In this issue: Growing Together, a message from Executive Director Thane Kreiner; Top 10 List of 2018 No Images? Click here
Growing Together: Accompaniment and Social ChangeWho is on the journey with you to change the world? It can be a lonely one. One of Miller Center’s core values is accompaniment: our Silicon Valley executive mentors walk with social entrepreneurs as they discern paths to scale; with Santa Clara University students who emerge as transformative change leaders; with one another as we continue to learn how to be better stewards of humanity, our planet, each other. For every failure or wrong turn, trusted advisors help us notice what needs attention so we can devote ourselves more fully to our missions. The simple act of listening, the reverence of being heard is fertilizer for the enormous collective impact of our community of inspiring social entrepreneurs. 2018 was a year of profound progress and change for Miller Center: we accompanied more than 160 social enterprises through our gold-standard GSBI® accelerator programs; five more of our Global Social Benefit Fellows won Fulbright awards and a third was named valedictorian. Beyond impressive metrics, our year was filled with powerful stories. Some are captured in our annual report, Architecting Hope. Many more are revealed in the investment profiles of the social enterprises and in the action research projects and blogs of the fellows we were honored and humbled to accompany. Still other stories captured the imagination of mainstream media: social enterprises serving or led by refugees and human trafficking survivors. Despite a year of inspiring stories, devastating headlines remind us that social injustices persist, global warming is destroying our common home, people are suffering. We each have our own stories of consolation, desolation, understanding. We need to harness the power of social entrepreneurship now more than ever to tend the earth, our communities, each other. Social change starts when we walk together, learn together, grow together. Thank you for accompanying Miller Center and our extended community of social entrepreneurs, mentors, students, impact investors, and others on this amazing and ambitious journey. Thane Kreiner, Ph.D.
Will you invest in Miller Center as we continue to architect hope?
by Karen Paculba I start each day at Miller Center scanning streams of social media and news outlets. This routine has unsuspectingly become my daily dose of hope. There is an abundance of stories that are at once poignant and energizing. One morning I’ll come across an approach developed by a Miller Center GSBI alum to help refugees earn respectable livelihoods, the next day I’ll read a fiery piece from a female-led enterprise that invokes my personal commitment to social impact. As a marketer, I appreciate that these stories–all this “content”–also offers context about you, our readers. With the help of Marketing Associate Alexis Tong, we collected and analyzed a year’s worth of media mentions, website analytics, click-throughs from our bi-monthly newsletters, and social media engagement across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to inform the composition of our Top 10 List of 2018. We generated an algorithm that ranked each news story, blog, and social media post to discover which were most engaging. Serendipitously, this data-derived list authentically aligns with what the team agrees to be our annual highlights. To view the Top 10 list, click here.→ Highlight: Creating Climate Resilience in Central America's Dry Corridor
→ Click here to learn how social entrepreneurship can work with local institutions to build up climate resilience in this white paper by Professors Christopher M. Bacon, Ph.D., and Keith Douglass Warner, OFM, Ph.D., In the news, announcements & moreWELCOME PETER O'RIORDAN | Miller Center welcomes its newest Executive Fellow Peter O'Riordan. As an Executive Fellow, Peter's focus is on leveraging the power of social enterprise to address climate change. He is supporting the design, development, and implementation of the new Energy Access Affinity Group, about to debut as part of GSBI in 2019. This work includes developing energy access-specific training materials for both mentors and entrepreneurs that complement standard Miller Center curriculum GLOBAL CITIZEN PRIZE FOR YOUTH LEADERSHIP AWARDED TO GSBI ALUMNA | Wawira Njiru (GSBI 2017), Founder and Director of Food 4 Education, has been awarded the 2018 Global Citizen Prize for Youth Leadership at the recent Mandela 100 Global Citizen Festival in South Africa. To view the video of Wawira accepting her prize from recording artist Usher and Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, click here.→ RODDENBERRY FOUNDATION AWARDS GSBI ALUM $250,000 | KadAfrica (GSBI 2015, 2017) was one of four organizations to receive the 2018 Roddenberry Prize and was recognized for its work focused on girls education in Uganda. To learn more, read this story in FastCompany.→ SHORTCHANGING WOMEN AND THE POOR | Triple alum Solar Sister (GSBI 2011, 2017, 2018) writes about the power problem in renewable energy. Read Neha Misra's post on NextBillion here.→ NOW HIRING | Ongoza (GSBI 2018) is now accepting applications for a new CEO and an Operations & Finance Manager. NOW HIRING | Miller Center is now accepting applications for its Finance and Administration position. To view the job description and apply, click here.→ COMING SOON | Miller Center is hiring a Marketing professional. The job description will soon be available on the Santa Clara University job listing site. START THE NEW YEAR WITH SCU'S IMPACT INVESTING CERTIFICATE PROGRAM | The Silicon Valley Executive Center will kick off 2019 with its newly-designed Certificate Program, Pathways to Impact Investing. This Executive Program is designed for asset managers, asset owners, and mission-driven organizations and foundations with an interest in learning about impact criteria as an alternative vehicle to make a social or environmental difference. Featured speakers at this 3-day program include John Kohler, Miller Center's Executive Fellow & Sr. Director Impact Investing Innovation, and Bob Webster, Managing Director at Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF). The 3-day program is scheduled January 28-30. To enroll, click here.
Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship is a pioneer when it comes to accelerating social enterprises, so you'll find our team at a variety of events across the globe. We're actively accompanying entrepreneurs on their journeys and sharing our learnings with others in the ecosystem. If our paths may cross, please reach out to us - we'd enjoy connecting! Please note some listed events are not open to the public.
For more calendar of events, visit our website. Missed one of our newsletter editions? Click here for Miller Center's newsletter archive. Walk with us in building a more just and humane society. ABOUT US Miller Center's Global Social Benefit Institute (GSBI®) helps social entrepreneurs help more people. Since 2003 we have accelerated over 900 social entrepreneurs, who have raised over $940M, and positively impacted the lives of over 320M people. This newsletter is managed by Senior Marketing Manager Karen Paculba with the support of Marketing Associate Alexis Tong, and Marketing Student Assistants Emily Mun and Sally Park. We enjoy hearing updates and ideas from our readers and welcome feedback. Please contact us at mc-marketing@scu.edu. Unless otherwise indicated, all images and photography are property of Santa Clara University. © 2018. GSBI is a registered trademark of Santa Clara University. All Rights Reserved.
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