© chrisdlugosz

A new domain you've discovered is offering a variety of Web hosting services that look useful for your business, but you're wondering who's behind the site and where its owners stand on a variety of environmental and social issues. Where do you go to find out?

With the influence of the Web growing, transparency has become a major concern on the Internet. The ability to find out just exactly who is behind a particular website has become important. And being able to find important facts about a web domain (like revenue, traffic patterns, and speed, and contact info) can be important to you, either for business reason or just to assess the credibility of the website. Where do you go to get information like that?

I recently came across the philoneist, a wiki that investigates and tells you what and who is behind a domain name. And with out much effort I found valuable information on a couple of websites I use pretty much every day.

An entry at the philoneist will often give you a screen capture image of the site being examined. That way you know that the entry is really about the site you're interested in.

Two gradute students in Brown university participated in the annual entrepreneurship competition, they knew they would have a tough time: Their idea was establishing a social enterprise which was more difficult to deal with compared with normal ones and also, they had to do their homework anyway.

But writing the businsess plan, doing all the check points and going over and over again motivated them to continue the work. Their idea initially was just a website providing information on human trafficking but later through a partnership with local police in the U.S. it turned out to be a center with 24 hour hot line gathering data from all the citizens who had information about human slavery.





I really advice you to take a look at their page; it's called Polaris project: So far they have won several awards and their efforts have lead to establishment of social entrepreneurship competition in some universities.

Have you ever heard the term "Elevator Pitch"? Well the term is certainly a commodity in entrepreneurship world and refers to the following situation: Imagine you are in the elevator with a big time investor from ground floor to the top of a building; you need his/her money to start your business but you only have few minutes. The key to success, then, is being able to say what you want to do and its value in a short time.

That also applies to Social entrepreneurship: It doesn't matter who you want to convince for help or financial support, you should be able to transmit your key messages clearly in a short time. Here coes a good example for an HIV-related organization in Africa:

As you might know, California has probably the highest unemployment rate in the U.S. now as the result of the economic downturn. The companies in Silicon Valley as an example are scaling back and laying off many people which has created lots of difficulties for students and graduates of universities such as Stanford. In such situation, according to a new report from Business Week, the students are looking for new ways of changing the world and fortunately one of the main areas is social entrepreneurship. I try to cover some of the initiatives they have been taking in my posts but the one I am sharing with you in this post in quite nice to start with. It's called "Re:Motion".





Re:Motion, as you can see in the photo, is trying to provide affordable prosthetic components for amputees. Its JaipurKnee is a polymer-based knee joint that can be manufactured for less than $20. The team responsible for developing this product is now doing the field trials in India and has been fitted on over 40 patients to date. In late May, the Re:Motion team was a co-winner of the Stanford student entrepreneurial competition, Social E-Challenge, and came away with a $20,000 grant.

I don't know how many of you have a personal profile in Facebook (I guess most of you at the website has grown to more than 200 million users) but what I have found out recently is that Facebook is not only a website for sharing photos and contact info. with friends but also a good way of starting social entrepreneurship initiatives.

The video below illustrates this in a very easy way:


Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project


Facebook has launched a feature since a while ago which is called "Cause". Cause is basically a group or community with a purpose. Facebook users can:

- Search for these causes in the webiste and become a member
- Invite their friends to join the group
- Or send it to a wider community

The Causes can also be created with external websites and applications to be sent to Facebook. So what is the relation to social entrepreneurship? Well, there are many cases where some people have taken initiative to get donation from interested people to help the poor, create awareness regaring some topics, and create new networking opportunities for people who want to be active in social fields.

My impression is that in the future, we will be seeing more of this kind of tools in Facebook as well as Twitter, MySpace, etc. What do you think?

In these current times, social responsibility has never been more important in the business world. It's easy to find about whether large companies act responsibly. But how do you find out which local businesses in your community are doing their part?

If you're looking for a convenient way to get your business noticed on the Web (or to publicize your experience with a local business), you're probably looking for Yescalate, a site were local business information is built by users.

