Echoing Green

Last updated

For the electronic band, see The Echoing Green (band), for the poem see The Echoing Green

Contents

Echoing Green is a global nonprofit organization that provides fellowships, seed-stage funding, and strategic support to social entrepreneurs globally.

History

Echoing Green was founded in 1987 by General Atlantic, [1] a global growth private equity firm, to increase social impact by using the venture capital investment model.

Since its founding, Echoing Green has invested in nearly 1,000 social entrepreneurs working in more than 85 countries [2] , providing more than $46 million in seed-stage funding and support systems [3] .

Echoing Green's fellowship accepts social entrepreneurs working on any issue area around the world, including climate change, education, health, human rights, poverty and racial justice. Through the fellowship program, Echoing Green fellows are awarded up to $90,000 along with leadership development, seed resources, and lifelong community support. [4] The Global Fellowship supports social entrepreneurs who are connected to the needs and potential solutions that may work for their communities. The Climate Fellowship, created in partnership with the ZOOM Foundation in 2013, supports those who are working on climate change reform. The Black Male Achievement Fellowship, created in partnership with the Open Society Foundation in 2012, supports individuals working on issues that affect black men and boys in the United States.

Past Echoing Green Fellows include the founders of Teach for America, City Year, College Summit, Citizen Schools, One Acre Fund, and SKS Microfinance. [5]

Leadership

Cheryl Dorsey, President of Echoing Green, speaks at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco in 2015 Cheryl Dorsey at SOCAP15.jpg
Cheryl Dorsey, President of Echoing Green, speaks at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco in 2015

Cheryl L. Dorsey is the president of Echoing Green. She received an Echoing Green Fellowship in 1992 for her work with Family Van, a mobile health unit in Boston. In 2002, Dorsey took over leadership at Echoing Green and turned it into a nonprofit organization. [6] She has served in two presidential administrations as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor (1997-98); Special Assistant to the Director of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Labor Department (1998-99); and Vice Chair for the President's Commission on White House Fellowships (2009-present).

As of 2019, Echoing Green's Board of Director co-chairs are Dr. Marie Kelly, former partner of CTPartners, and Carter McClelland, chairman and partner of Union Square Advisors. Board of Director co-chairs emeriti are David Hodgson, managing director of General Atlantic, and Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of Society for Science & The Public and Publisher for Science News . [7]

Publications

Be Bold: Create a Career with Impact, was co-authored by Echoing Green's Lara Galinsky and Cheryl L. Dorsey in 2007. This book aims to inspire young social entrepreneurs to create a job and life focusing on social impact.

Work on Purpose was written by Echoing Green's Lara Galinsky and tells the stories of five social entrepreneurs and expands on their journey, struggles, and successes.

Notable Fellows

Related Research Articles

Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent.

The Center for Public Leadership is an academic research center that provides teaching, research and training in the practical skills of leadership for people in government, nonprofits, and business. It was established in 2000, through a gift from the Wexner Foundation, at Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University.

Jacqueline Novogratz American businesswoman

Jacqueline Novogratz is an American entrepreneur and author. She is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a non-profit global venture capital fund whose goal is to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty.

Vikram Akula Founder of SKS Microfinance

Vikram Akula is an American banker and the founder of SKS Microfinance, a micro finance company and former chairperson of Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd. SKS was an organization that offered microloans and insurance to poor women in India. He stepped down as SKS Chairperson in November 2011 and became Chairperson Emeritus.

Legatum Private investment firm headquartered in Dubai

Legatum Limited, also known as Legatum, is a private investment firm, headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Legatum is a partnership that uses its own funds to invest globally. The firm also invests in activities to promote entrepreneurship and free enterprise as well as anti-slavery, health and education initiatives.

Paul Rice American businessman

Paul Rice is the American President & CEO of Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States. Since launching Fair Trade USA in 1998, Rice has pushed to mainstream the Fair Trade movement and expand its impact. He has challenged hundreds of companies to rework their global supply chains to obtain high-quality products that support community development and environmental protection.

Vijay Mahajan, born October 1954, is the Chief Exexutive Officer (CEO) of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies.

Jessica Jackley American entrepreneur;  co-founder of Kiva

Jessica Erin Jackley is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Kiva and later ProFounder, two organizations that promote development through microloans.

The African Leadership Academy (ALA) is a residential, secondary institution located in the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is dedicated to 16 to 19-year-olds from Africa and the rest of the world, with alumni from 46 countries currently.

Video Volunteers organization

Video Volunteers is an international media and human rights NGO founded in 2003 that promotes community media to enable citizen participation in marginalized and poor communities around the world. Video Volunteers is a registered non-profit in the state of New York in the US.

