Building, Financing, and Growing a Social Mission Business - Practical Tools for Emerging, New, and Expanding Companies

The Social Venture Institute (SVI), an initiative of Social Venture Network (SVN), brings together business leaders and social entrepreneurs for a dynamic, interactive learning experience, exploring the day-to-day challenges of running a business and maintaining socially conscious values.

Keynote Speakers:

Gary Hirshberg, Stonyfield Farm
Issac Horton, Remote Light
Carol Atwood, Spartacus Media Enterprises
Connie Evans, Women's Self-Employment Project
Woody Tasch, Investor's Circle

March 11, 2004

The Future of the Biofuels Industry

March 18 and 19, 2004

On March 18th and 19th, Babson hosted the Seventh International Symposium on Spirituality and Business, featuring keynote addresses on Spreading Contagious Enthusiasm-Creating Workplaces of Passion, Purpose and Productivity by Barbara Glanz, noted author and consultant on workplace productivity, The Quest for Excellence, by Nirmal Manerikar, Senior Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Profits for Good, by Julius Walls, CEO of the Greyston Bakery, featured recently on CBS' "60 Minutes", as well as other noted speakers and personalities.

Dancing Deer Baking Company provides high quality, all-natural baked goods through cafes, restaurants, retail operations and a mail order program. The Bakery has won numerous awards for product quality, including several of Food Industry “Oscar” equivalents, as well as been touted on national TV for the "best cake in America”.

Dancing Deer is located in a rehabilitated brick factory building in the Roxbury section of Boston and has been an Inner City 100 company annually since 2000.  Dancing Deer launched The “Sweet Home Project” to help homeless families find jobs and housing. The initiative is a joint effort with the One Family Campaign (a project of the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation) and Dancing Deer donates 35% of the Retail price of the Sweet Home Product line directly to help homeless families find jobs and move into homes of their own. The company philosophy is that baking "angry" can ruin a cake and all Dancing Deer employees are stakeholders in its profitability and share in the rewards of a well run, growing company.

June 11, 2004 

Diversity in Action

Facilitated by:

Manuel Manga & Marilyn Kobus

Manuel Manga and Marilyn Kobus will facilitate an interactive workshop on the issues of diversity and inclusion.   This event is a followup from the Diversity and Inclusion Workshop RBA and SVN offered in January. 

Desired Outcomes:
1. Become aware of your own unique differences, and appreciate those differences.
2. Work with a dynamic model of diversity that offers a wider understanding of diversity.
3. Bring the awareness of diversity into action by integrating our knowledge in our workplaces and community.

Presenters:

Manuel Manga is a member of the RBA Steering Committee and an organizational consultant and executive coach, who focuses on leadership development, team building, diversity, organizational learning, and sustainability.  He brings a linguistic-communication perspective, and also a systems thinking perspective into his work. His vision is to transform organizations so that they are healthy environments for human beings, that support learning, productivity, innovation and sustainability.

Manuel has led diversity programs at DEC, State Street Bank, Herman Miller, The City of Cambridge, Westinghouse, and others.  He graduated from the University of Massachusetts, and majored in Psychology, and has a Masters in Education from Boston University in Community Psychology.

Marilyn Kobus is an organizational consultant with Kobus Associates. She focuses on management development, project management, diversity, and communication.  Marilyn has led diversity programs for Fleet Bank, and other institutions.  She has a Masters degree in education from Harvard University.

September 13, 2004

Total Corporate Responsibility:  Making CSR and SRI Sustainable

 featuring

Frank Dixon, Innovest Strategic Value Advisors

Frank Dixon, Managing Director at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, will speak on the Corporate Social Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investing movements. Both have driven large improvements in corporate environmental and social performance. Most firms are in the early stages of their evolution towards total sustainability. This progression is slow because economic and political systems essentially compel firms to act irresponsibly and unsustainably by not holding them fully accountable for negative impacts on society. To address this fundamental driver of unsustainability, Frank developed the Total Corporate Responsibility (TCR) methodology. TCR is a practical, incremental, profit-enhancing method of addressing systemic barriers to sustainability. The approach is used to implement advanced corporate sustainability strategies and develop investment products with superior financial and sustainability performance. We will end the evening with a discussion of what we in the greater Boston community can do as a sustainable community to promote TCR.

Frank Dixon is a Managing Director at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors and is an independent author and consultant in the sustainability field.  He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

RBA is delighted to announce that Kevin Knobloch, President of Union of Concerned Scientists will present his views, and those of the organization, of the presidential election.   He will also offer practical solutions to both individuals and businesses on a host of hot issues including: Antibiotic resistance and Biotechnology; Global warming; Nuclear energy; Nuclear weapons and Renewable energy.

Kevin Knobloch is President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a national non-profit organization working to ensure clean air and energy, safe and sufficient food, and a future free from the threats of global warming and nuclear war.  UCS has a $10 million annual budget and 80 full-time staff with offices in Cambridge, MA, Washington, DC, and Berkeley, CA.  Knobloch was UCS’s Executive Director from 2000 through 2003.  Prior to joining UCS in January of 2000, Knobloch was Director of Conservation Programs for the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston for 6½ years.  He served as Legislative Director for U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO) and Legislative Assistant and Press Secretary for U.S. Representative Ted Weiss (D-NY) during six years on Capitol Hill, beginning in 1983.