Your Mark On The World

Author Doug White says in his new book, Wounded Charity, that the CBS and New York Times reports of malfeasance and wrongdoing at the Wounded Warrior Project were not accurate. Much of their reporting, Doug says, came from a Facebook group. With a national scale of operation, there were disgruntled former employees who had created a Facebook group where they shared their experiences and perceptions of mismanagement. The story was rushed to press when the two highly-reputable organizations got wind that they were both working on it. After exhaustive research, Doug concludes in his book that there was nothing fundamentally amiss at the Wounded Warrior Project. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, the executive director for Social Venture Circle, got her first job out of film school working on the team of notorious investment banker, Michael Milken who created the modern high-yield bond market and later spent 22 months in prison for securities fraud. Val later applied her skills running her own investment banking firm, completing $3 billion in transactions, mostly serving the native American community. Never forgetting her filmmaking studies, she has directed and produced films, including the PBS film Mankiller, a film about Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Val also teaches a course in race and ethnicity at Stanford and sites on the board of the Center for Race and Ethnicity. Her daughter plays on the beach volleyball team for Stanford. Much of Val’s success and positive social impact relates to the skills and lessons she learned directly from Michael Milken in the 1980s, suggesting that finance and capitalism aren’t inherently

Upaya Social Ventures is a nonprofit impact investing firm that answers the question, “How do you help people too poor for microloans?” The answer is both easy and challenging: jobs. The presumption of microlending programs often seems to be that everyone can or should be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is a powerful economic driver, but most people lack the skills to thrive as entrepreneurs even in wealthy countries. It certainly can’t be fair to expect people in developing countries to be better at entrepreneurship with even fewer tools. Kate Cochran, 51, CEO of Upaya, says she is “a fierce believer that global poverty is not inevitable and entrepreneurial energy and individual resolve are some of the sharpest tools available to us in that fight.” The group of founders who launched Upaya recognized that by carefully selecting entrepreneurs to back Upaya could indirectly create jobs for those living in extreme poverty, allowing them to lift themselves out of it. Read the full Forbes article and watch the

Larry Sherwood, president and CEO of Interstate Renewable Energy Council reminds us that once solar panels are paid for, all the electricity that results is free. Wind energy, similarly, is virtually free after you buy the turbine. Neither requires fuel. For decades, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council has been working to help states and municipalities implement rules and regulations that support renewable energy. Larry, what is the problem you solve and how do you solve it? Distributed energy resources such as solar, storage, and energy efficiency do not have the infrastructure and policies to enable a large number of installations. IREC builds the foundation for rapid adoption of clean energy and energy efficiency to benefit people, the economy and the planet. IREC works to change state regulatory policies, publishes model rules and guidebooks, trains allied industry representatives, accredited clean energy training centers, and support consumer empowerment. Never miss another interview! Join Devin

Steve Klass founded the nonprofit P3 Utah to help Utah businesses adopt triple-bottom-line practices to better respect people and the planet along with profits. The influence of P3 Utah continues to grow. Interview with Steve Klass, the Executive Director of P3 Utah. The following is the pre-interview with Steve Klass. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above. For-profit/Nonprofit: 501(c)3 Nonprofit Revenue model: Executive director's family followed by event registration and membership fees, followed by limited corporate sponsorship Scale: One full time employee, four part time contractors and a half dozen university student internsNe What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it? Deficit of conscious business effort to generate more positive impacts and limited availability of simple powerful tools to allow businesses of any size to comprehensively manage social and environmental impacts. In Utah, we created a marketplace for sustainable triple bottom line business by making us the f

Sandra Rey, 29, was participating in a student design competition with the theme “biology” and got to watching videos on YouTube of bioluminescent sea creatures when she thought there must be a way to replicate that natural technology. Five years later, her startup, called Glowee, is creating brilliant luminescent art installations for hotels and public spaces. While she admits, “We'll never replace the lights in your kitchen,” she hopes to create enough light and enough beauty to play a role in the world’s lighting mix to help reduce reliance on electric lighting. When she first started producing light, she says she’d have to get her lights in a completely dark room for ten to 15 minutes before she could begin to see the light. She’s made dramatic progress since. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2OjJNq3.

