Product Description

A Practical Guide to Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact

Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact applies the strategic rigor and financial savvy of traditional private-sector business planning to social problem solving. This practical guide provides an introduction to business planning for enduring social impact and leads readers through a four-step process for creating an actionable business plan.

The guide is an essential tool for organizations seeking to:

* Define organizational focus and strategy and establish a clear road map
* Build a financially sustainable model by creating a plan to establish reliable streams of philanthropic support, earned income, and/or in-kind resources
* Establish rigorous methods of measuring impact for the organization and its stakeholders
* Make data-driven decisions that lead to improvements to the organization and its activities
* Build partnerships with stakeholders in all three sectors public, private, and nonprofit

Key features include a glossary of business planning terms, plus an outline, sample workplan, and sample business plan for enduring social impact.

Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact draws on Root Cause's unique business planning methodology, developed through consulting engagements with dozens of organizations, and through the organization's experience with the initiatives that it has started and grown. The guide is the first in a series of Root Cause How-to Guides, which provide practical advice for organizations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors dedicated to solving social problems.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279057 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-21
• Binding: Paperback
• 184 pages

Review
Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact: A Social-Entrepreneurship Approach to Solving Social Problems, by Andrew M. Wolk and Kelley Kreitz, offers a guide for charities interested in business ventures, and for businesses whose main goal is to benefit society. This book defines social entrepreneurship as "the practice of responding to market failures with transformative, financially sustainable innovations aimed at solving social problems." Four sections describe how to undertake a business venture, from the initial preparations to putting the business plan into action. The appendices include sample documents, like a business-plan outline, a work plan, and project schedules, as well as a glossary of terms. Additionally, boxed items describe how to find investors, determine what legal advice is needed, and decide whether to hire a consultant to help create the business plan. The book offers checklists at the end of each chapter to help keep readers on track with their preparations. --The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact: A Social-Entrepreneurship Approach to Solving Social Problems, by Andrew M. Wolk and Kelley Kreitz, offers a guide for charities interested in business ventures, and for businesses whose main goal is to benefit society. This book defines social entrepreneurship as "the practice of responding to market failures with transformative, financially sustainable innovations aimed at solving social problems." Four sections describe how to undertake a business venture, from the initial preparations to putting the business plan into action. The appendices include sample documents, like a business-plan outline, a work plan, and project schedules, as well as a glossary of terms. Additionally, boxed items describe how to find investors, determine what legal advice is needed, and decide whether to hire a consultant to help create the business plan. The book offers checklists at the end of each chapter to help keep readers on track with their preparations. --The Chronicle of Philanthropy

The gold standard in business planning for organizations addressing social problems. --Edward B. Roberts, David Sarnoff Professor, Management of Technology, MIT Sloan School of Management; Founder and Chair, MIT Entrepreneurship

About the Author
Andrew Wolk

Widely recognized as a leading social innovator and a pioneering teacher of social entrepreneurship, Andrew Wolk founded Root Cause in 2004 and now leads its overall strategic direction. He has consulted to dozens of organizations in fields as diverse as economic development, education, youth development, the environment, aging, and more. As part of Root Cause's knowledge sharing initiative, Andrew also authored the chapter "Social Entrepreneurship & Government: A New Breed of Entrepreneurs Developing Solutions to Social Problems" in The Small Business Economy: A Report to the President, Small Business Administration (SBA), Office of Advocacy. Andrew is also a senior lecturer in social entrepreneurship at the Sloan School of Management and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He designed and taught one of the first courses on social entrepreneurship in the country for Boston University s School of Management, who recently awarded him the first ever Rising Star Award. Andrew began his career as a private-sector entrepreneur, having built and sold a multi-restaurant delivery business in the 1990s. He holds an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship and Nonprofit Management from Boston University and a B.A. from Lehigh University.

Kelley Kreitz

Kelley Kreitz developed and launched Root Cause's knowledge sharing department in 2006. Kelley is senior editor on the forthcoming publication "Advancing Social Entrepreneurship: Recommendations for Addressing Social Problems with Innovative, Results-Oriented Solutions," co-published by Root Cause and the Aspen Institute. Previously, Kelley worked for New Profit Inc. on initiatives aimed at building the field of social entrepreneurship. She has also advised nonprofits throughout the United States on messaging and media strategy, with a national news service for nonprofits. As a writer and journalist, Kelley has served as the senior writer for GreenBiz.com and reported for WRNI, Rhode Island s NPR news station, and KPFA in Berkeley, California.

Root Cause

Root Cause is a nonprofit organization that advances enduring solutions to social and economic problems by building social innovators and educating social impact investors. We do this through business planning and implementation consulting, leadership development, publishing of practical resources, and the creation of professional and funding networks that unite the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Customer Reviews

An Important Resource for the Social Sector
As a student of public management and a former social entrepreneur, I am convinced that if more social sector managers understood and adopted the business planning process for social impact, their organizations or enterprises would experience new vitality. More generally, the use of business planning within the entire social sector would increase the quality of social impact investment and create new levels of sustainability.

Too many non-profits and social entrepreneurs waste time, energy, and resources year-after-year cultivating resources to keep their social impact enterprises afloat. Too few social impact investors, donor-advised funds, and foundations are able to find social impact organizations that are succeeding in achieving impact, measuring their impact, and planning for long-term sustainability and growth-all at once.

This clear and well-written guide challenges leaders of any social impact organization (whether for-profit, non-profit, or government) to use business plans to help identify opportunities, develop innovations, demonstrate accountability, and secure sustainable revenue sources. Wolk & Kreitz demonstrate the "promise of business planning" in four easy-to-follow steps:

1. Planning to Plan
2. Articulating A Social Impact Model
3. Developing An Implementation Strategy
4. Finalizing Your Business Plan & Putting It Into Action

The book also includes appendices with a business plan outline, a glossary, and a sample Business Plan for Growth from an existing non-profit.

This is a must-have resource for social entrepreneurs, non-profit managers, or social impact investors seeking to reinvigorate their social impact organization or looking for new models for measuring impact and creating sustainable, scalable long-term growth.

This is an indispensable resource that I highly recommend.

Note: I interned with Root Cause, the publisher of this book, in the summer of 2008.

Handy, concise guide to business planning for nonprofit managers and board members.
This concise, handy guide to business planning for nonprofit managers fills a critical niche. While there are a number of widely-used guides to strategic communications planning for nonprofits, this book addresses a need for practical advice on strategic financial planning. The book offers field-tested advice on how public interest organizations can measurably increase their social impact through a more disciplined, entrepreneurial approach. The book summarizes the how's and why's of business planning and offers examples of business plans used by successful nonprofit organizations. Recommended for nonprofit managers, board members, and foundation program officers.

Great Buy
This book is a great primer and invaluable tool in introducing the use of business planning for nonprofits. This type of thinking differs from traditional strategic planning and I hope to see more books emerge that are geared towards nonprofits using business practices. It's an easy-to-read manual that provides a clear process that lets even beginners successfully engage in a planning process. The book is definitely concise, but I think it's a really useful tool for any nonprofit's library (and DEFINITELY worth the $20 bucks)