The Leadership Discussion

Our Executive Summary is designed to discuss:

• 1) What might have driven the estimates of social costs?
• 2) How was this similar/different from what you came up with?
• 3) What else would you need to know in order to refine / revise these estimates?
• 4) What more can you say about this business’s performance, now that you see the information in DBL format?
• 5) How would you benchmark this social enterprise’s performance from both a business and social perspective?

Maximum Balance Foundation is a social enterprise providing mentoring programs for middle and high school youth in the United States area.

The model program will form partnerships with local school districts and the juvenile court system, to recruit young people for volunteer and mentoring opportunities.

This path has been awarded both local and national recognition since 1996, and has become a recognized source of 65% high school graduation, 80% college enrollment, and 99% college graduation rates from students who complete our four-year program.

Maximum Balance Foundation (MBF) is also a:

• Channel Partner of Cisco. Cisco has a program of providing their Cisco Network Academy training for free to under privileged youth.
• Partner with ASUS Computers.  A leading original design manufacture (ODM) for many of the leading consumer laptop computers in the world.
• Partner with VolunteerMatch.  68% of the US volunteer population recognizes this brand name for places to serve and become volunteers.
• Strategy Partner with Interior Concepts.  The leading work station designer in the United States, together

MBF helps Cisco identify worthy institutions for the program. As such, MBF is in talks with Mississippi nonprofits about implementation of the program and requiring all incoming freshman at one or more of its academies to take the Cisco training.

MBF purchases and receives marketing support for its technology needs through ASUS Computers, and

Through our additional partners, VolunteerMatch, and Innovative Concepts, we would like to implement a social network to aide with the academy learning and improve overall student communications, both during formal training in the classroom, and informal training in leisure time.

MBF will be fronting the initial funds for the social network, we help nonprofits identify and access funds that will repay our professional development costs with either grant funds from a recent $58M stimulus package; or through our growing small business network, locally.

Financial Considerations

“Commit. Connect. Concern. – Building a Smarter Economic Future”

Our theme this year has been chosen to reflect the double challenges of a major cyclical recession and the implications of restructuring towards an improved distance learning economy.

What drives economic regeneration and development; what is the balance between meeting immediate needs, anticipating adverse and positive change and exploiting opportunities?

How do you resolve ambiguities within and between different national policy objectives, investment and resource allocation decisions and delivery practices, especially at local level where managing the holistic approach in implementation has proved difficult?

This team is focused on implementation and this year on establishing a strong infrastructure to support the on-going initiative to build ecologically friendly broad band accessible communities in the south, through distance learning and volunteerism.

Based on the data presented, a combination taskforce that assembles the collective educational resources to share information between universities does not exist.  However tools and resources generally associated with Social Networking can easily and effectively provide support for the endeavor.

Before we discuss the value of social networking tools, it is important to understand the description of the paper thus far.

The idea would be to replicate this model across 15 other historically black colleges in the area. MBF needs will need help with strategy, design, and implementation. Through this gift to local nonprofits our foundation seeks to engage parents to advocate and reclaim the education process for their children, partly in partnership with teachers.

We would like to introduce our Solution Set and if you are in a decision making role define next steps to meet our premier partners for this project having worked with Stanford and the Cisco Learning Network in the past.

This paper should help with putting together rough time frames, resources needed, and define future services costs.

Building a Sustainable Volunteer Community through Principled Centered Leadership Training

The goal of the community will be to take a step towards creating the “classroom of the 21st century.” This virtual classroom will accompany the real world classroom experience in a complementary way, by providing a way for students to interact with teachers, their peers, and other professionals.

• One of the goals of the program is to extend the reach of Cisco Netacademy, which provides Cisco-based education in order to increase economic and career opportunities.
• Mississippi Valley State will be the first institution to be targeted with this model. The students will be the primary users, along with their professors, users from Cisco, and eventually students from other institutions.
• Cisco NetAcademy content will be seeded into the site, either via mechanized interfaces (RSS feeds, web services, etc…), or manually by a subset of the users.
• The initial revenue model for Maximum Balance is that the site will be funded via the IT fee paid by the students as part of their tuition. Over time, this revenue source may be replaced or supplemented by funds from the federal stimulus package.

