Fourth Sector Directory

Grounded in Harvard Business School’s mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world, the Social Enterprise Initiative aims to inspire, educate, and support current and emerging leaders in all sectors to apply management skills to create social value. Through an integrated approach to social enterprise-related teaching, research, and activities at HBS, the Social Enterprise Initiative engages with leaders in the nonprofit, for–profit, and public sectors to generate and disseminate practicable resources, tools, and knowledge with the ultimate goal of bettering society.

A research and education center based at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) promotes the entrepreneurial pursuit of social impact through the thoughtful adaptation of business expertise

The Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN), a collaboration formed to address the need for generating social enterprise intellectual capital developed in the region itself, came about in the year 2001 through the participation of a group of leading Latin American business schools and the Harvard Business School in partnership with the AVINA Foundation.

The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship was launched in 2003 at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University, to promote the advancement of social entrepreneurship worldwide. The mission of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship is to be the leading global hub advancing knowledge that serves social entrepreneurs in their pursuit to achieve a more equitable, prosperous, sustainable world. This mission is carried out by

• World class graduate business education that provides students with the global vision and critical skills to contribute to an equitable society
• Research that draws upon innovative, practical approaches implemented by social entrepreneurs to address the world’s most critical problems, and Oxford’s unparalleled capacity to generate and globally disseminate knowledge about the impact of those solutions
• Connecting accomplished social entrepreneurs with partners who are essential to advance their impact, working in close collaboration with key stakeholders

The Program on Social Enterprise supports scholars, students, alumni, and practitioners interested in exploring the ways in which business skills and disciplines can be harnessed to most effectively and efficiently achieve social objectives. PSE facilitates work on nonprofit and public sector social entrepreneurship as well as initiatives in private sector social enterprise. Our activities span courses, research, conferences, and publications. In addition to these formal activities, the PSE also serves as a focal point for social enterprise-related activities at SOM, facilitating, advising, and drawing connections among students, faculty, the Yale community, and the broader network in the US and internationally of interested practitioners and institutions.

The Cloud Institute equips school systems K-12 and their communities with the core content, competencies and habits of mind that characterize education for a sustainable future. We do this by inspiring teachers and engaging students through meaningful content and student-centered instruction. The mission of The Cloud Institute is to ensure the viability of sustainable communities by leveraging changes in K-12 school systems to prepare young people for the shift toward a sustainable future.

The Social Enterprise Program inspires and prepares leaders who create social value in business, nonprofit and government organizations locally, nationally and internationally.

As an institution, the Stanford Graduate School of Business believes that business schools have a responsibility to teach students to be innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who can change the world. As such, the Center represents a cornerstone of the School’s multidisciplinary approach to management and leadership education.

We invest our resources in an integrated set of activities that are designed to enhance the leadership and management capacity of individuals who strive to create social and environmental value. The Center leverages Stanford’s knowledge, expertise, and networks, bringing community leaders together with our faculty, students, and alumni to address social problems on several fronts.

ACCION International is a microfinance and microlending organization, giving people the financial tools they need to work their way out of poverty. Also, ACCION has two major initiatives pertaining to client education: (1) Financial literacy modules, to help low-income clients better manage their personal and household finances and become informed and effective consumers of financial services; (2) Business training through our Dialogue on Business program – a set of award-winning modules that focus on building the skills of microentrepreneurs.

Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Institute for Sustainable Enterprise (ISE), part of the Silberman College of Business at the College at Florham, focuses on bringing people together to learn how to make their organizations and the world more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. Founded in 2005, the ISE is committed to helping leaders and managers develop new roles and competencies for themselves that will contribute to creating sustainable enterprises in the 21st century.

Brand Indigo is a part sustainability-centric consultancy,part think-tank and part social venture capital firm with a self-sustaining hybrid business model.