other important societal objectives.  The fun stuff comes when you are able to innovate through ventures whose financial and social objectives reinforce one another. 

At PeaceWorks Foods, a “not-ONLY-for-profit” company, for 15 years now we have been fostering peace through business.  The more our venture partners sell and make money, the more they cement and deepen relations.  At KIND Healthy Snacks, we aim to inspire “not so random” acts of kindness, building a brand while doing kind acts for others.  Instead of spending money on ads, we invest in doing nice things for others, including giving them KIND bars, and asking them to pass it on. At OneVoice, we use business practices and mechanisms to deepen our impact and better develop the human infrastructure of this civic movement designed to empower Palestinians and Israelis who want to end the conflict.

2. What has been the biggest obstacle that you have overcome so far, and how did you go about doing so?

Getting started is always the hardest part in every venture; first you need to convince yourself that you can make things work; you need to be skeptical and do thorough research; then if you are sure you can do it, then you need to switch to an evangelist mode and be doggedly determined to turn your ideas in to a reality, no matter the challenges or the naysayers.  With each venture I have started, looking back it all makes sense, but when it didn’t exist a lot of people wondered if it made sense or if people would ever be a part of it.

3. At what point in your life did you realize that you simply had to do this? What was your personal turning point?

When I was a kid and I learned about how my father went through the Holocaust, I felt the weight and responsibility of fighting to ensure that nothing like that happens to other human beings again.

In addition to the above links, read more about Dan's work with the KIND Movement here, and the Peaceworks blog here.

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard

Here at the Unreasonable Institute, we are pretty happy to have the sort of open communication where we can handle and where we welcome critical feedback. You’ll routinely hear Unreasonable Institute President Daniel Epstein say “Here’s my idea. Now destroy it.” Still, as open as we want to be to criticism, one thing all of us have to consciously overcome is doubt. Wow, we hate doubt.

As startup founders, you’re bound to face crippling doubt from both people who have no idea what they’re talking about and people who are experts. You’re putting yourself out there with an incredible idea, and no one is funding you. Possibly no one is even listening to you. It’s incredibly frustrating and it’s pretty difficult to “adapt the world to yourself” when you feel like you can’t bend the world to your will. So if you’re facing scathing skepticism, just keep these 3 stories in mind:

1) A German Greek Grammar teacher named Joseph Degenhart told the father of one his 7th grade students “It doesn’t matter what he does, he will never amount to anything.” That student was Albert Einstein.

2) A Management Professor at Yale told Fred Smith, a business student who wrote a paper proposing an overnight delivery service, “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” Smith went on to start Fedex.

3) In 1962, The Decca Recording Company turned away a band looking to put together an album, saying “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” That band was The Beatles.

If someone tells you what you’re doing will never work…well, it just might be one of the most incorrect statements in history.

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Landmines continue to take human lives far after a war has ended. For example, when war in Monzambique ended there were thought to be 3 million unexploded landmines. After wars end, innocent citizens are the most affected by strategically placed landmines.

Ashoka Fellow Bart Weetjens (who is also a Buddhist monk) has a unique solution to the problem of unexploded landmines. It involves local resources...rats! Bart's landmine detection business, APOPO, trains African Giant Pounched rats, who are highly resourceable, adaptable and intelligent creatures with a great sense of smell. These qualities make rats, who have been conditioned to associate the smell of the chemical explosive with a food reward, the best positioned to sniff out the TNT in landmines. In 2009 alone, APOPO made safe 700,000 square meters of land (about 127 football fields). Bart's work not only gets rid of landmines, but also reduces fear towards landmines among local populations. Check out how APOPO's landmine detection model works in the video below.

Bart Weetjens is not the only Ashoka Fellow dealing with the issue of landmines and war victims. After stepping on a landmine on a camping trip in Israel and losing his leg, Ashoka Fellow Jerry White has devoted his life to creating a victim-free world by transforming passive victims into active survivors and leaders.

Since 80% of war victims are civilians, it is essential that civilians stand up in the effort to end war. With the belief that those who survive war are most invested in building peace, Jerry created the Survivor Corps network, which shows survivors how they can rebuild their lives and communities in order to break free of the cycle of victimization. According to the philosophy of Survivor Corps, landmines and legs are ‘things’; Survivor Corps rejects the importance of them in relation to people and survival in an effort to systemically break down the concept of the “victim”. Jerry’s work has been instrumental in organizing the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), for which Jerry was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

PHOTO CREDITS: Xavier Rossi and Sylvain Piraux

Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good" speech. Ayn Rand's arch-individualist anti-heroes. If these are the cultural artifacts of entrepreneurs' pasts, a new viral video called "The New Dork" is poised to become entrepreneurship's new anthem.

"The New Dork - Entrepreneurship State of Mind" is a play on Jay-Z and Alicia Keys's "Empire State of Mind," and is all about how today's geeks -- through a new web site, well-placed Google ads and venture funding, can become the envy of, well -- everyone.

The video was sponsored by Grasshopper, a company that provides phone tools for entrepreneurs and, more broadly, participates in programs to increase entrepreneurial interest. For this video, they partnered with video comedy group the Pantless Knights to produce the spoof.

There are a few reasons this hits the zeitgeist perfectly, and is a great new anthem for entrepreneurship:

1. It puts the joy of doing what you love at the center of what "entrepreneurship" means: The story of entrepreneurship in this video is individuals building businesses around doing what they love. That's the right message for the moment.

