Spreading the Word About the Next 25 Social Enterprise Stars

Word continues to spread about our campaign to add 25 social enterprise stars to our loan portfolio over the next year—over 1700 enterprises and referrers had checked out our campaign page by the end of November. Now it’s time to give thanks.

Thanks to 3BL Media, B Lab, Justmeans, SOCAP, Social Earth, and all of our other partners and friends who have been talking about the 25 #socentstars campaign on Twitter and elsewhere.

Thanks also to Alissa Sears, Amanda Kemp, Jocelyn Demirbag, and others we’ve reached out to who have dug through their contacts and introduced us to some great candidates.

And thanks to everyone who suggested potential stars in comments on our previous blog posts. The lending team is following up on all these suggestions. Keep them coming!

Our campaign is still going strong. We’re seeking for-profit or non-profit enterprises that are doing groundbreaking work in food and agriculture, education and the arts, or ecological stewardship—and could significantly expand their impact with a loan of about $200,000 to $5 million. (See the Social Enterprise Stars campaign page for detailed criteria).

To illustrate, here are a couple of examples from our current roster of borrowers:

DC Central Kitchen is earning growing recognition for its work to create economic opportunity in the food industry for low-income and at-risk communities while addressing issues of food insecurity and food waste. The enterprise’s Meal Distribution program provides 10,000 healthy meals per day to local schools, homeless shelters, and other social service non-profit organizations. All meals are prepared by students and graduates of the Culinary Job Training program for unemployed people, many of whom are homeless, have been incarcerated, or have struggled with addiction. Find out more about DC Central Kitchen in this NPR story.

Playworks provides structured recess in public schools. Its programs improve school climate, reduce bullying, and increase student engagement through play and physical activity. Playworks provides public schools with trained, full-time coaches who use recess and play to support learning, and it provides training in structured recess for educators and youth workers.

Know any loan candidates like these? Please send them to Wanted: Social Enterprise Stars.

And please keep spreading the word! The more #SocentStars posts there are on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, the more social enterprises we can reach and assist. Here are a few post ideas:

@RSFSocFinance wants to fund the next 25 #SocentStars. Are you one? Apply: bit.ly/1tH0ytE #socent

Have a breakthrough social enterprise? @RSFSocFinance has #funding for the next 25 #SocentStars: bit.ly/1tH0ytE

Successful #socent with funding woes? See if you qualify for an @RSFSocFinance loan: bit.ly/1tH0ytE #SocentStars