Social Return on Investment-the future state of Maximum Balance Foundation from this deployment

Maximum Balance Foundation is a social enterprise providing mentoring programs for middle and high school youth in the United States area. Throughout this document you will see a repetitive theme. Principled Centered Leadership Training to establish a High Moral Character, through the use of SMART management training for existing and emerging nonprofit organizations.

To sum up, social enterprises should be seen as a positive force, as change agents providing leading-edge innovation to unmet social needs. Social entrepreneurship is not a panacea because it works within the overall social and economic framework, but as it starts at the grassroots level it is often overlooked and deserves much more attention from academic theorists as well as policy makers. This is especially important in developing countries and welfare states facing increasing financial stress.

Everything we do as an Alliance is built around the framework of ensuring that more young people experience more of the Promises.

The program will form partnerships with local school districts and the juvenile court system. We will provide five (5) key services by way of locally approved non profit organizations, identified by hours of training to the youth.

• Caring Adults
• Safe Places
• A Healthy Start
• Effective Education
• Opportunities to Help Others

 How these Five Promises Change Lives

Children who receive at least four of the Five Promises are much more likely than those who experience only one or zero Promises to succeed academically, socially and civically. They are more likely to avoid violence, contribute to their communities and achieve high grades in school.

Receiving at least four of the Five Promises also appears to mitigate gaps across racial and economic boundaries.

To experience the full power of the Promises, young people must experience these critical supports throughout their lives – in their families, at schools and out in their communities.

The outcome also has four (4) long-term key areas of focus for specific measurement.

• Employment Development

The first major economic value that social entrepreneurship creates is the most obvious one because it is shared with entrepreneurs and businesses alike: job and employment creation. Estimates ranges from one to seven percent of people employed in the social entrepreneurship sector. Secondly, social enterprises provide employment opportunities and job training to segments of society at an employment disadvantage (long-term unemployed, disabled, homeless, at-risk youth and gender-discriminated women).

• Innovation / New Goods and Services
  Social enterprises develop and apply innovation important to social and economic development and develop new goods and services. Issues addressed include some of the biggest societal problems such as HIV, mental ill-health, illiteracy, crime and drug abuse which, importantly, are confronted in innovative ways. An example showing that these new approaches in some cases are transferable to the public sector the Mississippi Valley State University Cisco Learning Academy.
• Social Capital
  Next to economic capital one of the most important values created by social entrepreneurship is social capital (usually understood as “the resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of … relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition”). Examples are the success of the German and Japanese economies, which have their roots in long-term relationships and the ethics of cooperation, in both essential innovation and industrial development. The World Bank also sees social capital as critical for poverty alleviation and sustainable human and economic development. Investments in social capital can start a virtuous cycle that includes
• Equity Promotion
  Social entrepreneurship fosters a more equitable society by addressing social issues and trying to achieve ongoing sustainable impact through their social mission rather than purely profit-maximization. In the Mississippi Delta/MSVU/Cisco example, the Maximum Balance Foundation supports disadvantaged women. Another case is the American social entrepreneurship program, Urban Leadership Foundation which has helped thousands of low-income high-school students to get into tertiary education.

More than ever, today’s volunteers work online, need flexible hours, and want to play a role in defining their jobs. They also want to feel a sense of responsibility for your organization’s overall mission. Harness this passion and potential-with results that uplift your goals and enable your volunteers to help workers find work-life balance, create new US based jobs in time sheets and service, generate innovation from new goods and services, and develop capital that closes many of the digital divides in our society that still exist.

The Mississippi Delta/Southern Texas Volunteer Improvement Initiative

We provide sponsors with a comparative analysis of county-level education in the two poorest regions of the United States – the Texas Borderland and the upper Mississippi Delta – with a special focus on differences by family type.