2. It's genuinely funny: No one would care about this if it didn't wasn't actually well-done and funny. It was a really smart move for Grasshopper to work on this with a comedy group with a lot of experience in this medium.

3. The piece is itself an example of the creative "all-bets-off" reality of today's entrepreneurial landscape: This video is total "link-bait." In other words, it was commissioned by Grasshopper at least in part so blogs like this one (or more accurately, TechCrunch) would write about them. Mission accomplished. This is so much more interesting and creative than other forms of "advertising," and it could provide huge brand value and perhaps even lead generation for Grasshopper's core products. Put simply, the video's not just about the New Dork, it itself IS the New Dork. Enjoy:

I've been to half a dozen panel discussions related to philanthropy in the past few months, and here's what is talking about: the "new normal." What they seem to mean is that philanthropy was rocked pretty hard last year -- along with everything else -- and it will never be the same. But while I don't delight in the tragic losses so many people are experiencing in the economic crisis, I do like it when the status quo goes out the window.

So, what should nonprofits strive for in this period of "new normal" adjustment?

1. Collaboration: Donors need to see their dollar go further, and they want to know you’re not operating in isolation. Trent Stamp, founding president of Charity Navigator and current Executive Director of the Eisner Foundation said that when he first started at Eisner, he plotted every organization making a grant request on a map and couldn't believe the duplication of services that existed in such proximity. It pays to do a reality check (aka ego-check) before your prospective donors do it for you and see how you can share resources with your neighbors who are trying to do something good too.

2. Relationships: Technology is not a substitution for face-to-face relationships, and donors don't want to be treated like ATMs.  While technology can be a useful communication tool, donors want to know you and some of that knowing can only be done in person. It also can't always be done with an "ask" behind it. Donors are people with families and human interests beyond making and giving away money.

3. Risks: The "new normal" is a good opportunity to experiment, but it can be risky to try something new. Jane Pak, CEO of LA's National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) suggests that every year, organizations sit down with their strategic plan and evaluate the risks they are willing to take. Know your options, project outcomes and make strategic decisions. Pretty simple, but are you doing it?

4. Innovation: This doesn't need to mean invention -- you can also borrow good ideas and adapt them for your organization. Noah McMahon, CEO of Anonymous LLC, shared something I really enjoyed imagining. One of his clients adapted the old county fair game where you put someone in "jail" and they have to pay to get out. His client took this idea for a new spin (literally): they stuck their Board members on a carousel with their cell phones and asked them to make phone calls to their friends asking for donations so they could reach their fundraising goal and get off the ride.

5. Messaging: Noah also shared something he learned about messaging from his young daughter. After watching a commercial for a toy she said, "Daddy, I want that." This gave Noah an illustration to break down marketing to its crudest elements: “get people to want things.” Borrow from corporate marketing strategies to get your prospective donors to want what you can provide whether it's less people homeless on the street, more arts opportunities for kids, or more sustainable food choices.

Goodbye status quo. New normal -- I want that.

Photo Credit: *kaetzchen

Earlier this week in an email exchange, a social venture entrepreneur asked what tips and ideas he should share with a well-known forum of angel investors later this week. I thought it was a good starting point for a larger conversation about angel investment groups and their potential to grow the pool of funding for social ventures. Here are five ideas for angel groups:

1. Get the crowd right (i.e. no making entrepreneurs pay to pitch): This is not a common practice in social venture spaces, but in the for-profit startup world, pay-to-pitch had been pretty normal up until a few years ago, when events like TechCrunch50 began trying to shift the model. Most recently, Jason Calacanis' crusade to upend pay-for-pitch models has resulted in a national series of "Open Angel Forums." I would love to see this model replicated for investors interested in social ventures. The larger point is the need to get the right people together, rather than trying to extract every dollar of value by being the gatekeeper.

2. Peer-to-peer due diligence: This is a big trend I'm seeing. Investors used to dealing with a smaller number of companies at a later stage aren't sure how to keep the costs of due diligence low enough to dive into the seed game, even though that's where all the fun is. Now, though, there's something of a movement to outsource that process to peer networks. This is the model that the West Coast Village Capital folks are using, and I'm pushing a number of friends in the social venture incubation space to start keeping a list of the most fundable young social ventures and create some value for themselves and investors with it.

3. Long-term bets on 21st-century value: My bet is that while there's still always going to be room for short-termism, quick hits and exploitation capitalism, we're going to see more people held up as examples of 21st century deep-value creation. Products and services that get it and build great things in a great way. In fact, as part of the media class as well as the entrepreneur class, I'm noticing a growing number of publications and writers that are slowly pushing that message and turning the tide. These traditional angels may not be used to thinking in those terms yet, but if they're making 5 bets a year, maybe 1-2 of them should be deep-value companies.

4. Peer-to-peer investment networks: One of the other barriers I see for angels coming into the social venture space is that they're not sure they have a skill set that is really relevant for those companies and they like to invest their whole self -- money and mentorship -- into ventures. Some investors just pour themselves all the way in, learn everything and become experts, but for others there has to be some lower barrier. One of the ways to do that is more fluid communication across the investor class about who knows and cares about what.

For example, what if I'm incredibly pumped about a new tea company with what seems to me to be a differentiated product and great on-the-ground work, but I don't know anything about that industry in the states. How easy would it be for me to connect with a natural foods angel who could act as a partner? Maybe this is already easy and I just don't know, but I get the impression that better funder-to-funder information could make a big difference.

