MaRS

Are you ready to lead this city to change?

Great companies need a team of dedicated individuals to make it fly. How will you inspire that teamwork? How will you persuade your team to follow your lead? My suggestion: sign up for the DiverseCity Leadership Program.

A few weeks ago I addressed the current group of DiverseCity Fellows on the issue of social impact metrics.  They are part-way through their projects and they wanted to determine how best to evaluate their impact—they knew counting “bums in seats” just was not good enough.  It was an incredible group:  engaged, committed and keen to use their “lived experience” to make our communities better.

So what exactly is a DiverseCity Fellow and how can you—emerging leader that you are—become one?

Social Venture Exchange: Investing in a better world

A new initiative has just moved into the building under the SiG@MaRS banner: the Social Venture Exchange (SVX), which hopes to drive good investments for a better world.

Over the next few years, we’ll develop and pilot an exchange that will assess and attract sustainable financing for ventures with a social mission, from enterprising non-profits to social purpose businesses.  We want to drive financial capital towards improved social and environmental outcomes.  In short, we are trying to attract more money to drive a more just society.

In top feel-good news this week:

Forty of the wealthiest families and individuals in America have made an impressive pledge to help address some of society’s most pressing problems–by donating at least 50% of their wealth to charitable organizations and philanthropic causes.

Wait, what?

Is this sandbox just for the big kids?

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a White House effort to pump millions of private and public dollars into projects that are effectively tackling pressing social problems, awarded its first round of grants this month, totaling nearly $50 million.

The Corporation for National and Community Service, which operates the SIF, announced 11 grants – ranging in size from $2 million to $10 million each – to intermediary organizations, which will in turn award money to non-profit groups working in the areas of economic opportunity, youth development and healthy habits. Seen as a breakthrough announcement by a new kind of President in 2009, the Fund has understandably attracted attention from the non-profit community in the US as well as north of the border.

Science Commons is one of the projects in the Thoughtbook

Annual reports are boring. All those graphs and charts and “fiscal quarter analytics” are enough to put you to sleep.

That’s why the Kauffman Foundation, in lieu of a formal annual report, releases an annual “Thoughtbook” — a collection of essays by thought leaders in the field of entrepreneurship education, describing the Foundation’s projects to date.