SENO 2011 Accelerator: Recruiting Social Entrepreneurs

Are you passionate about tackling our city's biggest challenges?

Are you an innovator with an idea to solve a pressing social problem?

If so, APPLY ONLINE for the 2011 New Ventures Accelerator for early-stage social entrepreneurs!

SENO’s mission is to systematically cultivate bold and coordinated solutions to our city’s most pressing social challenges and to help social entrepreneurs who tackle these high-priority challenges take their ideas from vision to reality.  We define “social entrepreneur” as an individual who develops an effective and efficient solution to a social problem and measures his/her success in social impact.

New Ventures Accelerator:  Apply by March 3rd!

Social entrepreneurs are innovators who are passionate about solving what others may see as intractable social problems.   They play a tremendous and critical role in solving our city’s biggest challenges.  The SENO New Ventures Accelerator was designed in partnership with nationally recognized social entrepreneurship nonprofitEchoing Green and shaped by the needs of early-stage social entrepreneurs.  The purpose of the Accelerator is to significantly accelerate an early-stage social venture’s impact and financial sustainability.  SENO recognizes that early-stage social entrepreneurs are talented individuals but may not begin as experts in every aspect of running their new ventures.  The Accelerator provides hands-on support from paid consultants in customized areas of need, pro-bono professional services, a large network of mentors and experts, timely connections, peer learning opportunities, and increased exposure for the venture.

• Paid Accelerator Consultants will spend 6-8 hours per week working hands-on with social entrepreneurs in areas of need determined by the social entrepreneur.  Past areas of need have included writing business plans, market analysis, financial management, and executive coaching.
• Pro-bono technical assistance will be customized to each social entrepreneur and may occur in areas such as legal, financial management, quantifying impact, fundraising, accounting, communications, back-office, marketing, and social media.
• Executive Mentors and SENO will help participants make timely “people connections” to help the social entrepreneur build a larger network of supporters and resources.
• Our goal is for over 80% of social entrepreneurs in our cohort to reach their top social impact and financial sustainability goals.

Past deliverables in our pilot program have included: developing a business plan, new funding for the venture through fund development coaching, the establishment of effective financial and back office systems, market and feasibility analysis for a new earned income venture, and executive coaching for management challenges. 

What past social entrepreneurs have said…

On Accelerator Consulting: “The consultant SENO provided to us as part of the Accelerator program was a former nonprofit Executive Director who was so experienced and knowledgeable and saved us hours that we could have spent looking for training, making mistakes, and still would not have ended up with the kind of result we had.  She helped us recognize that we needed to solidify our infrastructure before we launched our new line of business, then proceeded to help our relatively young staff in refining our programmatic design to reflect the needs of our constituents, in revising our staffing plans, in implementing organizational processes and procedures for our organization, and re-aligning our program goals to qualify for additional streams of revenue.”

~John Thompson, Executive Director, Resurrection After Exoneration, Echoing Green Fellow

On pro-bono professional services: “How do we set up payroll?  What do you do about health insurance?…When Rethink became an official non-profit in Janaury 2009, we needed really expert advice on how to structure our finances. We were told by our fiscal agent that the best thing we could do was to get great advice up front.  We were confronted with the idea of paying a lot of money for this.  However, through SENO’s program, SENO recruited a technical assistance provider for us, a CPA, who set up our books free of charge. She was a godsend for us at a critical moment and treated us as if we were a client.”

~Jane Wholey, Executive Director, Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools

Selection Criteria:

The ideal candidate is a high-potential early-stage social entrepreneur who has needs in specific areas and is interested in external assistance to accelerate his/her venture. We select social entrepreneurs based on three main criteria:

1.     Entrepreneurial/leadership qualities

•    Demonstrated leadership potential
•    Demonstrated ability to overcome obstacles
•    Strong passion and commitment for the program area in which they plan to work
•    Practical skills, including problem-solving, strategic and organizational abilities
•    Personal integrity

2.     Plans for organizational sustainability

•    Plan for financial sustainability and growth

3.     Innovation/potential for significant social impact in an area of high need.

•    Clear and compelling mission and objectives
•    Sound strategy and plan for program development and delivery
•    Plan for evaluating success and performance
•    Seriousness of the social problem to be addressed
•    Innovative idea and approach
•    Potential for tangible impact to the beneficiary population
•    Potential for replication and growth
•    Potential for effecting systemic change (e.g., policy change, societal change, influence in the field)

To access the online application, click here.  For additional program details, please visit our website at www.seno-nola.org.  If you have any questions about your eligibility or the application, please do not hesitate to contact Andrea Chen atachen@seno-nola.org.