Uh, let's try that one more time...

Okay, so apparently our online auction kick-off event did not go so well.  We did not have very many people show up at all (including myself, and I feel super-duper-ultra guilty, but I had to be in an opera workshop performance at the EXACT same time, which I had known about all semester).  We even had FREE MOCKTAILS. 

Never fear!!  The wonderful thing about being social entrepreneurs is that we bounce right back in the face of minor setbacks.  We have decided to revamp the advertising campaign and will re-host our "kick off" event on Wednesday during the dinner rush so we get the attention of more students.  I just checked the silent auction website, and we do have a few bids, which is a great start, but we need MORE!! :-D

*Status update:  I just received word from one of my GSE teammates that the auction has currently raised $420!!!  YAY!!!  That's super cool, but keep in mind that there are 12 students on this trip, and we each need to raise approximately $4,000 apiece (also, any donation that YOU make to the GSE team will be matched by a grant from the college up to $750, this includes items purchased through the silent auction).

I know that readership of this blog is very small, and I know I promised in the last post that my future posts were not going to be so focused on fundraising, but I cannot predict the future (to my great disappointment), so I did not foresee this little snafu, but fortunately, it was only a little hiccup, and we seem to be making steady progress towards our goal.

Once again, the GSE online silent auction can be found here.  We have some really wonderful times including:

• a gift basket from SoMar Wine Cellars
• a gift basket from Spoon Market and Deli
• a gourmet breakfast for four at the Mirabelle Bed and Breakfast
• a night at the Black Squirrel Inn
• a "Date Night" basket
• fun activities with Professors and/or Staff around the College of Wooster campus

 I hope everyone takes the time to bid on the many wonderful items we have listed in the auction, and don't forget to looks for the GSE booth at the Wooster Jam this Friday and Saturday (April 20th-21st)!

Group Fundraising Round 2!!

Alright, so last Saturday, GSE Team 2012 sold Mocktails at the South Asian Students dinner.  We made almost $200, not a bad start for our first crack at the fundraising thing.  This Saturday, we're starting our second round of fundraising.  At 7:30pm tonight, our online-line silent auction will be up and running until midnight on Thursday, April 19th.  We are starting out this event with a little kick-off reception (with FREE mocktails).  We've been so fortunate to have seen so much support from the college and greater Wooster community.  We have many really excellent donated items available in the auction.  We're auctioning a massage, a basket from Spoon Market and Deli, SoMar Wine Cellars, and other local establishments in the Wooster community.  We've also got some wonderful donations from professors and staff members who have offered to take students fishing, dine with them, wear matching t-shirts, etc.

The link to the GSE 2012 online silent auction is http://www.32auctions.com/GSE:2012

If you are so inclined (and I highly recommend it) you should take 20 minutes to peruse the wonderful items we have to offer.  I just want to thank everyone in advance for their support in advance!!!  I will be updating you soon on the outcome of this fundraiser.

On another note, I don't want to make this blog just about fundraising, because 1) it's boring, and 2) it's annoying.  Therefore, although I do not have time at the moment to go more in depth on the topics and projects that we are working on in class, I will quite soon.  I'm sure that you all would find topics on livelihoods and their importance in the Indian context far more exciting and intellectually stimulating that never-ending updates on our fundraisers (we'll be running a booth at the Wooster Jam NEXT Saturday in case you're interested).

Bye for now!!  I actually have many non-GSE related appointments and events to attend today (shocking I know). 

A Good Start for the First Group Fundraising Endeavors of GSE 2012

So, the newspaper-like style of this post's title has definitely taught me to leave the journalism stuff to my brother, the family Media Studies major :-)  Although not as snappy and succinct as I would like it, the title of this post is informative.  Last night, at South Asian dinner, the closing event of South Asia week at Wooster, GSE 2012 sold South-Asian inspired mock-tails (non-alcoholic cocktails) as one of our group fundraisers.  We had a wide variety of drinks to choose from, including the classic mojito, and sangria.  We also had a variety of yogurt-based fruit smoothies, and for the more adventurous eaters, drinks like Pepper-head (a fruity drink with a dash of pepper) and Masala soda (a word to the wise, this is not a sweet drink, it contains black salt, so it does in fact have a peppery bite to it).  I honestly have never had anything like the Masala soda before, but it was really interesting.  I think that it would have gone really nicely with the delicious Indian food that was served at the dinner, but we did not get a chance to really sit down and have drinks until after the dinner was over.

