Social Trendspotter Weekly Blog
4 Takeaways from the First 40 Years
I celebrated a milestone yesterday – my 40th birthday. It has been a full week filled with the positive energy that comes from being surrounded by friends, family and doing what I love. Now that I’m “older and wiser,” I often get asked by my students and...
Wisdom from Southeast Asia
Everything is different in Southeast Asia – the sights, the smells and the people. Henry Miller once said, “one’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” I recently returned from a whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia and, because of it,...
For-Profit and Nonprofit Social Enterprises Should Focus on Impact, not Labels
I love Banksy and his rogue artwork, such as “I Want Change” (pictured here). Like the best provocateurs, he gets us to think and opens our minds to a different point of view. In the social sector, we often have our own perspective, shaped by experience and bias, on...
4 Trends from the Aspen Ideas Festival to Spark Social Change
In the past 50 years, we have made real progress on many social issues because of people like you – nonprofit managers, social entrepreneurs, educators and students – sparking interest in issues impacting the world around them. In his speech at the 2016...
Top 5 Takeaways from Aspen Ideas Festival: Spotlight Health
When I embarked on my trip to Colorado for the Aspen Ideas Festival this week, I must admit I was in a bit of a social funk. The urgency of issues, such as Zika, gun violence, homelessness and early childhood education, were weighing heavily on me....
Top 5 Traits of Successful Social Enterprises
Social enterprise has risen in popularity in the past decade. More social entrepreneurs – whether they are nonprofits or for-profits – are pursuing the model and a double bottom line. But, just like traditional for-profit businesses, they are not assured success....
Being a “Bridge Out of Poverty” for Our Employees and Community
Last week, we revisited the game-changing model presented in Bridges Out of Poverty. The model suggests professionals and communities can help people in poverty only by first understanding their mental state and systematically addressing the challenges...
Building Social Enterprises
Originally published by The North Texan - Careers with a Cause, March 7, 2016 As a student attending UNT's Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, Suzanne Smith ('94 TAMS) felt like she had found her place. "I was around people who were a lot like me -- people who...
Do Competitions Help or Hinder Social Enterprises?
Competitions are all the rage in the social enterprise world. From New York to San Francisco, organizations seeking to nurture emerging social entrepreneurs have decided to go all in on the pitch session, offering the winners start-up funds and technical assistance....
The Woman in the Arena
One of the scariest moments of my life was the first day of business school. I spent more than a decade in the nonprofit sector and decided to go back to school full-time to get my MBA at Duke University. Although I had had a series of successes for...