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2006 Conference: How Social Entrepreneurs Make Change Happen!

Once again, Great Bay returned to the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel, New Castle, NH for our annual conference, because it continues to receive rave reviews from all attendees.

This year we chose to focus on the human aspects of Social Enterprise: "How Social Entrepreneurs Make Change Happen! What strategies, organizational characteristics, and personal qualities are necessary for success."

The three presenters, leaders in the field, were: Victor d'Allant, Executive Director, Social Edge, Skoll Foundation; John C. Brauer, CEO, NW Works, Inc., Winchester, Virginia; and Kim Alter, Founding Partner, Virtue Ventures; Visiting Fellow, Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; and University Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, Saïd Business School.  

Victor's topic was "Blogging, Tagging, Flickring for the Cause - New Tools and New Strategies: Social Networking and Online Communities in the Social Benefit Sector."


And his interactive exercise,  "Now That You've Nearly Mastered the Blogging, and Flickring Techniques, Create Five Unique Posting Titles – Sexy Enough To Provoke Interesting, Informed, Even Insightful Responses from Fellow Bloggers" launched many attendees into the online communication arena.

Our post-conference evaluation survey contained many comments on Victor's presentation, such as: "I enjoyed the advancing technology information and how it's relating to nonprofits today. Paper and mailings are becoming a thing of the past and web technology is the future. Thanks for realizing this! Showing us it's not as intimidating as it seems was great!"


Following Victor's presentation, Kim Alter brought us from the cyberworld into the real one with her presentation, "Four Lenses: An Integrated Social Entrepreneurship Approach – A New Paradigm for Building High Performance Organizations."

Her interactive exercise, "What If: You, Too, Can Effect Problem-Solving Strategies!" introduced new accounting methods to more effectively manage nonprofits' assets.

Post-conference survey notes included: "Kim provided an interesting conceptual framework informed by research and grounded in her own experience. A good blend of intellect and pragmatics."

"Kim has so much valuable information, that it seems her presentation could have gone on for another half hour to an hour."

To conclude the day, John Brauer,  brought social enterprise up close and personal with his topic, "Mission, Market and Mayhem: the People Side of Running a Social Enterprise."

And in his interactive exercise:  "Making the Hard Choices as You Move Your Social Enterprise Forward," John guided attendees through the process of making necessary but sometimes painful personnel decisions. As he said, "Often one of the most daunting and underrated aspects of running a Social Enterprise stems from the challenge of hiring, staffing, mentoring and rewarding the people who can make or break your business enterprise(s) – your employees and Board."

Post conference survey notes about John's presentation included: "It was good in all the group exercises to have a chance to talk with other members about how you deal with ideas or problems. I particularly like this group because it is people from many different settings with similar problems and because it is a different group you get different ideas. You also find out that personnel are the issue everywhere and I found it valuable to process personnel issues with this group on this exercise. You do have to have the right people in the right position at the right time."

Also, "I find having small group interaction focused on a topic and set within the framework of scenario to be really very effective means for sharing information, problem solving and getting to know one another."

About the Great Bay conference in general - detailed comments gleaned from our post-conference online assessment document demonstrate the ways in which participants rated this program a huge success. A sampling of those comments include:
 

• "I appreciated the opportunity to step back and view one's organization through a different lens, meet other entrepreneurs, learn. Having a mixture of grantees, potential grantees, and donors talking easily with each other, plus the learning opportunity."
• "The informality of the conference and small size of the group contribute to meaningful interactions with the speakers and among the participants."
• "The chance to connect with other organizations and to learn about their social ventures. These connections will surely lead to future collaborations."
• "For me, as a first-time participant, what I particularly loved about the conference was the depth of thinking coming from the conference participants resulting in invaluable "give and take". I learned a great deal as I observed the varied thought processes and problem-solving skills of colleagues."
• "The three presenters: each brought unique insight to his or her presentation. I found the information presented to be timely and relevant to my current work in social entrepreneurship. I thought that each presenter was approachable and willing to answer my questions, either before or after the presentations. Without a doubt, we're all smarter for having attended this conference and met/listened to these speakers!"