Mercado Global

Mercado Global is a 501(c)3 social enterprise organization that links indigenous artisans in rural Guatemalan communities to international sales opportunities, providing sustainable income-earning opportunities, access to business training and community-based education programs, and access to microloans for technology such as sewing machines and floor looms. Mercado Global's network includes over 300 artisans in thirty-one artisan cooperatives whose members have seen their daily income increase three-fold compared to the average Guatemalan daily wage, has allowed them to send their children to school, and has seen significantly increased levels of saving and participation in household decision-making.

Gardens for Health International (GHI) is an American 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that seeks to provide sustainable agricultural solutions to chronic childhood malnutrition. GHI partners with rural health centers in Rwanda to equip families with the seeds, skills, and support necessary to shift the paradigm of food aid from dependency to prevention and self-sufficiency.

Dean Karlan American economist

Dean S. Karlan is an American development economist. He is Professor of Economics and Finance at Northwestern University and the co-director of the Global Poverty Research Lab at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies. He is a Research Fellow and member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Karlan is also the president and founder of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a New Haven, Connecticut, based research outfit dedicated to creating and evaluating solutions to social and international development problems. Along with economists Jonathan Morduch and Sendhil Mullainathan, Karlan served as director of the Financial Access Initiative (FAI), a consortium of researchers focused on substantially expanding access to quality financial services for low-income individuals. He is also a co-founder of stickK.com and co-founder of ImpactMatters.

Premal Shah is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Kiva, a non-profit crowdfunding organization that has raised over $1 billion dollars for low-income entrepreneurs in eighty countries.

Gray Matters Capital

Gray Matters Capital is an impact investing foundation founded by Bob Pattillo. Its mission is to achieve "An education leading to a purpose filled life for 100, Million Women by 2036." GMC is based in Atlanta, Georgia with global offices in Nairobi, Kenya and Bangalore, India. The scale and the use of business practices with social enterprises makes it one of the leaders in impact investing.

Risë Wilson is a community organizer, activist, strategic planner, curriculum developer, non-profit consultant, and the current director of philanthropy at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, who lives and works in New York City. Founder of the Laundromat Project, she has been named one of the "worlds best emerging social entrepreneurs" in 2004. In 2015, she moderated the Creative Time Summit round table, entitled "My Brooklyn."

Clementine Chambon is a chemical engineer at Imperial College London who works on energy solutions for energy-deprived countries. She is the CTO of Oorja Development Solutions, a social enterprise that provides clean energy access to off-grid communities in rural India.

Katrina Spade natural burial advocate and designer

Katrina Mogielnicki Spade is an American designer, entrepreneur, and death care advocate. Spade is the founder of Recompose, a public-benefit corporation developing a natural alternative to conventional cremation and burial. She was awarded the Echoing Green Climate Fellowship in 2014 and the Ashoka Fellowship in 2018 for her work.

Kotchakorn Voraakhom architect and designer from Thailand

Kotchakorn Voraakhom is a Thai landscape architect and chief executive officer of Porous City Network, a social enterprise that looks to increase urban resilience in Southeast Asia. She is also the founder of the Koungkuey Design Initiative, which works with communities to rebuild public spaces. She campaigns for more green space in cities and is a 2018 TED fellow.

Ajaita Shah is an Indian entrepreneur and social activist. She is the founder and CEO of Frontier Markets and the President of Frontier Innovations Foundation.

References

  1. "Our Philanthropic Affiliations: Echoing Green". General Atlantic. Archived from the original on December 12, 2017. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  2. "Mission". Echoing Green. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
  3. "Echoing Green Announces 2019 Fellowship Awards". Echoing Green. 2019-06-06. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
  4. "Fellowship". Echoing Green. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
  5. "Newman's Own Foundation - The Power of Philanthropy to Transform Lives". newmansownfoundation.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018.
  6. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-leaders/articles/2009/10/22/cheryl-dorsey-echoing-green-president-promotes-social-change
  7. "Board & Advisors - Echoing Green". www.echoinggreen.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018.
  8. "Michelle Obama - Echoing Green". www.echoinggreen.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018.
  9. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-12-23. Retrieved 2015-04-28.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. "Van Jones - Echoing Green". www.echoinggreen.org. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  11. "Raj Panjabi", Wikipedia, 2019-03-26, retrieved 2019-12-09
  12. "Mark Levine - Echoing Green". www.echoinggreen.org. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  13. "Sara Horowitz - Echoing Green". www.echoinggreen.org. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
  14. "Echoing Green: Leveraging Skills Based Business Volunteers for Social Enterprises". 15 July 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2018.
  15. "Tom Osborn, inventor of 'green' charcoal, proves you're never too young to innovate". 7 August 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2018 via Christian Science Monitor.
  16. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-09-23. Retrieved 2016-09-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  17. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-01-07. Retrieved 2014-12-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)