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Geri Stengel
New York, NY
I’m president of Ventureneer (online learning and peer support for entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and nonprofits leaders) and Stengel Solutions (a strategic planning and marketing firm that helps social impact organizations prosper). She teaches Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise at The New School in New York City. She mentors at Columbia Business School and NYU Stern School of Business social enterprise competitions, as well as New York Women Social Entrepreneurs business plan competition.
Geri co-founded Women’s Leadership Exchange, a social enterprise that helps women-led businesses take their companies to the next level. She headed marketing for Dow Jones Information Services and launched Physicians' Online.
Recent Activity
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Geri commented on the article |Very good questions, indeed. Now that the Supreme Court has deemed corporations to be "people" in the sense of freedom of speech, it would seem that the simple answer is that corporations, like people, have moral obligations: responsibilities as well as rights. That may be a bit too optimistic so I'll aim for the pragmatic: Common sense (although less common than it should be) dictates that if a company is to survive for the long-haul, it must ensure that its means of productions (trees, water, etc.) continue to be available and that its consumers can still buy its products/services. To that end, sustainable production and fair wages throughout the world are in everyone's best interest. All business is connected, perhaps not directly, but definitely connected. The moral requirement to innovate stems from the moral requirement to make social changes as our consciousness is raised. Slavery, once the norm, is no longer acceptable and business models have changed to accommodate that new understanding. As science has shown us the downside of carbon emissions, innovation is required to change production. By the way, those verses of the Bible were taught to me as requiring humankind to be stewards of the land, the seas, and the creatures therein, that is, to preserve and maintain them.
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Geri commented on the article |Your post brings to mind some old but nonetheless wise sayings: Necessity is the mother of invention. That applies even when the necessity is self-imposed, as it limiting the possible materials one can use for packaging. If you make sustainability a requirement in your business plan you will find a way to do it, just as you will find a way to maintain healthcare for employees if employee well-being is built-in to your mission.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Businesses interested in long-term survival will grab on to any idea that works, is less expensive, and attracts customers, whether it is a bag to ship your product in or using less electricity through better insulation. The point is, if you build it, they will copy it. That means social entrepreneurs have a two shots at making the world better: Their own products and the imitation they may inspire.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. Taking steps toward a better world will get us there. Waiting for one Superman-like giant leap forward will bar progress. Your last graph said it all.
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Geri commented on the article |The stories of failure are very valuable teaching tools. How wise of SoCap to include such a session in the conference. Learning from the mistakes of others can save a lot of misery for start-ups, generate new ideas and processes, and tighten up many a business plan. It's one reason peer advisory groups are so popular. You can ask others what they did that worked and, equally important, what they did that didn't work. It helps you fill in the map -- mark the swamps and the turns in the path -- on the road to success.
Accepting and learning from failure is finally be recognized as a source of wisdom. -
Geri commented on the article |Entrepreneurs are the engine of our recovery. Social entrepreneurs are the engine of our sustainability. It is interesting to me that the creativity of social entrepreneurs is making life not only better, in the sense of being socially responsible, but also making it easier, by offering low-cost, collaborative options to, say, owning a car. Keep those ideas coming!
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Geri commented on the article |I think we're already coming out of the "trough of disillusionment" and are no longer drunk with dreams. Social innovative thinking is beginning to take hold: corporate social responsiblity, cause marketing, social enterprise, B corporations, L3Cs, Social Innovation Fund, Social Impact Exchange and of course, SOCAP. Not all efforts will succeed. We are learning which dreams are too airy, we have figured out some tools that work, we know more about what we need to be successful. We're also not afraid to some time fail. Of course, the big need is investors who http://ventureneer.com/vblog/create-new-habit-%E2%80%93-investing-social-impact-%E2%80%93-marketing [understand the value] -- financial and social -- of investments in social enterprise. Let's get down to work on that.
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Geri commented on the article |What better way to start social ventures than by collaboration? Hats off to the Village Capital program for recognizing the value of peer input and the value of collaboration. Villages of one kind and another have been helping people solve problems for millennia.
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Geri commented on the article |It all begins with education and with those who realize that they can share. Zuckerberg's donation can and will make a difference in some lives. I hope that he is able to bring the creativity and wild-idea-vision to schools that he has to social media. Maybe he's going to be a social entrepreneur, not just an entrepreneur.
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Geri commented on the article |Case study, indeed! You engaged in every aspect of social responsibility. I had to smile at your comment that giving 1 percent of payroll to nonprofits and having a volunteer work day were "... the basics of what every company does--almost as a check-the-box whitewashing effort to just be able to say 'well, we do something.' "
Would that you were right! Getting companies of all sizes to that basic, check-box level would make an unimaginable difference in the social sector. We're nowhere near there but I'm still hoping.
You are an inspiration to those still wrestling with what it means to be a social entrepreneur. You've adopted all the definitions in one fell swoop, I think. -
Geri commented on the article |The government, banks, and investors generally do want a "history" that precludes the untried, the innovative and, as mentioned, women, young people, and people of color. Start-ups are seldom one-person shows; they involve a team of people -- read employed persons -- who do the hard work of getting a business off the ground. Policies need changing, as do the social standards upon which policies are based.
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Geri commented on the article |Too true about poor Milton's idea and true also that social enterprise is a weird field. What works for education doesn't work for fair trade, as you say, and so the silo-effect takes place. But the other important characteristic of social enterprise is collaboration
, which reaches across silos. It's a paradox but seems to be bringing about a robust sector.
Impact
2 Actions
0 Recruits
Organizations
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CREDO Action1 Action 0 Recruits -
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine1 Action 0 Recruits
