C06 Workshop: Building the Field of Earned Income

Building the Field of Earned Income:  Strategies for State Associations and Management Support Organizations

Wednesday, August 2, 1:00pm - 3:30pm

Price:  $60 Members; $90 Non-Members

Presenters

Florence Green, California Association of Nonprofits, Mark Van Ness and Dave McDonough, Social Enterprise Institute, Jennifer Li Shen, Blue Garnet Associates

Description

How State Associations and Management Support Organizations can help nonprofits and themselves move from "accidental income" to a successful earned income activity.

Some studies are showing that nonprofits earn over 70 percent of their income.  One innovative way of earning income is through social enterprise. Social Enterprise refers to sales of products and services in support of the organization's mission. Although the concept is not new - for how many years have you been buying Girl Scout cookies? - In Pittsburgh, the Bay area, New York, funders and nonprofit leaders have come together in field-building efforts.

Earning income requires a different set of skills, different mind-set that nonprofits wanting to pursue a "double-bottom line" of mission and earned income are often unprepared to successfully launch such a project.  State Associations and Management Support Organizations can take a leadership role in helping nonprofits in their states and communities more successfully launch these ventures.

This workshop will explore an emerging model you can use to help your organization and other nonprofits develop more successful earned income ventures through peer-to-peer leadership development, collaboration, and access to business expertise, technical assistance and financing.  By developing and implementing this leadership role, SAs and MSOs can help nonprofits be better prepared to leverage the resources needed to grow their income and increase impact while creating a dynamic, regional network of social enterprise leaders striving to create a legacy of self-sufficiency in their organizations.

In the workshop you will learn how to:

• Provide focused capacity building and technical assistance to improve, grow and expand earned income opportunities that prepare your organization and others to apply for financing or funding.
• Use monographs and case studies to inform and build the field.
• Nurture organizations looking to transfer their earned income ideas into reality and increase their sustainability.
• Uncover the invisible enterprises and provide them a peer network so they can learn from the success and failure of others.
• Grow your own leadership as the go to place for nonprofits wanting to bring more income into their organization
   

About the Presenters

Florence Green, California Association of Nonprofits

Florence L. Green is the Executive Director of the California Association of Nonprofits (CAN), the largest statewide nonprofit association in the United States.  For 30 years she has been a nationally recognized consultant and trainer working with foundations, nonprofit organizations,  governments, academic institutions, coalitions and management support organizations throughout the United States, Australia and Canada.

She has published several articles on fundraising, board development, strategic planning, collaboration, nonprofit ethics and accountability and nonprofit management and will soon publish a book on fundraising for public libraries.  She is the past board president of CAN and the Nonprofit Management Association (now known as the Alliance for Nonprofit Management). She helped develop a self-administered development audit published by the Foundation Center and is a founder and immediate past Vice President of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations. She is a founder of and serves on the CAN Policy Council, an independent statewide advocacy and public policy coalition committed to strengthening the public policy access and power for nonprofits in California and is on the Editorial Board of the Nonprofit Quarterly.

She has taught nonprofit management, strategic planning and fundraising at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and the University of Texas at Austin. She was once the director of training for the Grantsmanship Center, at the time the largest nonprofit training organization in the United States.  She taught political science and theater at a community college for 12 years and has started seven nonprofit organizations–all of which still exist.  She was the first woman elected to the city council in her community, she started a multipurpose county-wide senior citizen program, started the Kern County Area Agency on Aging, served on a Presidential Advisory Committee to review proposed K-12 curriculum, and worked for a time as a city planner.  She is also proud to say she once led a successful effort to recall her local school board. In 2000 and 2001 she was selected by Nonprofit Times as one of the top 50 most influential and powerful nonprofit leaders in the U. S.

