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Newswise -- An international report on new business development  includes the first global study of social entrepreneurship. In 2009, 49 national teams collected data on social entrepreneurial activity. It covered any activity with a social purpose, including social or community work, for profit or non-profit, and incorporated or non-incorporated.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) includes a study of the prevalence of people engaged in entrepreneurial activities with a social goal, whether profit or non-profit, public or private.

Siri A. Terjesen, assistant professor of strategic management and international entrepreneurship and her co-authors found that the average rate of social entrepreneurship activity increases slightly with economic development.

"Individuals in richer countries, having satisfied their own basic needs, may be more likely to turn to the needs of others," they wrote in the report. "In other words, the opportunity cost of social entrepreneurship may be higher in developing countries.

"On the other hand, social and environmental problems are often more prevalent in developing countries," they added. "Another reason for this finding is that the definitions of a traditional enterprise and a social enterprise may overlap in developing countries, whereas they may be more distinct in developed counties."

For example, they found that social and business entrepreneurship overlap "quite significantly" in places such as Peru, Columbia, Venezuela and Jamaica.

More holistic definitions of entrepreneurship are needed

"A significant minority of social entrepreneurs, particularly in developing countries, appear to wish to have a profitable business that at the same time addresses social issues," the report said. "This demonstrates that for many people, the categories of 'social' and 'business' entrepreneur are artificial, and more holistic definitions of entrepreneurship are needed if we are to capture the true extent of this phenomenon."

• Countries with the highest prevalence of social entrepreneurs in the 2009 GEM sample included United Arab Emirates, the United States, Iceland and Argentina.
  
• Countries with few social entrepreneurs included Guatemala, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Sectors of Robust Social Entrepreneurship

The GEM report found that socially oriented entrepreneurs are found in a variety of areas --education, health, culture, economic development and the environment. Among them, specific issues differed across economic groups.

Factor-Driven Economies

For example, many social entrepreneurs in factor-driven economies - which are highly sensitive to world economic cycles, commodity price trends and exchange rate fluctuations - tend to focus on "more elementary issues and pressing needs" such as such as providing health care, access to sanitation and fresh water and agricultural activities in rural areas.

Innovation-Driven Economies

Many of those in innovation-driven countries focus on recycling, nature protection, providing services for disabled persons and even open-source activities such as online social networking.

Siri A. Terjesen, assistant professor of strategic management and international entrepreneurship, produced the social entrepreneurship component of the report with Rachida Justo of the Instituto de Empresa in Spain and Jan Lepoutre of Ghent University in Belgium.

Since 1998, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has become the world's most comprehensive research consortium dedicated to understanding the relationship between entrepreneurship and national economic development. GEM provides the most comprehensive comparative data about attitudes toward entrepreneurs, start-up business activities, and plans for starting and building businesses, globally, by geographic region and by country.

The complete GEM report, which is based on interviews with at least 2,000 people in 54 countries, is available online at http://www.gemconsortium.org/ and provides further details about social entrepreneurship and many other global entrepreneurial findings.

Two  grant programs are available with ARRA funding to support the training and development of the skilled workforce required to support broad adoption and use of health information technology (health IT). 

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.,  announced the availability of
 
Information Technology Professionals in Health Care:

• Program of Assistance for University-Based Training Programs (University-Based Training Program)
• Competency Examination for Individuals (Competency Examination Program).

Authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the grants will strengthen and support the health IT workforce.

University Based Health IT Competency Training Program
The new grant programs will award $32 million to establish university-based certificate and advanced degree health IT training programs

University Based Health IT Competency Exam Program
$6 million dollars to develop a health IT competency examination program.

Community College Consortia Grants
These awards, together with the previous announced $80 million in workforce program grants (Community College Consortia on Nov. 24, 2009, and Curriculum Development Centers on Dec. 15, 2009), recognize the critical importance of developing a well-trained health IT workforce to support the adoption and meaningful use of health IT.

Applications are due by Jan. 25, 2010, with final awards expected in March 2010. 

I read a line in a blog by Kwande Kefentse (CreativeClass.com) that stunned me... "cultural mapping and planning is one of the most important tools for creating prosperity out of space."

What does that really mean? That blog didn't have much further to say about "cultural mapping" so I went to the Internet.

Cultural mapping has been recognized by UNESCO as a crucial tool and technique in preserving the world's intangible and tangible cultural assets. ... www.unescobkk.org/culture/cltmapping

Cultural Mapping
In simple terms cultural mapping is a treasure hunt, or an asset audit, of a cultural entity, to find cultural capital. For more explanation. ...www.culturalmapping.com/

Cultural Mapping
Presentation delivered by Sam Coghlan, Chief Executive Officer, Stratford Public Library, Municipal Cultural Planning Pa. www.slideshare.net/erobson/cultural-mapping

The blog, www.culturalmapping.com/ seems to address this topic in the most depth.