5. Pipeline Pipeline Pipeline: As the diversity of options for first-round seed funding grows for for-profit social ventures, there is still going to be a pretty big gap for growth capital before hitting profitability. I see this as a $100,000k-$1.5million gap. It seems to me that those with a growth edge among social venture investors are, at least initially, going to be people with their own wealth joining the market. I hope that as more people in my generation (particularly software guys) start to cash out and make money, this only increases. Given such a trend, finding ways to more easily assemble groups of investors to act as the next stage seems really promising to me.

Yesterday, new Change.org blogger Nell Edgington urged readers to remember the vital role that nonprofits play in social change, even as they follow the hype and excitement around for-profit, for-good ventures. While I agree with everything she said about the importance of nonprofits, I think her concern about the ascendancy of for profit social entrepreneurship mixes buzz with reality. In my estimation, the field of for profit social ventures is still extremely immature, and something we need to incubate with a more focused attention. So what really is the state of the field of for-profit social entrepreneurship?

The Good

Less Debate About Definitions: I've never had much of a stomach for the debate around whether social entrepreneurship had to be for-profit or nonprofit, and who and what qualified. I understand why funders trying to build the field have to pick and draw those lines somewhere, but in general I think it's not particularly healthy for the field to spend a lot of time defining its own parameters. For that reason, I'm happy to see a growing "spectrum" approach to social enterprise which sees a lot of different blends of financial and social impact.

More Recognition of Bottom of the Pyramid Entrepreneurship As Inherently Social: One of the areas where the difference between "entrepreneurship" and "social entrepreneurship" gets the murkiest is in the developing world, where almost any economic activity and entrepreneurship creates outsized new value for individuals and communities. I think that recognizing the social value of economic activity at the root of entrepreneurship helps us re-calibrate not only what we think social entrepreneurship looks like, but what we expect all entrepreneurship to mean.

More Companies Leaping Beyond Traditional Corporate Responsibility: The conversation about social entrepreneurship combined with the example of small scale (by business standards) niche clothing, food and drink companies who make a social mission key to their brand and activity is putting new pressure on even the biggest companies to totally reevaluate where social good and environmental stewardship fit in their activities. For some companies (Pepsi Refresh may be a good example), this means a move to a new type of more engaged corporate philanthropy. But what I think is most promising is the new openness it creates for major consumer companies to engage the social parts of their brand as more than just a fringe activity.

New Funding Availability: Although it's small, there is slightly more funding available for for-profit social ventures than there was a few years ago. There are more experimental social venture capital firms like Good Capital for growing companies, and the Unreasonable Institute and First Light Ventures are innovating around seed funding. Just as exciting, existing social entrepreneurship funders like Echoing Green are increasingly open to for-profit social ventures.

The Bad

Overall Lack of Funding, Particularly for Seed-Stage Ventures: Despite the good news about funding above, there remains a woeful lack of seed-stage capital for for-profit social ventures. I believe that at this early stage of the market, this lack of funding is dramatically reducing the number of ventures that take the plunge, and pushing many into the nonprofit space, regardless of whether that is the right model for their impact. We have to solve this problem. I think the range we need is money in the $100,000-$1m range.

Overall Immaturity of Market Expectations: One of the most amazing parts of the Life Investment conversation that's been happening for the last few months is how it has raised the challenge social investors are having reconceptualizing their role as investors. The absolutely essential questions that the social venture funding market will be built around are: What are the expectations about the money going in? What does it mean to have social impact or environmental impact? What are the norms around financial return? The field is just young and these things are still being rationalized, but the lack of clarity around what a "good return" means in this new field is a barrier for new folks coming into the market.

Too Few Notable For-profit Social Ventures: The lack of seed funding for for-profit social ventures is a chicken-egg problem. There are still really few great examples of for-profit social ventures. There are specific, more or less self contained sectors including Microfinance, Organic/Fair Trade, and Cleantech where there are better examples of "success." But broadly speaking, there are still very few aspirational models for young social venture founders taking the for-profit route.

The Still-To-Be-Determined

SocEnt Washing: Part of determining the expectations for social entrepreneurship returns will be setting some boundaries around what is considered real, significant impact and what is considered "social entrepreneurship washing." This is hardly an exact science, but as more existing companies join the field, it will be important to help orient them towards the signifcant and away from the superficial.

Photo Credit: Genista

With all the excitement and energy around social entrepreneurship, there's a tendency to dismiss the sector that was working on social impact long before it was cool: the nonprofit world.

These days, nonprofits get far less airtime in the social innovation movement than their for-profit, social entrepreneur counterparts. Perhaps that's because the for-profit form of social change is new, so it seems more interesting, sexier -- more apt to create change. And, of course, the idea that business can be reworked to address public goods is incredibly compelling.

But often the older nonprofit sector is left behind, partly because the sector tends to be risk- and change-averse. Again and again, Ive heard again that innovation will never become part of the nonprofit system -- that nonprofits are too set in their ways. Or that the sector is too broken to emerge anew.

That attitude, though, is unacceptable. There's great danger in dismissing the sector. Sure, it's inefficient, dysfunctional and broken. Yet it has tremendous potential for innovation. Indeed, without innovation in the nonprofit sector, the broader movement to solve social problems is doomed.

