Attended the conference of Social entrepreneurs @ NYU Stern

NYU Stern’s Berkeley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies conducted its 5th Annual conference of Social entrepreneurs on Nov 7th, 2008 with theme of “Measuring Social Impact”. The conference brings together leading experts from the public, non-profit, for-profit and academic fields committed to furthering the field of social impact measurement. I got my initiation for the conference through Prof. Jill Kickul when I met her at the Non-profit boot camp organized by Craigslist foundation at New York.

The conference started at 8.00 am with a breakfast and networking event. I met a 2nd year Wharton student who was representing REDF, her internship employer. There were many MBA students from NYU Stern and many other top schools. I gave a small interview to the student video team on what brought me to the conference and how measuring impact would benefit the non-profit I started. The key note speaker for the event was Mark Kramer of FSG Social Impact Advisors. He stressed the importance of performance evaluation and gave few examples on the consulting work his firm has done on social impact measurements.

The second event of the day was a panel discussion on Current approaches in Impact Measurement moderated by Blair Miller of Acumen Fund. The panelists were Margot Brandenburg from Rockefeller foundation, Debra Natenshon of Center for what works, Michael Weinstein of Robin Hood foundation and Richard Steele of Bridgespan. I gained information about what each of their organizations are doing for measuring impact and how the processes evolve from bad to less bad to good. The questions from the audience were mostly for Michael Weinstein because Robin Hood foundation was based in New York and measures impact by monetizing the benefits.

I had to leave to office when we broke for lunch. I wished I could attend post lunch sessions - another panel discussion, a case study and the award ceremony. The panel discussion post lunch was on Leveraging existing measurements tools and applications moderated by Mathew Klein of Blue Ridge Foundation. The panelist were Andrew Kassoy of B lab corporation, Rob Katz of Acumen Fund and Sara Olsen of Social Venture technology group. The case study was about the Humane Society and Beth Rosen moderated by Jason Saul of Mission Measurement LLC. The NYU Stern’s Satter Social Entrepreneur of the year award went to Darell Hammod, founder and CEO of KABOOM. The NYU Stern’s Social Entrepreneur lifetime achievement award went to Bill Drayton, founder and CEO of Ashok and also my role model