Our results will reveal important regional variation in both the prevalence of education and the composition of the poor population across major family types.

Using OLS regression models of family type-specific education we demonstrate three key findings:

• There are significant regional differences in education levels by family type between the Borderland and the Delta, most of which have been brought on by cultural differences in the way we define the role of men.  The net of important structural factors that characterize the regions;
• With the exception of the employment rate, the structural factors associated with education among married couple and single female-headed families are quite different; an paradoxically, areas in the Borderland with high in-migration are especially likely to suffer from married couple and single female-headed families access to traditional or distance learning education; or a hybrid of both.
• Our results suggest the need for regionally targeted and demographically tailored anti-education policies.

Improving education by investing in Social Change 2009-2012

The philanthropic market is a huge, but poorly understood force. Philanthropy impacts almost every single person’s life – in the United States and around the world. With over $143 billion in 1998 donations and several hundred billion more in foundation, university, and nonprofit endowments, philanthropy forms a powerful, largely hidden market. From disaster relief in Honduras to children’s day care programs and the YMCA, from the opera and public libraries to shelters and international development programs, philanthropy touches millions of people throughout the world – as both recipients and donors.

Yet, despite widespread agreement on the efficiency of the private capital markets, few people consider this “philanthropic capital” in the same light. There is no market to allocate philanthropic investments and information is variable and highly scattered. Moreover, donors are increasingly asking questions about the effectiveness and accountability of the organizations that they contribute to.

Why a Focus on Philanthropic Investing?

Three forces are reshaping the nature of philanthropy – each will have a major impact on our communities and society.

New Wealth

The dramatic rise in the stock market and incredible entrepreneurial digital economy have created vast amounts of new wealth, much of it concentrated in younger, new givers. Whether these wealthy individuals give and how they choose to give will have an enormous impact on the charitable sector.

New Approaches to Giving

Related to the dramatic rise in new wealth is the rise in demands for accountability and outcome-based approaches to giving. New entrepreneurial approaches to giving such as “venture philanthropy” and calls for greater accountability are changing the traditional relations between donor and donee – whole new forms of nonprofit organizations and new dynamics in the sector.

Transfer of Wealth

Over a $1 trillion in wealth will transfer from the depression era generation to their baby boomer sons and daughters. This wealth transfer could enable massive philanthropic investments.

We believe that new tools, analysis, and a rigorous investment approach to giving will help donors allocate their philanthropic investments more efficiently – the effectiveness and amount of these investments.

The Public Management Initiative (MBF) will engage members of the Public Management Program and the entire MBF community in a yearlong series of events, discussions, activities, and projects to learn from innovators in the field and actively test these ideas.
Scope of this Year’s MBF program

While surveying the broad topic of philanthropy, this year’s Public Management Initiative will focus primarily on four main areas:

• Models for investing in social change (The Emmett Till Project)
• Measuring the return from investments in social change (number of campuses involved in stage 1 t-shirt)
• Philanthropic investing in a global context (contest to find the furthest picture in the shirt from greenwood)
• Public policy issues surrounding philanthropic investments (open discussion on the use of private philanthropic fund inniatives)

In addition, the MBF will also attempt to leverage both the human and financial resources of students and alumni to launch our own investment fund for social change: the MBF Social Venture Fund.

Models for Investing in Social Change

How are new sources of funding and new business models changing the field of philanthropy? What is the best way to allocate philanthropic investments?

• The current models of philanthropy
• The “Venture Capital” approach to philanthropy
• Harnessing new sources of funding: new wealth created by high tech boom; transfer of wealth from the baby boomer generation
• Strategic corporate giving: does philanthropy provide a truly sustainable competitive advantage
• Leveraging philanthropic investments: cause – related marketing, employee satisfaction, networks with other NPOs
• Operating vs. project funding
• Investment of human capital and managerial resources
• Use of technology to cultivate and manage new donors, to build capabilities of social change organizations

Measuring the Return from Investments in Social Change

How do you measure the effectiveness and outcomes of a social investment? Implications of a measurement-based approach to giving?