The current hype around for-profit social entrepreneurship sometimes reminds me of the dot.com bubble, or even the more recent unbounded speculation in the financial markets. We have to be careful of the hubris that accompanies new trends. The nonprofit sector is an enormous part of our economy and has a long history of working towards social change. If we were to cast it aside completely, we'd lose the tremendous resources (money, people, mind-share) that are being invested in that sector every day. Without its oldest component, the social innovation movement is weakened.

So instead of tossing it aside, let's remake it, re-envision, restructure and reinvent it.

What does that mean? It means that the best and the brightest in the social innovation field need to figure out how to innovate in the nonprofit as well as private sector. It means that the social capital market that's being created to provide financial vehicles for budding social businesses should also include support for social entrepreneurs in the nonprofit space. It means venture philanthropy funds should share investor prospects with social venture funds, and vice-versa.

What's more, innovation requires that investors interested in a social return own portfolios that include not only social businesses, but also nonprofit deals. Foundations should invest in both for profit and nonprofit social impact organizations. At social innovation conferences, speakers and attendees should come from both sectors. Nonprofits interested in growth should have access to capital and management expertise to scale. And a nonprofit that's solving social problems should get just as many resources, respect and mind-share as a social business that's doing the same.

All of this will require a shift in attitudes, not to mention changed laws and accounting standards that can help social entrepreneurs look at both for-profit and nonprofit structures, incentives and restrictions.

There's no magic bullet for anything out there, particularly social change. But by focusing all of our energy on just one piece of the social innovation puzzle, we run the risk of less change -- or none at all.

Photo Credit: Arthur Tress

This week, a group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists descended upon Washington D.C. for some good ol' fashioned citizen lobbying in support of the Startup Visa Act, which I wrote about last week. Introduced by Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN), the legislation creates a class of visas for foreign-born entrepreneurs backed by qualified U.S. venture investors. It's a key issue for anyone who cares about U.S. competitiveness, as well as supporting innovators around the globe.

As a bit of background, the Startup Visa Act would create a new visa class solely for foreign company founders with $250,000 in U.S. venture investment. If after two years, they had created five full-time jobs and received another $1 million in investment (or achieved revenue of $1 million), they would automatically receive permanent resident status.

The act's proponents argue it's a pure win for the U.S. economy, which would get a boost in its ability to attract entrepreneurial talent from around the globe who can create jobs right here. Or, as John Kerry put it to BusinessWeek, "This bill is a small downpayment on a cure to global competitiveness."

And those keeping score tend to be worried that our edge in that competitiveness is slipping. Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World, and Kishore Mahbubani's New Asian Hemisphere both convincingly suggest that the "rise of the rest" is making it easier for global companies to locate and build outside of traditional hubs of industry and innovation.

Further, the myopic view that the rise in global competitiveness is just about lower cost elsewhere misses the fact that these days, talent can be educated and incubated anywhere now. (An op-ed by Thomas Friedman this week makes this point, as well.)

Folks like Zakaria and Mahbubani aren't saying that the rise of the rest is a bad thing. Far from it. Indeed, their point is that if the U.S. embraces the fact that so much of the world is running on its market-driven model of innovation, the country can remain a leader in the transition to a global information economy.

A key part of that effort is giving entrepreneurs the chance to build their companies and assemble resources from wherever they can. Foreign entrepreneurs building companies in the U.S. (or any country away from their home) not only create the raw value in their companies in the form of dividends -- they can also help to more closely knit economies and countries.

These are the types of iniatives that venture capitalists like Dave McClure (in many ways the public Master of Ceremonies for the Startup Visa movement) are discussing with officials this week in Washington. According to McClure's blog, their group met yesterday with Sens. Kerry and Lugar, as well as Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), representatives from the White House, State Department and more.

To keep fully up to date, check out StartupVisa.com, or follow Dave McClure (@davemcclure), Eric Ries (@ericries), and Brad Feld (@bfeld) on Twitter.

To get more involved, check out the action campaign the StartupVisa folks have created -- and sign our petition to pass the Startup Visa Act, as well.

Photo Credit: Rambling Traveler

After a string of bad news about Chase's and Pepsi's faux pas in the prize-philanthropy sphere, which Nathaniel's done a great job of documenting here on the blog, I'm ready for some good news about prize-based philanthropy.

And this week, I think I found some.

Recently, I had a conversation with Jaison Morgan, a down-to-earth genius who believes the world can be changed through incentives and prize-based philanthropy. Actually, he's already proven that the universe can be changed. Jaison is the founder of the Common Pool and was the former director of Prize Development at the X PRIZE Foundation, where he worked on prizes with awards of $10 million or more to radically shift breakthroughs in space and deep sea exploration, clean energy, life sciences and education.  He's lectured on incentive driven innovation and prizes at MIT and the World Economic Forum.  And -- did I mention?  He also spent the last year working in Abu Dhabi, helping Masdar build a zero-carbon footprint City through prizes and incentive models.

Jaison wants people to re-think the world of prize-based philanthropy. Take the Ansari X PRIZE, which the X PRIZE Foundation awarded. It was modeled after a $25,000 prize awarded to Charles Lindbergh for his trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. Lindbergh was awarded the prize because he was the first to make that flight. He proved it was possible. He disrupted the status quo. Jaison believes the same principles can and should be applied to finding solutions to social problems. Instead of just managing a problem with money from donors who always give a check in December, a prize would reward successful experimentation and give lots of public attention and funding to proven models that change things. Big things, like homelessness.

