December 11, 2007 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Washington
Social entrepreneurs think they have new and innovative solutions to many of the social problems facing the next president — and now they have started a new coalition, America Forward, to persuade the presidential candidates to consider their ideas.
“Americans want to get beyond the stale arguments of the past,” says David Gergen, one of the co-chairs of the new coalition. Mr. Gergen is a former presidential adviser and is now an editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report. “They are looking for new, innovative ways to address issues here at home, and the social entrepreneurs are responding to that by bringing a spirit of innovation.”
More than 60 organizations involved in health, education, and other causes have come together to form America Forward. The coalition seeks to introduce the presidential campaigns to the work of social entrepreneurs and encourage them to adopt new approaches developed by social entrepreneurs and to support policies that encourage new approaches to difficult social problems. Social entrepreneurship usually involves efforts to blend business practices with charity.
While most of the members of the coalition are nonprofit organizations, its leadership includes two prominent business executives. Jeff Swartz, chief executive of the Timberland Company, and Mark Nunnelly, managing director at Bain Capital serve as co-chairs, along with Vanessa Kirsch, president of New Profit, and Mr. Gergen.
“As social entrepreneurs, we represent a new generation of leaders who are focused on transformational solutions for our country’s toughest problems,” says Ms. Kirsch. “What’s interesting is that we’re combining the service and social-change ethic with a sense of business, with the concepts of innovation, competition, accountability and results.”
The coalition says it has begun talking with many of the presidential campaigns and that the response has been positive.
Last week, Democratic candidate Senator Barack Obama gave a speech in which he adopted a number of the coalition’s policy ideas, including a significant increase in the number of AmeriCorps members and setting up a Social Investment Fund Network and an Office of Social Entrepreneurship in the executive branch to stimulate greater in innovation in the nonprofit world.
