#plugintodevin - Your Mark on the World with Devin Thorpe

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1USvdxZ.

Author, attorney, podcast host and startup guru Neetal Parekh recently published her book 51 Questions on Social Entrepreneurship. She’s shared three of the best insights with me for this article.

Neetal, founder of Innov8social, offered up these three keys: http://bit.ly/1USvdxZ.

Legal Structures: There are legal structures and business models and fundraising options specifically designed for companies pursuing profit and social impact. For example, legal formation options such as benefit corporation and social purpose corporation and successful business models such as “1 for 1” and “sliding scale.”

Timing: We are in a unique moment of timing where there is a shift in consciousness happening both in the new millennial workforce as well as in the desire of serial entrepreneurs to engage in businesses that create social impact. Additionally, new funding opportunities (such as those provided under the JOBS Act) though not specifically designed for empowering social impact, do lend themselves as tools to the space.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1USvdxZ.

Need a speaker for an event, learn more about Devin Thorpe at devinthorpe.com.

Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1XyWCvl.

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Perspective comes from experience. Dan Clark, Hall of Fame Speaker and social entrepreneur, gained extraordinary perspective flying in an Air Force jet into space. (Disclosure: Clark and I collaborated on a book with 15 other authors but have no revenue or profit sharing arrangement.)

Retired Air Force four-star General Hal Hornberg met Clark when the General attended a Senior Leaders Conference at Langley Air Force Base thirteen years ago. “It was probably the greatest public presentation that I had seen,” he told me. Thereafter, he went on to hire Clark to speak to leadership teams on multiple occasions.

Social entrepreneur Rick Larsen, who now serves as the Marketing and Development Director at GIVE Salt Lake, said, “There are groups, from Credit Unions to Harley Dealers to the United States Air Force, who call on Dan again and again. This speaks volumes when you consider the variety of speakers and entertainers available to large organizations. Dan forms a connection when he speaks because, in my opinion, he cares. Just a couple of weeks ago Dan donated his time at my request, to fit in a speech to a group of troubled teens.”

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1XyWCvl.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1YeM1oT.

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Impact investing is a rapidly growing field. Lauryn Agnew, President of Seal Cove Financial and the Bay Area Impact Investing Initiative, points out that focusing on a place provides opportunities for collaboration, increased impact and market returns.

Lauryn and I met will participating in a panel discussion at Sustainatopia in San Francisco last month. She is a recognized thought leader in impact investing, focusing on helping institutional investors make place-based investments with an outcomes focus.

She has provided me with three insights to serve as a primer on place-based impact investing. I’ll share them here:

1. Creating a financial intermediary that can channel a small portion of the institutional assets in any region to local investments can provide capital to local needs and challenges, promoting a long term sustainable and a more prosperous future for the region. Collaboration, professional due diligence, high fiduciary standards and mission alignment would be the benefits we share in our co-investing efforts.

2. Impact investing with a place-based focus, using a small portion of the portfolio, can provide market rates of return and local impact, if designed properly, without increasing risk or sacrificing returns.

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Most of us give little thought to the toxins we’re exposed to every day. For the most vulnerable among us, including our children, however, the potential hazards have lifelong implications, according to Amy Ziff, founder and executive director of Made Safe.

Made Safe is an organization that aims to “democratize access to products that are made with safe ingredients for everyone, matter their age, stage of life or demographic,” Amy says.

The problem she sees stems from the “unrestriced and widespread use of harmful chemicals in products we use every day.”

“While everyone is impacted by toxic chemicals, for the most vulnerable population of children aged zero to six, toxic exposures can impact their health and well-being for the rest of their lives. On top of that, children aren’t able to advocate for themselves for protection from potentially harmful products,” she adds.

Ask yourself this question. Do you know how to spot a safe product? Can you see or smell toxins that may harm your children?

Amy explains what Made Safe does by putting “an easy-to-find, identifiable label on products that have been vetted by scientists as not containing known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, reproductive toxins, neurotoxins, behavioral toxins, flame retardants, heavy metals, pesticides, insecticides, toxic solvents, VOCs, or GMOs.”

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The JOBS Act Title III provisions allowing the crowdfunding of investments from ordinary investors finally went into effect in May, four years after the bipartisan bill was signed into law by President Obama in April 2012.

The Security and Exchange Commission issued “Regulation Crowdfunding” last fall with an effective date of May 16, 2016. Those wishing to take advantage of the new law are required to issue their securities through a FINRA-registered broker dealer (investment bank) or via a registered “portal.”

Attorney Jenny Kassan helps social entrepreneurs, especially women, raise money under not only Regulation CF but other regulations that allow for similar offering structures, some that are easier to use.

Jenny’s clients include Lynn Johnson and Jessica Nowlan, entrepreneurs who each have an interest in raising money for her small business. Lynn is the Co-Founder and CEO of Spotlight:Girls. Jessica is the Founder of Create Shoppe.

Together, with help from Jenny, they offered up six tips for raising money for a small business, which I am sharing below.