Imagine if a prize was awarded not to an organization that got the most votes -- but to the one that demonstrated it could get the most people off the streets for good. With such a competition, plenty of ideas would be presented, some of which might not yet be fully established. Key to the prize would be letting the world know about them. Crazy ideas like Beyond Shelter's attempt to place the homeless in homes might even be in the running. And if Beyond Shelter's experiment could prove it got people successfully off the street (it does, by the way), it could win and become the new model for everyone. Still, Jaison reminds us, "Prizes typically don't presume the answer; they get more people experimenting." (Wait, that sounds like capitalism to me.) It'd be a radically different approach than the Chase and Pepsi awards, which go to the nonprofit that gets the most public votes -- and it'd actually recognize nonprofits that have innovative solutions, not just a huge fan base.

Prize-based philanthropy, by nature, is fiercely competitive, but it can also inspire innovative collaboration.  When Netflix ran a prize for the first team to deliver an algorithm that could successfully predict our movie preferences (based on previous rentals), the prize was intended to replace the millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on internal research and development.  Only this way, Netflix would only pay after the algorithm was proven and would gain an entire field of possibilities.  After the Netflix prize was announced, the competition was palpable.  But, as the problem solvers inched closer to the correct answer, we learned that the teams learned to collaborate.  And, in the end, the winning group was a team of former competitors who had learned that cooperation was essential to success.

Jaison assures us that prize-philanthropy is not necessarily a substitute for philanthropy in general. But it can be an extremely effective catalyst to prove what is possible, find what works, and let the field adjust itself to follow the leader.  And, as the field of knowledge around "incentive engineering" (as he calls it) matures, we might find other novel ways that philanthropy can harness the power of competition and self-interest for the public good (or the Common Pool).  If a new solution to homelessness is found and widely publicized, those who don't adopt the new model won't get funded for long.

Finally, Jaison's advice to any prize-based philanthropists is not to underestimate the logistics of running the program. After all, fairness and transparency are the first things to go out the window when you aren't quite sure what you've gotten yourself into or you can't exactly present your criteria or process clearly (sounds familiar...Chase...Obama's Nobel Prize).

With all this in mind, prize-based philanthropy at its best can prove that something that was seen as impossible is actually possible. It makes a lot of sense and brings me back to Gary Slutkin's success in "re-understanding the problem." When there's a prize incentive for that, people will try new things and the world will change for the better, faster. That's really good news.

Photo Credit: bclark

After a string of bad news about Chase's and Pepsi's faux pas in the prize-philanthropy sphere, which Nathaniel's done a great job of documenting here on the blog, I'm ready for some good news about prize-based philanthropy.

And this week, I think I found some.

Recently, I had a conversation with Jaison Morgan, a down-to-earth genius who believes the world can be changed through incentives and prize-based philanthropy. Actually, he's already proven that the universe can be changed. Jaison is the founder of the Common Pool and was the former director of Prize Development at the X PRIZE Foundation, where he worked on prizes with awards of $10 million or more to radically shift breakthroughs in space and deep sea exploration, clean energy, life sciences and education.  He's lectured on incentive driven innovation and prizes at MIT and the World Economic Forum.  And -- did I mention?  He also spent the last year working in Abu Dhabi, helping Masdar build a zero-carbon footprint City through prizes and incentive models.

Jaison wants people to re-think the world of prize-based philanthropy. Take the Ansari X PRIZE, which the X PRIZE Foundation awarded. It was modeled after a $25,000 prize awarded to Charles Lindbergh for his trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. Lindbergh was awarded the prize because he was the first to make that flight. He proved it was possible. He disrupted the status quo. Jaison believes the same principles can and should be applied to finding solutions to social problems. Instead of just managing a problem with money from donors who always give a check in December, a prize would reward successful experimentation and give lots of public attention and funding to proven models that change things. Big things, like homelessness.

Imagine if a prize was awarded not to an organization that got the most votes -- but to the one that demonstrated it could get the most people off the streets for good. With such a competition, plenty of ideas would be presented, some of which might not yet be fully established. Key to the prize would be letting the world know about them. Crazy ideas like Beyond Shelter's attempt to place the homeless in homes might even be in the running. And if Beyond Shelter's experiment could prove it got people successfully off the street (it does, by the way), it could win and become the new model for everyone. Still, Jaison reminds us, "Prizes typically don't presume the answer; they get more people experimenting." (Wait, that sounds like capitalism to me.) It'd be a radically different approach than the Chase and Pepsi awards, which go to the nonprofit that gets the most public votes -- and it'd actually recognize nonprofits that have innovative solutions, not just a huge fan base.

Prize-based philanthropy, by nature, is fiercely competitive, but it can also inspire innovative collaboration.  When Netflix ran a prize for the first team to deliver an algorithm that could successfully predict our movie preferences (based on previous rentals), the prize was intended to replace the millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on internal research and development.  Only this way, Netflix would only pay after the algorithm was proven and would gain an entire field of possibilities.  After the Netflix prize was announced, the competition was palpable.  But, as the problem solvers inched closer to the correct answer, we learned that the teams learned to collaborate.  And, in the end, the winning group was a team of former competitors who had learned that cooperation was essential to success.

Jaison assures us that prize-philanthropy is not necessarily a substitute for philanthropy in general. But it can be an extremely effective catalyst to prove what is possible, find what works, and let the field adjust itself to follow the leader.  And, as the field of knowledge around "incentive engineering" (as he calls it) matures, we might find other novel ways that philanthropy can harness the power of competition and self-interest for the public good (or the Common Pool).  If a new solution to homelessness is found and widely publicized, those who don't adopt the new model won't get funded for long.