All in all, I think it went pretty well.  We raised $187, which was all profit thanks to a generously donated ingredients from the Wooster Ambassador's Program.  I think it's a pretty good start, and I heard some good feedback from the people at the dinner.  I think this we may be able to have this be a continuing fundraiser for GSE in the future.  However, like all first time ventures, there were some kinks that can be smoothed out and worked over in the future.  First of all, we had some ready-made drinks that we could basically just pour into cups and hand it to people, but most of the drinks were made from scratch right there, which was actually pretty awesome!  We also basically got mobbed by a whole group of people wanting different drinks all at the same time, and the three blenders that we had simply couldn't keep up with the demand.  Actually, as I think about this, we really didn't know what the demand would be like for the different drinks, so it may have actually been better to do on the spot orders this year.  Now we have a better idea of the demand for each drink, and groups in the future can plan accordingly thanks to the rough data we have gathered this year.  The sangria and mojitos were extremely popular, and so I think we need to figure out a way to streamline the production of those drinks.  The mixed-berry smoothie we made was also very popular, and having pitchers of that on demand may be a good idea for next year.

So, I think our first fundraiser went well.  At the very least, we have started getting the word out about the GSE program, and all the cool stuff GSE students will get to do.  Our next fundraiser is actually going to start NEXT WEEKEND!  We will be doing and online silent auction.  The auction will be online for one week, and it will feature some lovely things such as a gourmet breakfast for two at Mirabelle's Bed and Breakfast (I'm sorry to say that this auction is mostly marketed for people who live nearby Wooster, but please, even if you live in Latvia you are more than welcome to bid if you so choose), a Therapeutic massage, and even a gift basket from SoMar Wine Cellars.  For Wooster students, we are auctioning off some professors who will be dining with students, making matching t-shirts, or whatever suits your fancy.  *Here's where my shameless advertising plug come in:* COW students, faculty and staff!  Keep on the look out for posters regarding the auction.  We'll have tabling time in Lowry during lunch and we may even visit you in person!! :-) We would really love your support, it takes a lot of money to send 12 poor college students to India for six weeks.  We would like to thank you in advance for your investment in us as students of the College of Wooster.

Alright, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make this blog post into a NPR fundraising hour.  However, at this point in the GSE game, fundraising is really important for all of us in the class.  It is pretty much all I'm thinking about when I prepare for class every Tuesday and Thursday.  It is an important part of the experience, and right now it is the current "experience" for all of us.  Bangalore, India is still many weeks into our future, and right now we have to figure out how we're actually going to get there. 

Fundraising: if Non-Profits all have to do it, I guess it's only fair that I do too

Fundraising.  It's a funny word.  Actually, now that I think about it, I think it's actually a pretty straightforward word.  Its meaning is literally right in front of you.  In reality, I think it's people's reactions and attitudes towards fundraising that are really the issue.  Some people make entire careers out of it, others do it once or twice for charity walks to cure cancer or hunger.  To others, it's wonderful because it means that girl scouts will be selling cookies in their neighborhoods, and some for whatever reason, dislike fundraising immensely.

 My first experiences fundraising were in elementary school.  Every year, I was given pamphlets containing pictures of wrapping paper, magazines, frozen pizza kits, candles, fruit and nuts, flowers, Mary Kay beauty products, and any number of desirable yet expensive (at least to a third grader) products.  I was told in school to take these pamphlets door to door and ask my neighbors to buy things from me, but my mother had a rule, I was only allowed to sell my goods to close friends and family.  Needless to say, I never won any of the prizes the school gave out to the students who sold the most.  Did I really care that much?  Nope, not really, I wasn't a competitive kid so I really did not care all that much.  I was also quite shy.  Even if I was a little bit more competitive, there was NO WAY I would have had the gumption to walk up to my neighbor's door and ask if they wanted to buy some citrus fruit.

Welcome to non-profit work! It turns out fundraising takes up a huge chunk of your tie (who'd have thought right?).  In fact, the very survival of your non-profit in question may depend on the generous donates of kindhearted people.  I am going to have to get over this fundraising phobia, and quickly.  Part of the reason for this is that the GSE program fees amount to around $5000 (includes university credit, food, housing, transportation in India, flights to and from India, vaccines, visas, a faculty adviser, and other things) and I...definitely don't have that much money.  I guess it's three cheers for hands-on learning!

