Tags: Echoing Green, From Our Partners, Grantmaking, Innovation, Jewish Community, Joshua Venture, Leadership, Research, Schusterman Family Foundation, Young Jews Lisa Lepson is the executive director of the Joshua Venture Group.
“Social entrepreneurs” may be the latest buzzword in the Jewish community, but at Joshua Venture Group, it is much more—and holds significant meaning.
As Joshua Venture Group re-launched our Dual Investment Program in Fall 2009, we pushed ourselves to question what we know and don’t know about the inherent qualities that define social entrepreneurs and embarked on a process to better understand and identify what we were looking for. We surveyed the academic and popular literature for definitions and qualities of social entrepreneurs, and we looked at those individuals inside and outside of our community who were, to our mind, accomplished social entrepreneurs.
And yet, even after creating our own definition based upon others’ such Echoing Green’s, we were determined to dig deeper to put a rigorous selection process in place.
We found that we benefited from looking at frameworks from the corporate human capital arena. Through a thoughtful and analytical process, we strengthened and more deeply defined our understanding of a social entrepreneur and, in turn, enriched our selection process. We engaged successful social entrepreneurs, Joshua Venture alumni, and valued board and advisory council members in this process. With the collective wisdom, and the guidance of a proven methodology and leading expert, we narrowed our search by homing in on specific competencies required by social entrepreneurs.
We are proud to release the report, Picking a Needle out of a Haystack, and by sharing our process, we intend to exemplify how transparency and knowledge-sharing can lift all boats, and how they play a role in advancing the philanthropic and social innovation sectors. As a recently re-launched learning organization, we look forward to sharing more of our “lessons from Joshua Venture Group” as our cohort of fellows and program continue to mature.
Download: Picking a Needle out of a Haystack
Lisa Lepson is the executive director of the Joshua Venture Group.