Patricia Mertz was forced to cut short her two-and-a-half year term of service with the Peace Corps in Cote d’Ivoire. She talked about her desire to return and help so much over the next seven years that her niece finally promised to give her $10,000 from the prize money of a singing contest she entered. She didn’t win the contest but the promise had catalyzed Patricia to take action, form a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and get work saving the lives of mothers and children in the West African country. The following is a brief pre-interview that provides context for the recorded interview you may watch or listen to at the top of this article. Patricia Mertz is a Founder and Executive Director for Ivory Coast Mothers and Children. Crowdfunding page: caringcrowd.org/provide-children-west-africa-lifesaving-vaccines What is the purpose of your crowdfunding campaign? Vaccinate 300 children for tetanus, meningitis and typhoid. What has been your experience using CaringCrowd? We have raised money for the installation

Marc Blumenthal joins me to talk about Social Ventures Foundation’s work in launching V’ice in Haiti. V’ice is basically a snow cone with added nutrition. These sorts of products are popular in Haiti and V’ice is both superior and price competitive. It is intended to be sold by microfranchisees so the profits mostly stay in the community. Interview with Marc Blumenthal, the Executive Director of Social Ventures Foundation. The following is the pre-interview with Marc Blumenthal. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above. For-profit/Nonprofit: 501(c)3 Nonprofit Revenue model: Grants, revenues and Social Impact Investment Scale: The Social Ventures Foundation is currently scaling V'ice in Haiti from its first Hub which is currently providing jobs for 8 Haitians in Management, MicroFranchising and manufacturing. An additional 20 MicroFranchisees will be added this Fall. Over 20,000 V’ice cones and V’bars (protein bars made from locally sourced corn flakes and peanuts) have been sold with additional p

Laurent Lamothe, 47, former Prime Minister of Haiti, says Haiti—and other low-income countries—can thrive by implementing new taxes on telecom and banking transactions. Lamothe, who resigned as the PM in December of 2014 after serving two and a half years—longer than any PM since the Haiti earthquake in 2010—says micro levies on small transactions provide an opportunity for countries like Haiti to begin collecting revenues and investing them in infrastructure and projects that will help their people lift themselves from poverty. Today, Lamothe operates LSL Worldwide Initiative, advising low- and moderate-income countries. He points to Singapore and Estonia as countries that have successfully accelerated their economies through digitization. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2neNlhX

Raising capital is almost never easy for entrepreneurs but data suggests it can be more difficult for some than others. Minorities and women are much less likely to receive VC investments. People living outside California, New York and Boston are also much less likely to receive venture capital. Enter Beta Boom, with Managing Partner Kimmy Paluch, herself a minority, based in Salt Lake City and focused on investing in these underserved communities. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

Igor Belagorudsky, president of FastCTO, joined me to explain his company’s new tool for rating crowdfunding issues to make them more appealing to large investors. Increasingly, investors of all stripes are looking at deals on investment crowdfunding websites like Wefunder, Republic and Crowdfund Mainstreet. The score is intended to help both novice and expert institutional investors better understand the investment opportunity. Issuers, that is the companies selling shares on a crowdfunding site, can hire FastCTO to provide the review and rating. Preliminary Interview with Igor Belagorudsky, the President Of FastCTO. Expert tips for crowdfunding or fundraising: Tip 1: Make your listing attractive to not just the individual that might be willing to invest $100 (or $88 as that's the average donation) but to the one that might be writing a $20,000 check (there aren't that many of those yet but we're looking to change that). The bigger the check sizes, the less investors you need to convince and the less tim

Beginning with English language training, Utah-based FluentWorlds is delivering its immersive 3D experience to your phone. Available for both Android phones and iPhones, the technology is winning fans. CEO, David Bradford, 68, leads the company with his wife, Dr. Linda Bradford, who has a PhD in instructional psychology and technology. She serves as the chief product officer. Their son, also David, is the VP of finance and business development. This isn’t your typical family business. The senior Bradford has a proven tech background. He served as the CEO of both Fusion IO and HireVue, companies that achieved significant scale. Bradford recruited Steve Wozniak to Fusion IO as the chief scientist. Fusion-io went public and was later acquired by SanDisk. Bradford started his career at Novell, where he worked with Eric Schmidt. In November of 2017, David was honored with the “LifeTime Achievement Award” by Utah Business Magazine. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2lUM2Eq.

In 2012, Congress passed and President Obama signed the JOBS Act, a law that authorized investment crowdfunding. A wide variety of for-profit businesses, many of them having a social mission, have taken advantage of the law to raise money from small investors under either Title III, implemented as Regulation Crowdfunding or Title VI, implemented as Regulation A+. TechSoup is an international nonprofit that helps deliver technology to other nonprofits around the world. This innovative organization is using Regulation A+ to offer securities in the form of low-interest loans to the public. CEO Rebecca Masisak joined me for this conversation to explain important details around the $11.5 million offering. Institutional investors are participating with investments in the millions of dollars. Small investors are participating in increments of just $50. This is an innovative application of the JOBS Act and a rare opportunity for ordinary investors to participate in an impact investment opportunity.

CaringCrowd.org, by Johnson & Johnson Global Public Health, is a sponsor of the Your Mark on the World Center and GoodCrowd.info. Rehema Home is an orphanage in Kenya that cares for children, about half of whom are HIV positive. These wonderful children are often in need of medical care. Rehema Home raised over $10,000 on CaringCrowd, Johnson & Johnson’s global health crowdfunding platform. J&J generously matches individual donations up to $250. Of the $10,647 raised on CaringCrowd, $3,576 came from J&J in the form of matching funds.

Bill Drayton, founder and CEO of Ashoka, literally coined the term “social entrepreneur” when he founded the nonprofit back in 1980, almost 40 years ago. He also decided that changemaker was one word and not two, something the Oxford dictionary now recognizes (though Webster’s does not, to the Drayton’s consternation). Drayton says, “We all sense that society is at a profound, indeed historic turning point.” Before we explore the turning point, he’s talking about, let’s briefly review some of the history of Ashoka and social entrepreneurship. The kernel of the idea for Ashoka came to Drayton, he says, when he was visiting India at age 18. On this journey, he began to appreciate that an entrepreneur could make systemic changes that could have profound implications in the lives of large numbers of people. He also began to appreciate how difficult it is to make that leap at almost any point in one’s life. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/34G2L03.

Personally impacted by wildfires in her Northern California community, Julia Jackson saw the impact of climate change and recognized that the time for talk was long past and went to work. Julia created the nonprofit Grounded to accelerate the work of climate change reversing technologies. An admirer of Paul Hawken and his work at Project Drawdown, she has sought to accelerate some of the very technologies Paul and his team identified. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

LifeNet International is working to save lives in sub-Saharan Africa by building capacity within the existing health care infrastructure. By equipping the facilities and training the people there, the organization hopes to transform them, allowing them to save more lives. Maggie Ehrenfried, managing director of development for LifeNet, joined me to talk about the organization’s impactful work and its success raising over $25,000 via CaringCrowd by Johnson & Johnson. She notes that nearly half of the funds raised came from the J&J match. Never miss another interview! Join Devin here: http://bit.ly/joindevin.

"I am on a mission to provide clean and affordable energy to women and girls in African rural communities through the use of modern technologies like AI,” says Monique Ntumngia, 29, founder of the Green Girls Organisation working in Sub-Saharan Africa. The organization uses a unique scoring algorithm called MNKB92 to optimize energy strategies for villages where they train women and girls to assemble and sell solar lamps and to deploy biodigesters to create methane for cooking and organic fertilizer for crops. The organization provides the materials for free but receives a 40% cut of the revenue from the sale of fertilizer and solar lamps. The organization helps women find markets for the fertilizer. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/2jXKWqE.

Having created a technology for nonprofits that has the potential to accelerate their fundraising and their impact using artificial intelligence and machine learning, Art Komarov has learned a few things about the adoption of new technology. He shares some powerful insights to help nonprofit leaders implement the latest and greatest tech for good. Interview with Artiom (Art) Komarov, the Co-Founder and CEO of Wisely. The following is the pre-interview with Artiom (Art) Komarov. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above. Expert Tips: Adopting new technology? Here are some thoughts on how to get everyone in your organization on board: Tip 1: Everyone has an “accidental technologist” in their organization: someone that ends up being a technical resource for their colleagues, without an official IT title. When you’re incorporating new technology into your organization, work closely with your ''accidental technologist'' to get buy-in and show the product's value. The rest of the team will follow. Tip 2: R

Wendy Burton has been planting Empress Splendor trees for about two decades. With help from crowdfunded investors from Wefunder, along with accredited investors participating in a Regulation D 506(c) offering, her company, World Tree, will plant thousands of these carbon sucking trees across the western hemisphere. She says the tree is the fastest-growing hardwood tree on the planet. While it grows in a range of climates, its method of reproduction limits its threat as an invasive species. Because the tree grows so quickly, it sequesters more carbon than other trees. Investors typically buy an acre’s worth of trees—110 trees—but rather than receive the revenue from a particular acre of trees, investors get a pro-rata share of all the trees planted in the current year’s crop when harvested in ten years. Farmers who plant and care for the trees receive half the revenue; investors and World Tree split the other half of the revenue. The first harvest, she says, could produce a financial return of nine to ten t