Based in Boston, Massachusetts, New Profit Inc. is a venture philanthropy fund that promotes social entrepreneurship and social innovation in order to solve American social problems in realms including, but not limited to, health, poverty, education and employment.
President and founder Vanessa Kirsch started New Profit on the basis of a simple, but crucial question: “What prevents social entrepreneurs from scaling their innovations at the same pace and quality as Coca-Cola?†In order to explore that question for herself, Kirsch spent a year traveling across 22 countries interviewing numerous social entrepreneurs in a variety of rural and urban settings. Her research led her to the vision that all social entrepreneurs should be able to gain access to the resources they need in order to become successful and provide for their communities and families. Kirsch's dreams became a reality in 1998 when she partnered with Monitor Group in order to launch New Profit Inc.
According to their website, New Profit's ultimate goal is to support social innovators and entrepreneurs so that they can “grow their solutions to scale and achieve sustainable, transformative social impact against some of the biggest problems facing our country in education, public health, poverty alleviation, and workforce development.†New Profit Inc. has invested in a variety of organizations including Right to Play, Teach for All, Jumpstart, College Summit, iMentor, Girls for a Change, Teach for America, Computers for Youth and Rare.
One of the ways in which New Profit Inc. achieves those ambitious goals is through large-scale initiatives. Action Tank is a program that looks at the bigger picture, beyond individual entrepreneurs. Created in 2004, this sub-group addresses the systemic problems that prevent social entrepreneurs from realizing their greatest dreams. Action Tank has three main focuses: government and policy; building relationships between different sectors including the public, private, nonprofit and philanthropic; and addressing market solutions. By both supporting social innovators and entrepreneurs, and addressing the governmental policies that exacerbate inequalities, New Profit Inc. creates the potential for tangible change in individuals, communities and the world.
Contact Information:
New Profit Inc. Website
2 Canal Park
Cambridge, MA 02141
USA
Telephone: 617-252-3220
Fax: 617-252-2100
Social Innovation Philanthropies
New Profit Inc. Supports Entrepreneurs for Large-Scale Change
Trend Themes
1. Social Innovation Philanthropy - Opportunity to support and invest in social innovators and entrepreneurs to create transformative social impact.
2. Large-scale Social Initiatives - Opportunity to address systemic problems that prevent social entrepreneurs from realizing their greatest dreams and provide solutions to support overcoming those challenges.
3. Public-private-nonprofit-political Partnership - Opportunity to forge and reinforce collaborative partnerships that can harness the power of different sectors towards solving complex social problems.
Industry Implications
1. Philanthropy - Philanthropy can adopt a more targeted approach towards solving complex social problems through supporting social innovation and entrepreneurship by investment in social innovation funds.
2. Nonprofits - Nonprofits can take ownership to address systemic problems related to scaling up innovative and transformative social solutions by partnering with stakeholders from different sectors.
3. Public Policy - Building relationships between different sectors including public, private, nonprofit, and political can foster smooth implementation of government policies to solve complex social problems, offering opportunities for supporting public-private collaborations to achieve the goal.