• Is it possible to create a set of metrics objective enough to be truly useful?
• Are different metrics needed for different social change “industries”? i.e. Can we use the same metrics to measure results of job training programs and homeless advocacy programs?
• How do measurement metrics drive programs? How to provide the right incentives? Short-term vs. long-term objectives?
• Non-profit performance measurement: balanced scorecards, social return on investment calculations
• How to determine effectiveness in specific issue areas (education, social services, the environment, etc.)
• Management and HR Issues arising from use of metrics
• Economic/social development and cultural change (is culture an asset eroded by economic development for some communities?)
• Philanthropic Investing in a Global Context
• International power issues (governments vs. NGOs vs. individuals): do outside financial resources pose a threat to national sovereignty?
• What is the best way to have an impact: by focusing on infrastructure or specific issues?
• What have been the costs and benefits of existing programs: MBAid, PeaceCorps
• New approaches to international investment in social change
• International competition for funds
• The Internet as a global medium and world-wide access

Public Policy Issues Surrounding Philanthropic Investments

When you change the funding mix, how does that change how services are provided, and who controls them? How do business people and business money influence the public agenda? How do changing funding sources (more generally, “the changing resource mix” which includes people) affect nonprofits? Implications for the nonprofit sector?

• Examples of control issues arising from the switch from public to private funding (i.e.: school privatization, public space)
• Policy implications
• Winners vs. losers: Which issue areas and which organizations are best positioned to benefit from these changes?
• The use of tax dollars to fund personal interests
• Defining a public agenda, e.g., the Technology Network
• Strategic choices in funding (public vs. private, domestic vs. global, etc.)

MBF Social Venture Fund (managed through Calvert Foundation)Investing for Social Change in the media.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter of the Harvard Business School characterizes the attitude of the new givers like this: “We fixed American business; now we need to fix charity.” These budding “social entrepreneurs”, as this new breed of philanthropists like to call themselves, are keen to give away their money themselves (rather than create foundations to do it). They want to solve specific problems in a specific way (rather than just earmark money for some vaguely benevolent purpose). They focus on performance. And they try to make projects self-sustaining (so the recipients do not keep coming back for more).”
- Economist, May 30, 1998

As government devolves, as nonprofits adapt to more entrepreneurial models, and as business reinvigorates its role in social development, philanthropy is also incorporating new approaches for social investment and the creation of social capital.

Belief in the value of wealth creation in addressing social change along with the principles of venture capital investment is influencing the practice of emerging philanthropists among the new wealth creators as well as women’s, youth, and diverse ethnic groups’ new philanthropy ventures.

The practices of these new philanthropists are challenging more experienced leaders in philanthropy to think about changing roles and relationships with grantee partners, using new tools and approaches that stretch philanthropy beyond traditional grant making and into more opportunistic and market-based models.

- W.K. Kellogg Foundation, January 1999 Report

Many new philanthropists bypass traditional charitable vehicles and instead channel money to favored causes through their own start-up foundations.

The number of grant making foundations in the U.S. has climbed to more than 40,000, double what it was in 1980. Meanwhile, as philanthropy becomes more strategic, the old human-services standbys – hospitals, homeless shelters and soup kitchens – -have had to scramble for support.

During the 1980s a huge amount of wealth came off the tax rolls and went into foundations. The assets of those foundations were invested, to a large extent, in the stock market – as the stock market has soared, so have the foundation portfolios.

As foundations have grown and government money has shrunk, the private philanthropic sector has replaced the public sector as the source of funding for many political and cultural organizations – the foundations have started using that immense power to control the political agenda.

Services provided by Maximum Balance Foundation that are to be provided to area non-profits in Mississippi will impact the Public Schools listed below:

Youth are matched with a caring adult volunteer who is trained to focus on positive reinforcement, trust-building, and the achievement of goals, by engaging youth in one-on-one outing and group adventures in the community.  Mentors and youth agree to meet for between 10-15 hours per month for a full year.