Dave McDonough, Social Enterprise Institute

Dave is the President of the Social Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit organization that helps organizations create a legacy of self-sufficiency.  The Institute facilitates leadership forums focused on accelerating the growth of participating organization's earned income.  Dave is a social entrepreneur with a proven track record of launching and growing social enterprises.  In 2004 he founded the Center for Social Enterprise at Volunteer Center Orange County.  In March 2006 the Social Enterprise Alliance, the leading national social enterprise organization, presented Dave their annual award for Advancing the Field. 
With over 14 years of nonprofit experience Dave was previously President and CEO of Chrysalis, a $6 million nonprofit agency with offices in Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Pacoima. Dave founded Labor Connection and StreetWorks, two social enterprises that annually employ over 800 former welfare recipients and generate $3 million in annual revenues.  In 2005 Chrysalis was a finalist in the Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Awards and was presented with the "Rose Award" as the top social service agency in downtown Los Angeles in the past 25 years.

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation selected Chrysalis' temporary staffing agency as a National Demonstration Project model of a successful solution for returning the hardest-to-employ to the workforce (2003). The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) featured Chrysalis' Labor Connection as a model in two commissioned studies: "New Avenues in Jobs" and "Incentives and Supports for The Employment of Welfare Recipients" (1997). In 2002 the Institute for Social Entrepreneurs profiled his efforts launching a nonprofit enterprise in the book "The Social Enterprise Sourcebook." As a result of his entrepreneurial approach to social issues Dave was one of seven representatives from across the country selected to speak at a White House conference exploring "Innovative Solutions to Hunger and Poverty."

Jennifer Li Shen, Blue Garnet Associates

As a partner of Blue Garnet, Jennifer Li Shen brings a unique combination of expertise in business strategy and organizational change with experience in nonprofit, private foundation and for profit arenas to realize her passion for social entrepreneurship and innovation. She works with her clients to create lasting and sustainable social change. Recent clients include College Summit, Families Forward, and Community Development Technologies Center.

Previously, Jennifer served Fortune 100 clients as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group, where she developed and implemented business and market strategies, as well as organizational change. She worked in entertainment and media, consumer goods, and pharmaceutical industries focusing on sales and marketing, pricing, organizational optimization and mergers/integration. Jennifer also managed grantmaking at Fannie Mae Foundation in housing and community development, and worked at TCC Group as a consultant to nonprofits, foundations and corporate philanthropy.

She is a founding partner of Los Angeles Social Venture Partners and active member of its Investment Committee. She also serves as a community funding board member of Liberty Hill Foundation and a business plan evaluator for Yale-Goldman Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures. Jennifer previously served as a Board Member for Asian Professional Exchange, leading the organization through its first strategic planning process. Jennifer holds an MBA from Yale University and a BA in Political Science with concentration in Public Policy from Swarthmore College.

Mark Van Ness, Social Enterprise Institute

Mark E. Van Ness is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Sperry Van Ness, a commercial real estate firm established in 1987. Under his leadership Sperry Van Ness has become one of the largest commercial investment brokerage firms in the United States with nearly 600 advisors.

With 30 years of commercial real estate experience, Van Ness has been involved in several billion dollars of investment real estate transactions, trained and mentored hundreds of commercial and investment real estate brokers nationwide and was recognized as an innovative leader by Ernst and Young as a finalist of their Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Additionally, Sperry Van Ness has been named one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Brokerage Firms in North America by Realcomm for its "visionary implementation of a nationwide brokerage organization utilizing non-traditional infrastructure."

As a leader in social enterprise and microfinance locally, nationally and internationally, Van Ness is actively involved with mission-based organizations. As such, he is a founding member of the Center for Social Enterprise Advisory Board; the founder of the Social Enterprise Loan Fund (SELFund); and the founder of the Institute for Social Enterprise where he leads the Social Enterprise Leadership Forum, and established the Sperry Van Ness Legacy Foundation which supports social enterprises.

Van Ness is a member of the Young Presidents Organization and is also a member of the international YPO/WPO Microfinance Action Forum and the Presidents Action Network. He is also a member of TEC International, an international chief executive think tank and is a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers.