Summer 2004

SF Bay Team Wins Major Prize at Global Social Venture Competition

They had to go all the way to Lon-don to do it, but a San Francisco Bay Area team of graduate students from UC Berkeley and Stanford won the Medium Growth prize at the 2004 Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC).

Schools for Community Empowerment, the Stanford-UC Berkeley team, won their $25,000 prize for developing a model for urban renewal and empowerment by linking youth education with community development.

The competition, founded in 1999 by Haas MBA students as the Haas Social Venture Competition, has grown over the years, through a partnership first with the Columbia Business School and The Goldman Sachs Foundation and, more recently , with the London Business School (LBS). The inclusion of LBS turned a national competition into a truly global undertaking, evident in the home schools and projects of the finalists.

Each of the partner schools sent three teams to the finals, held this year at the London Business School on April 16. Finalists competed as High Growth (break even in 5 years or less) or Medium Growth (longer period to break even) enterprises, or purely for the quality of their Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis. Those in the Medium Growth category were from the Indian Business School, the University of Michigan, and the Stanford-UC Berkeley team. High Growth finalists were from Rotterdam School of Management with partners in India, University of Colorado, and Columbia Business School/New School.

The $25,000 High Growth prize was won by Eco-Friendly Agricultural Products (EFAP) from Rotterdam School of Management. EFAP has created a totally organic and bio-degradable fertilizer with high water retention that reduces water usage in arid lands.

The six finalists were also eligible for the prizes for Best Blended plan and best SROI analysis. The $25,000 Best Blended prize recognizes the plan with the best combination of financial ROI and SROI. Iam, LLC, from Columbia Business School and the New School University, won for their plan to create a fully integrated real estate development, consulting and research firm dedicated to improving the environmental and economic quality of underserved urban neighborhoods.

This year the SROI teams came from the Wharton School with partners in the U.K., Columbia Business School, and Cornell University. The winner of the $5,000 SROI prize was Distributed Generation Technologies from Cornell, who were complemented for their innovative refining of the SROI analysis process. The team’s presentation and analysis are available on the GSVC website at: www.socialvc.net.

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