Fast Company reveals 45 social entrepreneurs for 2008

The team at Internet mag Fast Company have recently announced the winners of their 2008 Social Capitalist Awards. I am really chuffed that awards like these exist. Though I’m not 100% sure of the ’social capitalist’ tagline. I prefer ’social entrepreneur’. But that’s not important.

What is important is the fact that they have listed 45 entrepreneurs that are really trying to make the world a better place. And they have highlighted some inspirational projects. There is a fair US bias to the results (Fast Company is American, so clearly, that’s normal), so we need to make it our aim on Web of Conscience to highlight great social entrepreneurs from outside of the US.

Out of the 45, here are the 10 that struck a chord with me:

Accion – microenterprise finance and business services in 25 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America; 97% of the loans have been repaid, which shows that it has helped the vast majority of its 3 million clients.

Ceres – bringing investors, companies, environmentalists and other key stakeholders together to build a sustainable and prosperous future.

Common Ground – Common Ground pioneered the concept of mixed-income supportive housing: affordable housing for a range of income groups with on-site social services. 93% of those they help stay in stable housing.

Donors Choose – schools submit projects that need funding to the website, and the visitors can then choose which projects to donate to. The donors then get some really cool feedback from the kids that benefit from their donations. I love this site.

Endeavor – Endeavor supports entrepreneurs in the private sector in emerging-market economies by offering them mentoring and access to connections and networks.

Network For Good – enables you to donate to 1,500 charities in one place, and keep all the info to help you when declaring your donations to the tax man. They make giving easy.

Path – Path find solutions to some of the world’s more challenging health problems. They think outside of the box and approach finding solutions from the user’s perspective.

Peace Works – the OneVoice project is designed to engage Palestinian and Israeli in civic involvement and get the moderate majority to help find solutions to the ongoing conflict.

Transfair USA – this is America’s official ‘fair trade certified’ label. If the world’s biggest economy can get behind fair trade, that would make a huge difference.

Witness – uses the power of video to highlight human rights abuses in the world.

Carbon footprint calculators – pretty scary

I’ve played around with quite a few carbon footprint calculators – usually end up doing it when I book a flight and feel guilty. But, they are really basic and I can’t help feeling that they are gimmicky.

Well, Zero Footprint is a carbon footprint calculator alright – but a proper one. It goes into a hell of a lot of detail. As you answer each question, you see your carbon consumption growing or decreasing on a graph (plotted against the average for your country). All I can say is that transatlantic flying is really not a good thing, and I need to find another way to do business…

Empowering schools to be socially responsible

I came across Conscious Lifestyle this week. It’s a not-for-profit organisation that aims to empower students and schools to be socially responsible. It does this by supporting ventures on campuses through funding of up to $1,000 for specific projects as well as advice, web space, t-shirts and access to Youth Venture.

You can check out the ventures they are currently supporting. My favourite project is IdeaTree Design which basically offers up the talent of engineering students to provide start-ups and not-for-profit organisations with product design and engineering services. Win-win scenario: students gets experience, the organisations get great value engineering services.