"Your cultural capital is your strength - find it - use it - and prosper!"

In summary - cultural mapping is the process of identifying, recording, and investigating cultural assets, your strengths - that are either tangible or intangible and that make up the elements of that culture. These assets could be organisational, human, social, tribal, corporate, natural or built environments.

Cultural mapping is a participatory action method facilitated to identify your strengths, greatly enhanced through the use of our Cultural Mapping Software.

Cultural Mapping is an opportunity for organisations and individuals to collaborate, build relationships and map their history for sustainable success. To assist in creating tools to help understand each others value in working together, to create better [ valuable ] outcomes - With two way respect and understanding it is always a win/win situation. Creating less risk to the projects investment.

Founded by Jennifer Joi Field in 2006, Cultural Mapping was established in Australia as an independent socially responsible venture to provide clients with a way to identify and make the most of their strengths with a focus on: Creating joint value and Linking cultural development methodology with social entrepreneurship goals.

In the past Cultural Mapping has been used as a technique by some professionals in the 'Community Development' sector as a way of 'Mapping' community assets. How it was undertaken was largely dependent on who was doing it and why, most commonly it was used as a tool to identify the resources of communities and was referred to as 'Community Mapping'.

If one were to ask what is Cultural Mapping we would firstly have to say that it involves mapping the Culture of who or what you are, be it a tribe, organisation, community, group, school, association, business or an individual - to find your unique assets or strengths. Culture can in this case be defined as your intellectual property, your special way of being or doing, the purpose of your existence, the business you are in (or would like to be) or the special story that you alone have to tell.

Many small busiensses serve local needs...with local solutions.  But which solutions are most central to the heart of sustainable families and sustainable communities?  The Census Bureau has found that money isn't everything.  There are more tangible ways to measure standards of living and small businesses are in a great position to identify solutions that meet these basic human needs.

The living standards of U.S. households are traditionally measured by income.

This report takes a different approach.

Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)

It measures living standards in terms of extended measures of well-being of households tracked in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to help deepen our knowledge about household conditions in ways not captured by money alone.

Some aspects of well-being, such as fear of crime or quality of local public services, may be only loosely connected with money. Other measures are more closely related to income but can also be effected by factors such as the cost of living, age, disability status, and sudden changes in circumstances.

Extended measures of well-being provide a more complete and detailed picture of household living conditions in the United States than income alone provides.

Well-being Metrics

The U.S. Census Bureau tracks extended measures of well-being in the SIPP.2.  The SIPP's "Extended Measures of Well-Being" topical module, on which this report is based, covers five broad domains:

(1) appliances and electronic goods, such as possession of refrigerators, landline and cellular telephones, and computers;

(2) housing conditions, including level of satisfaction with overall home repair, adequate living space, and sufficient privacy;

(3) neighborhood conditions and community services, such as: road conditions and the presence of abandoned buildings; satisfactory police, fire, and medical services; and attitudes towards local schools;

(4) meeting basic needs, including the ability to pay bills in full, to avoid eviction, and to have sufficient food; and

(5) the expectation of help, should need arise, from friends, family, and the community.

For this report, extended measures of well-being are used to describe living conditions in the United States for the time period 1992-2003.

It takes an inside champion to get an organization started on a greener pathway.  You can practice your leadership skills at the same time you develop new job skills AND green your own workplace environment by initiating a green program.  And you don't have to do it alone.  The San Francisco based Connect the Dots nonprofit is making it easy for you by providing an easy to implement system just for nonprofits!

Connect the Dots disseminates environmental sustainability practices to nonprofit organizations to help organizations meet their social missions in an environmentally responsible manner. They provide the guidance nonprofit organizations need to realize their desire for environmental responsibility. Now nonprofit organizations can undertake the path towards sustainability and truly maximize their care for the communities they serve.
 

The Green Start Program

The Connect the Dots consulting program, the Green Start program, concentrates on high impact, minimal effort conservation practices to "jumpstart" organizations towards sustainability.

Initially, they act as an extension of an organization's staff, planning and taking action on its behalf, including scheduling audits with existing programs, creating action lists and implementing them, setting up and/or facilitating an internal "green team" group, developing a strategy, and setting up and monitoring savings.

Over time, as organizations acclimate to using our tools (e.g. action worksheets, monitoring tools, etc.), they take over their own planning, execution, and tracking of their green program.

For 3 months, Connect The Dots partners with nonprofits to serve as "personal trainers" to address the most beneficial greening processes:

• Waste Management

• Energy & Utilities

• Environmentally-Preferred Purchasing Policy

• Education & Outreach

• Tracking & Reporting

To promote ongoing changes, the Connect The Dots' methodology integrates planning and tracking tools to help nonprofits make informed decisions about environmental sustainability.

CONTACT:
Connect The Dots
1442 Florida Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.830.5858 or 888.666.0031
www.connectthedotsnetwork.org