I think, in the long term, that this is a good thing.  If I want a future career in the non-profit industry, then I must be prepared to be involved in the fundraising efforts.  I'm an engaging in some personal fundraising appeals.  We'll see how those go, I've already raised about $1700 (not bad at all).  In addition to individual fundraising efforts, the entire GSE class has been working really hard on organizing large group fundraisers.  Currently we have several projects in the works.  This weekend, we'll be selling Mocktails at the South Asian Dinner, which should be exciting!!!  We're also in the process of organizing an online silent auction, which will be up very very soon as well.  There will be some other smaller things that will hopefully earn us some money too. Let's face it, we have a little less than two months to go before we leave for Bangalore!!

Introduction: What is Social Entrepreneurship Anyway?

So, I know that many of you are wondering the same question, what is social entrepreneurship?  For those of you who already know and have just rolled your eyes out of boredom and exasperation with me, you are most certainly welcome to skip straight to the next paragraph where I outline exactly what I'm doing with S.E. in the first place.  For those of you who are new to the term, I'll give you a brief description.  Social Entrepreneurship (S.E.) is in some ways a lot like commercial entrepreneurship.  The most important difference between S.E. and regular "entrepreneurship" is that S.E. specifically addresses social needs and concerns that are not being met by either government or the private market.  Additionally, the motivation behind S.E. is social benefit.  There are a lot of other little details that make up S.E., and if you're really interested you can pick up a copy of Social Entrepreneurship: A Modern Approach to Social Value Creation, by Arthur C. Brooks (2009).  It's a great little book, short, sweet, and easy to read.  Its great for learning the basics of S.E., and it's the first book I had to read in my S.E. seminar, which I'm taking at the College of Wooster.  Here at Wooster, we've actually added a few concepts to our definition of S.E.  First of all, we like to think of S.E. as "transforming the fishing industry."  Basically, S.E. isn't necessarily confined to the old rules of doing business, but can and should seek to find new and innovative ways to providing social needs to the community, with special attention to the unintended consequences of our actions.

Alright, so why am I writing this blog?  Well, as I've hinted at in the earlier paragraph, I'm taking a Global Social Entrepreneurship (GSE) seminar at school this semester.  This seminar is super cool because at the end of the semester, we will all be traveling abroad for a six week field experience in Bangalore, India.  The class consists of 12 GSE students, an adviser, TA, and Lilly Project Liaison.  It's quite an eclectic group, but everyone gets along really well, and we've already had a lot of fun together in and out of class.  When we are in India, we will be split up into teams of two, and then assigned to one of three Indian non-profit organizations where we will get to work on a super awesome project for six weeks.  The organizations we'll be working with in India are Hippocampus, Premavidya, and Sattva Media.  Each organization will have two teams of two students, so they can have two different projects going at the same time!

As exciting as this is, there are some things to keep in mind when we actually travel to India.  First of all, we are a groups of students from the United States coming to Bangalore, India.  Although not everyone in our group is actually American (I have classmates from India, Malaysia, and Vietnam), we will all be viewed as representatives of an American academic institution.  We must be sensitive to those implications.  We need to be very aware of what are presence may do to the dynamics of the organizations and SE networks in India (remember those "unintended consequences" I mentioned before? This is WHY that is a big part of our seminar course).  We need to come in with as much knowledge about India as possible, including the political, economic, and social/cultural characteristics of the country, and Bangalore in particular.

One of the great things about the GSE program at Wooster, I think, is that I will be engaged in a process of "co-learning" with my organization.  I'm not going to India to "help" instead I'm going to be collaborating and problem solving.  Unfortunately, the image of Western "help" or development assistance in developing countries is basically a Western person flying in to tell the local people what to do, which little knowledge of the local situation, and often prescribing solutions that would not work in the local context because of issues such as lack of infrastructure, education, disregard of the religious and cultural practices of the community.  This kind of "help" is usually never effective, which is why it is crucial for me, as an emerging global social entrepreneur, to be super sensitive to these concerns.  The hope of this program, is mostly to learn.  By engaging in collaborative projects with these non-profits, my goal, and the goal of the program, is to learn from each other.  Being globally engaged, especially in the field of S.E., means being willing to incorporate the values and ideas of people from all different backgrounds to create sustainable social value.