April 23: NYWSE Incubator Participants Present Ventures at 1st Fast Forward Fund Investor Pitch Session
Launching a new era of youth activism, youth social entrepreneurs from New York Women Social Entrepreneurs (NYWSE) pitched their ventures for philanthropic investment before the Student Directors of the Fast Forward Fund (FFF) in the first youth-to-youth social investment pitch for investments up to $25,000. While Generation Y is often most recognized for its affinity to Facebook, this generation is redefining philanthropy in two ways. First, through innovative funding practices like youth-to-youth investing, and second by supporting social entrepreneurship, or mission-driven enterprises.
Thirteen Student Directors of FFF from Bard College’s Globalization and International Affairs Program reviewed investment pitches presented by participants of NYWSE’s Incubator Program at the Levin Institute in New York City. FFF is at the forefront of innovative social investment, enabling young people to leverage relatively small individual donations to make a large-scale impact. Its mission is to harness this generation’s financial resources, passion, and energy to advance global sustainability and human dignity. Their portfolios invest in the areas of climate change and energy; poverty alleviation; public health; and human rights and peace. One Bard College student declared after the April 23 FFF pitch: “To me the pitch session was a meeting for youth to inspire other youth... Funding should not be the reason we should sit down, but the reason we would stand up and fight.”
Potential investments are youth-led and proposed by pipeline nominating institutions such as the NYWSE Incubator Program, the Clinton Global Initiative University, Teach for America’s Social Entrepreneurship Institute, and the Global Engagement Summit. Next year they will be joined by others like Acumen, Ashoka, and Echoing Green.
Six NYWSE Incubator entrepreneurs pitched their diverse social ventures. The NYWSE Incubator develops new female-led social ventures through an intensive six-month support program. These female-run social ventures are a mix of not-for-profit and for-profit businesses with a triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit), including:
• Early Earners – Online education destination for youth and families promoting positive financial habits
• Girl Guides USA – Outdoor program that develops girls’ environmentalism, leadership and teamwork
• Illume – Online mentoring and career resource for young women from illiterate families in India
• Out Against Abuse – Online resource to stop domestic violence in the South Asian community
• Public Stuff – Software to connect government and citizens to improve services and community life
• Start Your Engine – Exercise, nutrition, stress and time management program for low-income women
"small individual donations to make a large-scale impact" also you can make this impact by small investments too, I have a client of mine which is a bank establishing their business based on sustainable society model and environmental business.http://www.e3bank.com you can invest in green future here.
Posted by: S.P. | May 13, 2009 at 02:09 PM