Finally, Jaison's advice to any prize-based philanthropists is not to underestimate the logistics of running the program. After all, fairness and transparency are the first things to go out the window when you aren't quite sure what you've gotten yourself into or you can't exactly present your criteria or process clearly (sounds familiar...Chase...Obama's Nobel Prize).

With all this in mind, prize-based philanthropy at its best can prove that something that was seen as impossible is actually possible. It makes a lot of sense and brings me back to Gary Slutkin's success in "re-understanding the problem." When there's a prize incentive for that, people will try new things and the world will change for the better, faster. That's really good news.

Photo Credit: bclark

Kulsoom Khan works in Ashoka's global headquarters, helping to select Ashoka Fellows throughout Asia and coordinating with Ashoka's Asia country offices. She received her degree in Human Rights Law at American University.

For a country barely sixty three years old, Pakistan has seen its fair share of wars, separatist movements, leader assassinations and sectarian violence. Today again Pakistan is in the midst of, what the public perceives as, a foreign war. A recent post on the Partnership for a Secure America blog, titled Time to Get the Pakistani Public on Board (and, we are happy to say, written by a former Ashoka employee Brian Vogt) discusses U.S. government strategy towards Pakistan and Afghanistan and the importance of moving beyond military tactics to development efforts on ground.  Bringing the public on board is crucial to having a positive trust-based relationship and peace efforts. With billions in aid money pouring into Pakistan there are many international organizations starting development projects, but with little input from, or rapport with, the populations that will be most affected. 

An effective long term solution is, as Brian argues, investing in social entrepreneurs. Raziq Fahim, elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2009, is working in the impoverished Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Through his organization, College of Youth Advocacy and Development (CYAD), Raziq reaches out to at-risk, angry, disempowered youth who have felt ignored and overlooked by the traditional social structure long enough and have been, or are being, inducted by extremist madrassas (religious schools). Raziq gives them a way out of a cycle of violence by educating them, training them with skills that will address their communal needs, and providing financial and moral support to implement projects that they have identified as critical to their development.

One such young person came to Raziq’s earlier forums prepared to carry out a suicide bombing. After listening to the forum, he came up to Raziq and told him he had arrived prepared to detonate a bomb strapped to his body. However, he said, after listening to Raziq and the solutions-based approach of the forum he changed his mind. This youth saw hope beyond the money that was promised to his family as a result of his mission and later became one of the most active participants in the forum. Today nearly 850 young people trained and educated by CYAD are passing on the torch of empowerment and peace in a region of the world that is desperate for such hope.

Where drone attacks tear down homes, kill innocent civilians and increase the frustration and anger at the West thereby helping extremist factions recruit disillusioned young people, social entrepreneurs like Raziq build their capacity to become individual agents of change, provide them with opportunities and support for their development ventures and establish an enduring structure for peace.

In his seminal 2007 book The Bottom Billion, development economist Paul Collier identified the cyclical relationship between poverty and conflict that keep fragile states locked into an extremely self-destructive cycle. But now, through an innovation contest and conference scheduled in Cape Town, South Africa later this spring, the World Bank is trying to bring social innovators using new technology and ideas together to break this cycle.

The Innovation Fair: Moving Beyond Conflict will be held from April 12-15, and feature the voices of 30 innovators who are creating new projects in one of four thematic areas, including:

• Using technology to facilitate access to basic services
• Improving government accountability through technological services
• Reducing incentives for crime and preventing youth violence
• Addressing violence through multi-country strategies

So what type of projects are they interested in? There are a lot of projects I can think of that resonate with these goals. FrontlineSMS:Medic is using technology to make it easy for rural clinics to communicate with patients, and it would be great to see this applied to government-run health programs as well. Tools like Ushahidi are being used to monitor elections and distribute better information about the way governments are responding to crisis. The CeaseFire model that treats violence as an epidemiological problem in need of intervention could easily be taken to new contexts beyond the south side of Chicago where it has grown up.

I can't overstate how vital it is for us to apply all the tools we have at our disposal to break the cycles of poverty that lead so easily to conflict. This is only going to become more important as climate change creates new resource shortages that can easily lead to violence. In today's world, no violent conflict is localized, and it's not a metaphorical statement to say what happens anywhere affects us here.

To learn more about the relationship of conflict and climate, check out this report by the International Crisis Group. To learn more about the Innovation Fair, check out their website or watch the video below.

Innovation Fair: Moving beyond Conflict from WBI Innovation on Vimeo.

Applications for innovators who want to present at the fair are open until March 7th.

Photo Credit: jbachman01

Of all of the world's gatherings, none has a higher-power attendee list than the World Economic Forum. It's a place where government dignitaries rub elbows with top CEOs rubbing elbows with famous athletes and musicians, who are in turn rubbing elbows with...social entrepreneurs? Yes, that's right. This year, the WEF Young Global Leaders program -- which exists to ensure the event supports the next generation of world changers -- includes a number of exemplary social entrepreneurs.

The Young Global Leaders program brings together 200-300 high achievers across sectors to both learn from and interact with one another, as well as actively contribute to the Forum's ongoing proceedings. Participants also attend a series of ongoing events and gatherings, including a Harvard Kennedy School of Government-sponsored continuing education program.

This year's group of leaders includes some highly recognizable names: CNN news show host Rachel Maddow, Twitter founder Evan Williams and musician Wyclef Jean. But for as much as I love those three (and I do), I'm more excited about the social entrepreneurs who will be there.

