In 2009, Kelly Ramirez took over as director of Social Venture Partners Rhode Island, reviving the struggling nonprofit whose goal it is to bring market solutions to societal problems.
Since then she has re-christened the organization SE Greenhouse, created the Social Enterprise Ecosystem Economic Development Summit, whose third edition was held in the spring on Brown University’s campus, and helped launch a number of for-profit and nonprofit companies.
As September approaches, Ramirez and her staff are preparing for the next SEG Incubator. She took a few moments to talk about the coming program and how it fits into the marketplace of startup accelerators.
PBN: Do you have a sense of how many applicants you will have for your next incubator scheduled to start this fall?
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RAMIREZ: Social Enterprise Greenhouse offers a continuum of services that provide impact entrepreneurs with the skills they need.
First, our incubator, through a series of six workshops, provides idea-stage entrepreneurs with the skills they need to determine if their idea is feasible. While participating in these workshops the entrepreneur can also apply for individual business coaching. Our goal is to recruit between 15 and 20 entrepreneurs for our sessions that start in October.
Next, we offer the SEG Accelerator to entrepreneurs who have already participated in the incubator, or a similar service, and are motivated, coachable and have a feasible business idea that is up and running. We aim to recruit 10-15 high-potential entrepreneurs for our next Accelerator cohort, set to begin mid-January 2015.
Finally, the Huddle provides more targeted support to those entrepreneurs/ventures that are scaling. The Huddle is a three-hour strategy session followed by customized pro bono consulting offered in collaboration with the Harvard Business School Alumni Association of Southern New England. We offer this service to a new venture every other month.
PBN: The other established accelerator program in Rhode Island, Betaspring, has an emphasis on technology-based companies. Does the SE Greenhouse incubator see technology as a key factor for a social venture today?
RAMIREZ: A social venture is a do well do good business and like any business, can benefit greatly from technology. Tools such as Salesforce, Quickbooks and Dropbox can help social ventures achieve their financial and social goals.
PBN: Since you took over as director of your predecessor organization, Social Venture Partners Rhode Island, how has the nature of social ventures changed? Do you see the same approaches working, and if not, what is at the core of the difference?
RAMIREZ: The demand for our services has increased dramatically as more and more people are becoming aware of the field of social enterprise and are pursuing careers and opportunities that enable them to not only make money but also have a positive impact on society. As silos between traditional business and nonprofit are becoming increasingly blurred, we are experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of for-profit impact ventures.
The more ventures and entrepreneurs we serve, the more we learn – we are currently working with 150+ ventures. We continue to better understand social entrepreneurs’ need to be successful and adapt our continuum of services to best meet those needs.
Most social entrepreneurs have the passion and expertise around the social issue they are addressing; they come to us for business skills. For example, an entrepreneur might know exactly what services would enhance their community but they, like any other business, need business expertise to track revenue, pay employees, manage loan capital and much more. We offer services and have mentors that can help them with these needs.
PBN: The SE Greenhouse Accelerator program is driven by online tools more than face-to-face mentorship. That stands in contrast to many other incubator programs. Why make that choice, and are you concerned that participants are missing out on an important part of the experience?
RAMIREZ: We have transitioned the SEG Accelerator to be a blended learning platform. We offer a world-class curriculum in partnership with Brown University’s Social Innovation Initiative that is delivered through Brown’s online learning platform. This curriculum is complemented with in-person workshops that focus on applying the online learning to their ventures. In addition, the Accelerator links each entrepreneur participant to a personal business coach, and enables them to access our amazing network of business and community leaders who share their knowledge as functional area expert mentors.
We shifted from a purely in person delivery model to the blended learning to make the service more accessible to some new markets we wanted to target – 1) university students who are launching ventures while in college; and 2) impact entrepreneurs from neighboring states (with the hopes they may decide to relocate to Rhode Island).
PBN: How large a piece of the success of a social venture today is determined by social media usage? Why?
RAMIREZ: Social media is critical for social ventures, particularly in the early stage. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram can be a very low cost and highly effective marketing tools. And most social ventures, particularly in startup stage, don’t have the funds to use more traditional marketing approaches. Social media tools, utilized well, provide an amazing platform to raise awareness and accelerate impact. Just look at what has happened with the ALS ice bucket challenge. I wish I had come up with that idea!