Ongoing training will continue with mentors on individual case management throughout the year.  In addition, Maximum Balance Foundation will have monthly mentor support meetings.

You may participate online, or in person in over fifteen (15) cities in the United States. Our main office is currently located in San Francisco, CA.

1. We are involved in youth training throughout the year mentoring as many as fifty (50) youth per session.
2. The first program is Super Saturday which begins on a Friday evening, and at that time, is geared towards children 5-6 years of age.
3. The second program is a Saturday based volunteer program, (Super Saturday), is geared towards the same age range. However; this program involves parents, children, and teens.
4. Around mid day Saturday, the age range will then be focused on teens between the ages of 14-17. This gives both child and parent an active (trained mentor) for the child to engage with in a safe and controlled environment.
5. With proper release documents, parents are free to participate, or conduct other business for about five (5) hours. Saturday evening will have a shift in ages again, to individuals 18-25, this invitation only exercise/celebration is a means to say “thank-you” and a wonderful way to enjoy a musical Saturday evening.

Our aim is to identify targets that are social and environmental as well as financial which is often referred to as having a triple bottom line.

• We understand that you are currently involved in education improvement, and
• We would like to help your efforts by providing each child a backpack, laptop, and web-enabled cell phone for school-cost is $800.00
• We would like to provide parents and teachers updates on student performance and school attendance-cost 19.95 per month

Our programs involve profit-making businesses set up to tackle a social or environmental need. We often use a blended value business models that combine a revenue-generating business with a social-value-generating structure or component.

• We advocate for the growth and development of youth, through education and leadership training, by building partnerships.
• These partnerships enable manufacturing and consumer goods customers to achieve deeper insight and stronger connections to their customer, partner and supplier communities.
• Our partners are individuals and business owners are people who recognize a social problem and use entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.
• Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society.
• While social entrepreneurs often work through non profits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors. The main aim of a social entrepreneurship as well as social enterprise is to further social and environmental goals.
• Although social entrepreneurs are often non-profits, this need not be incompatible with making a profit. Social enterprises are for ‘more-than-profit,’ using blended value business models that combine a revenue-generating business with a social-value-generating structure or component.

Maximum Balance Foundation (MBF) is also a emerging channel partner of Cisco.  Cisco has a program of providing their Cisco Network Academy training to universities. MBF helps Cisco identify worthy institutions for the program.  Cost $60.00 per month.

To view and/or participate in our current project please click here

Our Definition of a Social Enterprise

SROI, or Social Return on Investment, is a framework which seeks to analyze the total value of a social purpose enterprise — an enterprise which pursues both the business goal of generating profits and the social mission goal of its parent organization. The SROI framework considers the value created by the social purpose enterprise in its pursuit of each of these two goals, then combines these values to arrive at a complete understanding of the social purpose enterprise’s entire impact on society. It then compares the value created for society to the value invested by society, from both private and public sources, arriving at a Social Return on Investment.

What does this model do?

This model measures return on investment from three distinct perspectives. First, it examines the financial value created (or cash generated) by the social purpose enterprise. Second, this model also examines social savings resulting from the increased tax revenues and third, the reduction in use of public assistance programs by target employees.

These savings are compared to the total investment in the social purpose enterprise to determine the return on investment.

This particular model seeks to bridge theory and practice by providing concrete instructions on how to calculate the SROI metrics of Maximum Balance Foundation by partnering with and designing future tools with strong technology partners.

Although the tool will outline some of the SROI theory and calculations, a complete discussion of SROI theory is beyond the scope of this paper.

For a more detailed explanation of the SROI framework, we recommend that you refer to our core values and mission, as well as; our key goals and keys to success, as well as; successful historical past.

What a investor will receive in terms of quarterly reports:

Maximum Balance Foundation’s goal is to foster a commitment to young people that will promote pro-social friendships, strong interpersonal skills, and reassert a sense of hope in the future.