People like Heather Fleming, who's the founder and CEO of Catapult Design, a nonprofit design firm that focuses exclusively on design for the developing world. In the couple years since they began, they've worked on a wind turbine for household electricity in Guatemala, LED lighting to replace dangerous kerosene lamps in Tanzania and more.

Or Rebecca Onie, who's the founder and CEO of Project Health, a program that dramatically expands the ways that physicians can support their patients. Project Health helps physicians prescribe lifestyle and health choices like food and exercise, and uses a network of undergraduate volunteers to help people access local resources to support such "prescriptions."

And then there are people like Sam Goldman, the founder and CEO of D. Light Design -- a venture-backed social startup that is trying to replace kerosene lamps around the world with portable, sustainable, cheap and safe lighting sources.

These three visionaries are just the tip of the iceberg. The founders or directors of organizations like (red), Green For All, Ubuntu Education Fund and more are also represented as well.

I'll be really interested to see how the voices of these social entrepreneurs will be incorporated into the event itself. It's great to have them there no matter what, but it'd be even better to actually give them the platform to speak directly to the leaders of the world.

Photo Credit: World Economic Forum

Of all of the world's gatherings, none has a higher-power attendee list than the World Economic Forum. It's a place where government dignitaries rub elbows with top CEOs rubbing elbows with famous athletes and musicians, who are in turn rubbing elbows with...social entrepreneurs? Yes, that's right. This year, the WEF Young Global Leaders program -- which exists to ensure the event supports the next generation of world changers -- includes a number of exemplary social entrepreneurs.

The Young Global Leaders program brings together 200-300 high achievers across sectors to both learn from and interact with one another, as well as actively contribute to the Forum's ongoing proceedings. Participants also attend a series of ongoing events and gatherings, including a Harvard Kennedy School of Government-sponsored continuing education program.

This year's group of leaders includes some highly recognizable names: CNN news show host Rachel Maddow, Twitter founder Evan Williams and musician Wyclef Jean. But for as much as I love those three (and I do), I'm more excited about the social entrepreneurs who will be there.

People like Heather Fleming, who's the founder and CEO of Catapult Design, a nonprofit design firm that focuses exclusively on design for the developing world. In the couple years since they began, they've worked on a wind turbine for household electricity in Guatemala, LED lighting to replace dangerous kerosene lamps in Tanzania and more.

Or Rebecca Onie, who's the founder and CEO of Project Health, a program that dramatically expands the ways that physicians can support their patients. Project Health helps physicians prescribe lifestyle and health choices like food and exercise, and uses a network of undergraduate volunteers to help people access local resources to support such "prescriptions."

And then there are people like Sam Goldman, the founder and CEO of D. Light Design -- a venture-backed social startup that is trying to replace kerosene lamps around the world with portable, sustainable, cheap and safe lighting sources.

These three visionaries are just the tip of the iceberg. The founders or directors of organizations like (red), Green For All, Ubuntu Education Fund and more are also represented as well.

I'll be really interested to see how the voices of these social entrepreneurs will be incorporated into the event itself. It's great to have them there no matter what, but it'd be even better to actually give them the platform to speak directly to the leaders of the world.

Photo Credit: World Economic Forum

Last week, the internet practically exploded when a web entrepreneur told the story of how his Citibank account had been shut down for "objectionable content" on his blog. Bloggers near and far typescreamed a collective "WTF" and all of a sudden, Citi had a PR nightmare on their hands. Their quick and positive response has become a textbook example of how the socially-connected internet is making it far harder to do bad things.

The back story is that late last week, the CEO of fabulis -- a networking site for gay men --tried to make a transaction with its Citibank account, only to discover that Citi had shut down their account because of "objectionable content" on the company's blog. fabulis blogged about the strangeness of the whole thing, and the story got picked up on influential tech news aggregator Hacker News. From there, dozens of blogs -- including this one -- picked up the story.

Was it homophobia? Was it pure business stupidity? Whatever the case, a quick analysis of sentiment reflected in the Citibank conversation as the story blew up showed that it was toxic PR. Social media brand sentiment tracking engine UberVU showed a 10 to 100-fold increase in conversations about Citi because of the story, and a dramatic shift in sentiment from +14 positive (on a scale of 100, positive was 14 greater than negative) to -21 negative.

Interestingly, however, over the weekend Citibank took some big steps, not only responding to the specific case in question, but releasing an updated and clarified policy about how they interact with customers. The ensuing coverage returned the sentiment levels almost to where they were before the blunder.

UberVU's post about this had a great list of "takeaways" from the overall kerfuffle, including the fact that: 1) a single blog post created a PR nightmare, 2) the company responded quickly and proactively and 3) screwing up and then fixing affairs can actually have a net positive brand impact for a company, because people feel like the company is listening.

I take away something else. In the 21st century, the distributed power of the internet allows us to make it much, much harder for companies to do bad, mean, stupid things. Under today's paradigm, companies have no choice but to be more responsive, more transparent and at the end of the day -- better.

Thanks to the nearly 150 readers who sent Citibank messages demanding an explanation for their actions. The net effect is that when we rally to get a company to change a specific policy, we're also embodying a shift in the nature of what companies can and can't do.

Photo Credit: dbking, ubervu

Everyone has wisdom. No one has time. So Ignite -- a global series of rapid-fire talks -- is trying to make wisdom shareable in a new and engaging way.