Read the full GoodCrowdinfo article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1TZspoE.

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Scott Hill, President of Clean Energy Advisors, sees climate change as the biggest challenge of our day and he’s doing something about it. Having already financed 67 megawatts of solar power in recent years, he’s eyeing another 300. Financing solar power gives investors an opportunity to earn a financial return while doing good, making them impact investors.

Scott sees the need to broaden the base of people who have the opportunity to investor for impact, something that has been limited largely to high-net-worth individuals. He says, “Within the discussion around climate change, there is this issue of creating opportunities for a larger group of people to invest based on their values. There is an overwhelming percentage of people who like the idea of investing based on values. It’s up to the investment community to create solid investment opportunities that allow people to make a difference and earn a reasonable rate of return.”

He is excited about his work. “Our passion around distributive generation and clean energy is why we get up and do our jobs everyday. But, and it’s a kind of ‘pinch me’ thing is we’ve identified a niche within the solar industry that allows more investors to participate (invest based on their values) AND has several characteristics that make it equally if not more interesting from an investment perspective.”

Despite his enthusiasm, Scott still sees challenges in the industry, despite its strength and positive trend lines. “History,” he says, along with “well publicized solar company failures, and negative comments from fossil fuel interests are probably the 3 biggest challenges we face.” Some of these experiences have left people cool to solar investments when, Scott says, “The reality is very positive for our industry.”

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1OcoTVO.

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Darya Shaked is an impressive women with whom I became acquainted three years ago when I visited Angola. She was part of the team at Vital Capital, which I wrote about for Forbes. Today, she’s leading Stride Ventures, helping other women from Africa connect with the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Darya says, “As I believe some of the biggest challenges of today’s world are the outcome of inequalities, either social or gender based, I was very much focused on ways to impact Africa and the gender gap.”

She adds, “In the first years of my career I was an officer in the Israeli army, a spokesperson for the the Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Housing and Construction. In the nine years to follow, I was a part of a leading private equity, impact investing fund focused in Sub-Saharan Africa. All of these taught me the ways I am passionate about in making an impact.”

When Darya began working to connect women entrepreneurs from Africa to the Silicon Valley set, she encountered difficulties. Some companies don’t see the value of helping African entrepreneurs understand the dynamic local ecosystem, she says.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1Y34dBw.

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Jill Vialet, one of Forbes’ Impact 30 in 2011 and founder of the national nonprofit Playworks, takes us inside the organization to look at key financial metrics and the mission it serves.

Vialet stakes her claim to being a social entrepreneur, saying, “I’ve spent more than 25 years in the nonprofit sector, focusing entrepreneurial skills on creating and developing two successful nonprofit organizations for kids.” Prior to founding Playworks in 1996, she founded the Museum of Children’s Art.

Playworks works to solve big problems in public schools by helping kids have more fun.

Vialet explains, “Ask any elementary school principal what the toughest part of the day is, and most will answer with one word: recess. Teasing, fighting, bullying, the injuries, and the disciplinary referrals are enough to keep any principal up at night.”

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1Uhe6Kt.

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The CAPROCK Group, led by Matthew Weatherley-White, has recently launched a new tool for their family office clients to help them better see the impact they have with their investments. The tool, called iPAR, allows clients to drill down on their investments to see the impact in a simple, easy-to-use format.

CAPROCK has about $3 billion under management, about 30 employees and five offices. The firm’s revenue model is to charge clients fees for managing their money. Weatherley-White adds, “The only people who have the privilege of paying us are our clients, on either a flat fee or a percentage of assets advised. We accept no compensation from any other source.” He says the firm is profitable and generates a gross operating margin of 25 percent.

Of the firm’s $3 billion, $1 billion has been invested for impact. While Weatherley-White says he doesn’t consider himself a social entrepreneur, I think he better be careful or he’ll become one. Certainly he is an impact investor.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/25Ll7ac.

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Alex Thaler is an entrepreneur who saw a problem and immediately saw a solution. Ordinary investors are now allowed to invest in startups and other private issuers via crowdfunding portals, but need help. He created Stratifund to solve the problem. Today, he offers five free tips for evaluating crowdfund investments.

Thaler, with an MBA from Wharton and experience with Life Time Fitness and Boston Consulting Group, says that Stratifund was formed in 2015 and just started operations coincident with the effective date for Regulation Crowdfunding (JOBS Act Title III) investing last month. The revenue model is a monthly subscription that costs participants just $10 per month. As the first revenues are just being recorded, he says he can’t yet measure margins meaningfully.

He approaches the crowdfunding market with a sense of mission and purpose. He says, “Our mission is to drive the equity crowdfunding business.” He sees transparency lacking in the space and hopes to be the one to address it.

Crowdfunding enthusiasts, like me, have long argued that crowdfunding itself is a form of social entrepreneurship, breaking down traditional barriers to capital for women and minorities who have been largely boxed out of the venture capital market.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1WCFV1K.

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