Yescalate is a wiki, a site where users collaborate to create content and built knowledge for the Internet. On the one hand, Yescalate works like the business pages of an online phone book. You can put basic information (street address, products and services, phone numbers, prices, website, even pictures) on a Yescalate entry about your business. On the other hand, your customers can add to the site, creating comments or adding to the content about your business.

Best of all, you don't have to deal with sales people or pay some fee the way you world with a newspaper or phonebook ad. The site is free to use, and free to build.

Skoll Foundation has created a n excellent video giving an overview of social entrepreneurship initiatives done in the last 30 years. Leaders from Acumen Funds, Skoll Foundations and some entrepreneurs like Mohammad Yunus offer their point of views about the opportunities in this area.



The video starts with Mohammad Yunus and as I mentioned continues with interviews with a number of social entrepreneurs and others in the field, including Sally Osberg of the Skoll Foundation, Bill Drayton of Ashoka, Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund, John Elkington of Volans, and author David Bornstein. Hope you enjoy it!

Beer companies are also joining social movement; yes that's right: As a part of the 250th anniversary celebrations behind brew master, Arthur Guinness's signing of the 9,000 year lease at St. James Gate in Dublin, Guinness has pledged to raise €2.5 million in start up capital for its Arthur Guinness Fund for Social Entrepreneurs. The money is aimed to support approximately twenty-five social entrepreneurship initiatives in Ireland for at least the next two years.

Accrding to Social Earth, the caveat is that the money isn't exactly on tap. Guinness has launched their "Put Your Signature Next to Arthur's" campaign in conjunction with the fund. They're calling for all Irish pub-goers to sign their name on a banner next to Arthur's signature as an expression of support for the good beer and goodwill that has been present in the community since 1759. For every signature that the banner receives, Guinness will donate €2.50 to the Arthur Guinness Fund for Social Entrepreneurs.

Guinness has partnered with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland in the administrative aspects of the fund, yet Guinness is no stranger to philanthropy. Arthur Guinness was one of the first of his kind in Ireland to offer his employees full pensions and health care coverage and he was instrumental in the creation of many parks and recreation spaces around Dublin. Guinness has carried his socially conscious business model into the present day. If their new social entrepreneurship fund isn't proof enough, take a trip to the top of Guinness brewery, where you can partake in a beer and 360 degree view of the city. Clearly, this is a company that keeps its eye on the big picture.

Kristi Heims of Seattle Times gives nice examples of how some Chinese companies are taking responsibility towards creating a socially responsible business and also the role of the entrepreneurs in this area.

One interesting one was the following: In Guangxi Province in southern China, a wealthy businessman who sells motorcycles has organized 20 volunteers who look after children and help clean the homes of the elderly.

A new generation of Chinese leaders is looking for creative approaches to address poverty, pollution and other problems unleashed by the fierce juggernaut of growth. One example is related to the recent earthquake that ravaged Sichuan Province. The tragedy unleashed a huge wave of volunteers in China as tens of thousands of people donated time and labor to the recovery. Some of these groups had serious support of the companies as well.

I understand that the environment and type of the opportunities in China might be different with the ones in the U.S., so I appreciate if you share your experience with us so that we can publish on this blog.

Social Entrepreneur is an individual who identifies an environmental or social problem in society and creates a venture that will direct its goals to improve society and the environment. A business entrepreneur creates a business that will generate profit; a social entrepreneur produces a company that strives to eliminate social and environmental issues and is normally a non-profit.

Hope Cleaning Services is a social enterprise that combines both business and environmental issues in an efficient way. The company assists the unemployed of San Antonio and will help people help themselves.




In this video, you see an overview of what company does, the problem they address and the benefits it provides for the society and unemployed people. The work culture will motivate, challenge, and encourage employees towards success and a brighter future. In addition, Hope Cleaning Services is using certified green products to improve the environment while helping society.

Hope you like this case.