Only through personal relationships can a sense of individual responsibility be reestablished that will give youth the commitment to follow through on path to adulthood with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Through repeated failures in the classroom and the development of destructive habits, at-risk young people have lost faith in the possibilities that await them if they are successful in putting their lives together. To accomplish this goal, young people must be in a caring, inclusive learning environment that promotes their best effort and reinforces personal respect.

Maximum Balance Foundation is a program that is in direct response to the growing number of young people that are either falling through the cracks at school or are already entangled with the juvenile court system.

The goal of the program is to identify youths who are going to have a turbulent transition to adulthood and offer positive support system to avoid the pitfalls that can derail their lives.

The focus is slightly different at each level but the goal remains the same; empower the young person to make positive changes in his/her life.

Maximum Balance Foundation will focus primarily on middle school youths. It is projected that within three years, 50% of the system’s students will be in middle school. This age group is particularly problematic and a perfect time for mentoring to be effective.

Maximum Balance Foundation’s mentoring programs will pair a youth with mentor for 12 months.

During that time the two will participate in weekly planned activities to strengthen the relationship between the two and improve the young person’s confidence and hopefulness.  Mentors will receive continuous training throughout the year and will participate in monthly meeting to report the young person’s progress.

Overtime, Maximum Balance Foundation will create a learning environment that will be an invaluable resource to young people, aspiring mentors and the community at large.

1.1.   Mission

The three core values of Maximum Balance Foundation are:

• Commit
  Maximum Balance Foundation its organization to be future by committing to something larger than collective resources.
• Connect.
  Use the available tools to stay connected frequently in the pursuit of improving education.
• Concern.
  Commit and Connect the need for educational reform and make it a concern.

The mission of Maximum Balance Foundation is the pursuit of the following principles:

• Commitment
  Maximum Balance Foundation wants to inspire pro-social friendships, strong interpersonal skills, and instill a sense of hope in the future.
• Responsibility
  The focus of Maximum Balance Foundation is to empower youth in establishing goals and following through on commitments.
• Possibility
  Maximum Balance Foundation wants to expand the perspective of young people to make them aware of life’s possibilities.
• Support
  An individual is dramatically influenced by their support system. Maximum Balance Foundation wants to surround young people in a caring, inclusive learning environment.

1.2.   Goals and Objectives

Maximum Balance Foundation is being established to provide mentoring for at risk middle and high school youth in the United States area. The program will create partnerships with the local school districts and the juvenile court system. Maximum Balance Foundation matches a caring adult volunteer with a referred youth. Maximum Balance Foundation will setup four distinct mentoring programs:

• Urban Leadership 101
  Urban Leadership 101 is the central program of Maximum Balance Foundation. At risk middle school students and their mentors participate in a structured program of support.
• FreedomsDialouge
  FreedomsDialouge focuses on students who are chronically suspended from middle and high schools.
• FreedomsJourney
  FreedomsJourney engages youth involved in the juvenile court system.
• Lunch Friends
  Lunch Friends works with children from local elementary schools.

1.3.   Keys to Success

•  Establish a strong network of support with the school systems and the juvenile court system.
• Launch a series of fund raising activities that will successfully fund the expanding program.
• The Nature of Leadership- Each meeting has a theme that we focus the meeting around.  Our themes range from Character to Integrity to Ethics etc… The theme’s focus defines and identifies what makes a leader great or mediocre.
• The Leadership Project- We require the youth to give us an oral and written (community service hours time sheets) report on the status of volunteer work, as well as, provide us with research on what are the social needs in the community.
• Model Leadership- At each meeting, we introduce the youth to a different leadership model and explore how that model applies to a leadership situation in “real life.”
• Proven Leadership- At each meeting, we allow the youth to discuss their leadership characteristics based on the theme for that particular meeting.
• Company Leadership- Students discover why and how the free enterprise system works.  They are introduced to the principle of the free enterprise in the United States and the economic incentives that motivates people to behave in a certain way, as they earn and spend their money.
• Establish an effective training program for mentors that will increase their ability to be successful communicators.
• Establish an effective monitoring system to protect both the youth and the mentor.