Basically, the way an Ignite presentation works is that each Ignite speaker has 20 slides, each of which is set to auto-advance after 15 seconds, for a total of five minutes. This keeps every presentation fast, simple and to the point.

The first Ignite was held in December 2006 as a chance to share geeky wisdom over beer within the tech community. When word got out that it was a totally fun format, the originators handed the reins over to O'Reilly Media. Since then, over 200 events have been held around the world.

This week is Global Ignite Week, and in 68 countries, over 10,000 people from all walks of life and across all types of careers will be enjoying the excitement, ideas and rapid fire wisdom shared by their peers.

For me, this is just one more example -- along with things like the proliferation of TED talks online, the growth among unconferences and BarCamps, and the explosion of interest in Pecha Kucha -- of the importance of how to remix smart in a hyper-connected world.

Really, this phenomena lies at the intersection of two trends. First is the growing need people feel for offline connection. Perhaps unexpectedly, as more of our lives go online, I think we're seeing significantly more creativity in how people meet offline. Secondly, in our complex world, there's a growing need for knowledge, wisdom and ideas -- not to mention a heightened appreciation for the diversity of sources from which that wisdom can stem. As we're assailed on all sides by stories of global problems, hearing the best insights that others have to offer is not only a strategy that can lead us toward better action -- it's also a way to retain sanity.

Check out this video from an Ignite event in Portland, OR about "How To Be A Refugee" to see the format in action:

Photo credit: Randy Stewart

In recent years, we've heard plenty of talk about the development of a "smart grid," one that could help distribute energy from renewable sources like solar and wind. But so far, it hasn't materialized. With U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's announcement of $100 million in new funding for breakthrough energy projects today, though, could that change?

This particular installment of funds marks the third wave of stimulus money (under the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy program) that's specifically aimed at building a new green infrastructure. According to Chu's announcement, the new funding will target three distinct areas: grid solutions, new transmission technologies and more energy-efficient air conditioners.

The idea of a "smart grid" refers to the massive infrastructure needed to capture energy, store and then deliver it where it's needed at any given time. Transmission technologies help power get to the places it needs to be. Meanwhile, according to a VentureBeat article, energy-efficient air conditioners are part of ARPA-E's overall interest in more efficient power converters. (While more energy-efficient air conditioners might not seem like a top priority, in fact, there are huge potential energy savings that can be found in better climate cooling devices -- particularly in the tropical world.)

This installment of funding is the latest to have been issued through ARPA-E as part of the Recovery Act. The first was a $151 million set of funds distributed to 37 recipients, each of which was working on an unusual or novel solution to a vital problem relating to energy and climate change. The second round was $100 million for projects focused on better batteries, carbon sequester solutions and biofuels.

Given the mammoth climate change-related problems we face, $100 million (or even the total $400 million allocated to the Dept. of Energy by the Recovery Act) isn't a ton of money. For that reason, I'm encouraged by the fact that ARPA-E is focusing on specific types of projects, and are open to funding early stage proof-of-concept technologies.

To learn more about the types of projects being funded by ARPA-E, watch one recipient from the first $151 million round of funding talk about the realization he describes as seeming "too good to be true" -- that sunlight plus water can equal fuel:

Photo Credit: Center for American Progress Action Fund

Cordes Foundation Fellowships provide opportunities for social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders to participate as Delegates in the Opportunity Collaboration (a four-day strategic and problem-solving retreat between October 15 – 20 for nonprofit leaders, for-profit social entrepreneurs, funders and social investors) who for financial reasons are unable to attend. The hope and intent is to open doors, minds and networks for exceptional social entrepreneurs and nonprofit executives engaged in poverty alleviation and economic justice enterprises.

In total, 50 Cordes Fellows are selected through an international competition. Fellows participate fully in all aspects of the Opportunity Collaboration. In addition, Fellows may earn a certificate of completion awarded by the University of the Pacific Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship. This on-site professional training symposium covers areas critical to the success of organizations and individuals creating social impact and combating poverty.

Get all the information and apply to be a Cordes Fellow here. Deadline is April 15th, 2010.

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Here's a succession twist: After more than three decades of building and running Bob's Red Mill foods, founder Bob Moore is actually giving away the company to his more than 200 employees.

As reported by the Oregonian, Moore announced the plan at an 81st birthday party thrown for him by his team. He said that he had been thinking about succession for almost a decade, and that despite numerous acquisition offers, he knew in his heart he wanted to keep his employees in charge.

The employees will own the company through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, a structure by which a company places stock in a retirement account to be held in trust for the employees. Anyone with more than three years' working full time at the company is already fully vested. Under the system, vested employees are treated just like owners of any other stock, and are sent annual reports and updates about the health of the company. Whenever they leave the company, they cash out and are given whatever money that's due.

One of the striking things about Moore's move is that we're not talking about a tiny little enterprise here. In fact, one business magazine estimated the company had $24 million in revenue in 2004 -- and every year since then, the company's reported 20-30% growth. Bob's Red Mill products are distributed throughout the world.

I love this news. Not because I think every company should hand over ownership to its employees, but because I think it's one tremendous example of the way that some entrepreneurs are reexamining business's long-term goals. Sure, it's about turning a profit. But how much, for whom, and how are all questions that are increasingly up for debate. That's a good thing -- and I'd go further to argue that the search for new answers is the only thing that will successfully shift our economy in the ways that are so sorely needed.

Photo Credit: sarniebill1