8 Tips for Social Business Plan Competitors

When Planting Empowerment was just a wee company, we participated in social business plan competitions at several universities including Notre Dame, University of Texas Austin, and Yale. While we never came away with a first place, they were an excellent way for us to gain valuable (and yes, critical) feedback about our business plan and become more comfortable pitching our concept. We even earned a little money which helped us get off the ground. These days, we stay involved through judging and mentoring roles, and have seen a lot of different business plans. Below we present a few suggestions on how to improve your chances at these competitions.

Have your product/service already developed. The judges see hundreds of business plans, and your amazing idea is competing with all the other amazing ideas. Having something already in production, or even a working prototype, signals that you’re serious about your business and are actually making it happen. Include photos of the product. Photoshop it being used. Include a positive testimonial from someone who has actually used your product or service (be honest, of course). Judges want to be known for choosing something that is already a reality or is well on its way, not an idea that may become reality.

Use real numbers. Assumptions won’t get you too far. Do your research and cite your sources for the assumptions you are using to develop your numbers. This is especially important for sales numbers. If you’re going to quantify your social impact, use the New Economic model system. A 568% SROI or $1-$10 cost-benefit ratio will raise eyebrows because the analysis probably isn’t accurate. Run it by one of your friends who is studying economics.

Click to read more ...

Interview with Shoestring Venture

We recently had the opportunity to do an interview with Shoestring Venture—The Startup Bible Blog. If you haven't heard of them, take some time to browse the website; they feature stories about startups and offer practical advice to entrepreneurs. 

Growing the Pie in Panama

NPR recently did a story on Panama’s impressive growth, but also the inequitable distribution of that increasing wealth. Since we first started working in Panama in 2003, we’ve seen the country transform significantly. There is a lot more wealth than there was ten years ago, but that wealth is largely contained in the city among the country’s elite and politically connected. As the post points out, a third of Panama’s 3.5 million still live in poverty.

A view of the Trump Tower sun deck in PanamaAs for-profit business, we believe that everyone can benefit by participating in capital markets. We’re not calling for the redistribution of Panama’s wealth to the urban and rural poor. Rather, we’re working to grow the proverbial pie through profitable, sustainable forestry, while ensuring that our community forestry partners, as an essential part of our business, benefit from that overall increase in wealth creation.

While this may seem altruistic, it’s not. What our sustainable forestry model does is consider the long-term economic, social and environmental impacts of empowering those who are critical to our business. Attracting increased foreign investment and including more local stakeholders as economic winners makes business sense. Higher wages reduce our labor turnover and increase productivity. Profit sharing reduces our political risk. We are ensuring that we have continued access to necessary, and increasingly costly, plantation inputs such as land and labor.

Panama will continue to grow, and holders of our Forest Investment should be glad to see this. But Panama also needs to consider the potential of those who are currently excluded from the economic process. Until they become stakeholders in the growing wealth of the country, Panama will continue to have the road blocks and strikes that point to this economic disparity. In the meantime, we wouldn't feel too bad if all the luxury SUVs in Panama City were made to suffer the wait.

Learn more about Panama.

William James Foundation’s 2012 Social Entrepreneurship Gathering

Planting Empowerment is honored to participate in the William James Foundation’s annual gathering this Friday held at the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC.

We’ll be speaking on the “Launching and running a business across continents” panel, which explores how social businesses operate multi-nationally.

Planting Empowerment competed in the WJF’s Social Enterprise Competition in 2007, and has served as a judge for the competition for the past five years.

The William James Foundation connects for-profit social entrepreneurs to industry experts and impact investors to help scale those entrepreneurs' ideas into sustainable ventures.

The Wisdom of Crowds (Funding)

Looking up the trunk of a Yellow wood (Armarillo) tree in PanamaLast Thursday, the US Senate approved the JOBS Act, a piece of legislation that would make it easier for small businesses to raise financing. The bill was passed in the House a few weeks ago, and now, with the Senate’s changes, will go back to the House for debate and (hopefully) approval. It would then move to President Obama, who has already said he will sign it into law.

From our perspective, the bill represents a couple of features that would enable smaller investors to access the forestry investments marketplace.

Click to read more ...