Project Overview:

The goal of your project proposal is to come up with a new social enterprise idea. An ideal idea will :

- make significant progress on a social issue

- be economically profitable

- make use of a feasible technology in some way

Your proposal should be convincing that all of the above is true. Ideally the reader will come away feeling like it’s a no-brainer that this is going to solve a problem, will definitely work, and will definitely make a bunch of money. Imagine your reader is a skeptic, and you’re trying to get them to hand you some money to start working on it. You need them to believe its worthwhile, and also to believe they are going to get their money back. You are probably the biggest skeptic. Try to convince yourself that you should actually spend your time working on this idea! A reader will have a bunch of questions in their mind about how you are going to achieve all of that. Many people find it helpful to write in a way that directly addresses these questions. You must answer at least the following questions in your social enterprise plan. You are of course encouraged to add even more information that would help make a compelling case.

You may be as grandiose and risky, or conservative and small scale as you like. I recommend a middle road. Suggest plans which you could start small, and explain how you would do that, and what the first steps are. But also explain how your idea could expand to change the world. Similarly you can come up with ideas for anywhere in the world. Since I hope to encourage you to actually do your idea, you might consider addressing social needs in places you live, or at least your extended family lives, or for which you have some connection, perhaps through a past job.

To be clear, you’re assignment is to make a plan. You don’t have to actually do it. Of course if you do actually do it, then I guess that would probably be “A” work, and I’ll help you find additional expansion capital. <smile>

Specific questions that must be answered:

Summary

· What are you going to do?

Social

• What social problem are you solving?

• What is the magnitude of this problem?

• Quantify.

• How will you evaluate progress/success?

• Quantifiably

• What is your expected social return?

• (How much success in quantifiable units?)

Background

• What have people done with regard to this social issue already?

• If anyone is pursuing a similar strategy, have they been successful?

• Quantify past success or failure of similar plans

• Why are existing methods not solving the problem?

• Who is the “customer” in terms of the social good you are providing?

• Do the people you are serving think this project is a good idea?

• Go ask them and provide evidence that they think so.

• What are the risks of failure?

Economics

• What sustainable business are you running?

• Who are you selling what to?

• How big is your expected market?

• If you had all of the customers in the market space, how much could you make?

• Who makes money in this market right now?

• How will you compete against prior business X?

• Who is your economic “customer”?

• Who is handing you $$?

• How do you plan to reach this customer?

• What are your costs associated with doing business?

• Do a breakdown of revenue vs costs, and show that it is positive.

• What are the risks of failure?

Technology

• Is the technology feasible?

• (provide citations/evidence/letters-from-experts if there is any question)

• What are the risks of failure associated with the technology?

Resource Requirements

• What resources do you need?

• (startup capital, contacts, information, technology inventions, anything that you don’t have right now.)

• How long will these resources last?

• Especially in the case of money, how long until you run out of startup funds and need to be making money?

Team

List team members by name and any background which is relevant

Objections

• What are the objections?

• (list each objection with an answer) Objections could be tech, econ, social or anything