Collaborate

Engage directly with other practitioners to collectively problem-solve and develop your own resources. Our two peer-driven platforms generate tools to tackle complex technical challenges facing social entrepreneurs.

Practitioner Innovation Communities

Practitioner Innovation Communities (PICs) are peer-driven virtual gathering places dedicated to developing issue-specific tools for social entrepreneurs. The desire to address common problems and “pain points” related to planning, starting, managing, and growing their social enterprises catalyzes individual practitioners to form an innovation community. Members benefit from the collective problem-solving and community-based resource design. Group members develop and then field test tool prototypes; thus, PIC products are proven and grounded in practice before they are featured on Venturesource.

In 2008 and 2009, The SEEP Network and Virtue Ventures collaborated to pilot two PICs as a part of SEEP’s Value Initiative.

• The first PIC aimed to frame social enterprise benefits, synergies, value added, and risks, related to other poverty alleviation practices. More information and outputs are available at here.
• The second PIC focused on access to social investment. As its primary product, the PIC produced an Introduction to Understanding and Accessing Social Investment.

Social Enterprise Capacity Building Labs

Social Enterprise Capacity Building Labs are intensive year or multi-year special interest projects directed at strengthening the capacity of participants while solving complex technical questions in social enterprise.

A select group of social enterprise practitioners are convened based on a multifaceted theme (i.e. social enterprise business models, scaling approaches, social impact or organizational performance measurements). Comprehensive solutions are then sought though a highly engaged process intended to build participant capacity in an expert technical assistance-supported “learning by doing” process and to generate a suite of practical and analytical social enterprise resources for the community.