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COMMUNITY WEALTH
Community Wealth is revenue generated through
profitable or self-sustaining enterprises to promote
social change. Community wealth ventures are also known
as social enterprises or earned income ventures.
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OUR APPROACH |
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One of our goals at Community Wealth Ventures is to explore how social change organizations can apply market-based approaches to critical issues affecting our communities. When we talk about markets, it’s not because we are so enamored of everything about the business sector; it’s because we believe that to solve social problems on the scale that they exist, most of us are going to have to find ways to use all of the resources at our command, regardless of whether it’s the philanthropic sector, the economic marketplace or the political marketplace.
Market-based strategies are responsive to trends, gaps and needs in a nonprofit’s social-change market, which is comprised of constituents, collaborators, donors, government agencies and the other entities that work in concert to affect social change. This awareness, when coupled with deep understanding of organizational capabilities and impact, can spark innovation and reveal new opportunities.
This approach is core to our expertise in social enterprise.
CWV recently partnered with Social Enterprise
Alliance and Duke University to conduct a
comprehensive study of social enterprise activity in
the US; to read about our findings please click
here.
Market-based solutions can take a variety of forms. For example: |
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ACCION International |
| ACCION International is a 45-year old, award-winning, microfinance organization whose mission is to give people the tools they need to overcome poverty. Recognizing significant gaps in the micro-finance sector that are restraining opportunities for systemic change, ACCION’s management established The Center for Financial Inclusion, an action-oriented thought-leadership “Center” that brings together microfinance institutions and the private sector to advance the provision of quality and universal access to financial services for low-income populations. Read CWV’s case study on the Center
here. |
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Search Institute |
The
Search Institute is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge and resources to promote healthy children, youth and communities. Founded fifty years ago as a research institute, the Search Institute has since grown to offer educational tools, resources and services to equip parents and youth-serving organizations to help young people lead successful lives. While the Search Institute has been very successful as a research institution, the institution’s leadership invested in a social enterprise initiative to sell products and services that leverage the organization’s research and work. Read CWV’s case study on the Center here. |
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| To learn about other examples of social enterprise, please search the
Directory of Social Enterprises |
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