Posted on March 27, 2013 by Terrence Isert

Crowdfunding platforms are becoming the rage as entrepreneurs and individuals with a creative flair search for typically small-scale financing options. Imagine you are an individual entrepreneur with a great idea or a local project with real potential for social impact in your community but no money to get it going. Or a charity that needs to go beyond its traditional and fatigued donor base to expand its outreach in its community to just a few more poor households. What do you do? You turn to what is known as a crowdfunding portal where you upload your story, even a photo or two, and socially-minded individuals, anywhere in the world can read your story and send you the capital, piecemeal and small-scale to get going. Kickstarter or Indiegogo,  the successful leading sites have spawned a “crowd” of new crowdfunding sites, as Inc. magazine reports. Newcomers such as  Microryza, Petridish, and Iamscientist now provide a way to raise money only for scientists and scientific research. Razoo and GoFundMe works their magic for charities and nonprofit organizations.  exclusively. Cause to Fund and ioby specialize in the local community impact projects, such as homeless projects, community gardens and neighborhood clean-ups.  Read the full article here.

Posted on March 14,2013 by Terrence Isert

Youth entrepreneurship has become paramount for the stability and economic advancement of many countries. The demographic shift in developing countries in particular has produced far more youth than older adults. An ILO report on global youth employment  estimated in 2012 that there were 1.8 billion youth in the world with more than 75 million ages 15-24 struggling to find work.  In many regions of the world, the future of a country’s economy lies in getting youth to think of entrepreneurship as an option. In the Arab world, Qatar apparently is leading the way. The country posted the highest rate of youth that expressed an interest in becoming an entrepreneur as compared to its neighbors in the region.  The Silatech Index report, Qatar’s Rising Entrepreneurial Spirit found that Qatari 33% of youth reported their intention to start a business in the next 12 months which continues an increasing trend since 2009. Compare this result to the median figure of 9% across the rest of the Arab world and it demonstrates a clear difference. The US by comparison in 2012 had a stable trend of 43% of youth between grades 4 through 12 (10 – 18 yrs.) who wanted to start a business according to a Gallup survey. Many factors obviously are necessary to encourage this spirit of entrepreneurship in any country. Still these figures are encouraging as youth’s enthusiasm for entrepreneurship is rising, giving hope for future economic prospects.

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Terrence Isert

The New York Times’ David Bornstein thinks so. Apparently so does Warren Buffet. His MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company floated a first-ever $850 million bond offering for Topaz Solar Farm, a U.S. photovoltaic power project — which was reportedly oversubscribed by $400 million.   The article in the Times profiles Mosaic, a start-up investment start-up in Oakland, CA that rolled out an online crowdfunding platform for small, non-accredited investors to pony up as little as $25 for solar investments for a 4.5% return. The star-tup raised the $313,000 in 24 hours instead of the 30 days the firm had projected.

Solar energy has become an increasingly cost-effective option. The article cites reports that innovations in solar panel technology and manufacturing has dropped the retail price of panels by 80% over the past 5 years. This development and other key strategic partnerships have allowed First Solar, a solar energy generator to provide power to El Paso Electric, a Texas utility at around half the price per kilowatt as compared to coal-burning power plants. Is Solar energy finally coming of age? If it hasn’t already, it appears to be on a horizon that is fast approaching. Read the entire NY Times article here.

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Terrence Isert

Forbes recently highlighting a new partnership between Opportunity International and The One Woman initiative,. The goal of the joint venture is to help 2 million women start entrepreneurial activities through financial, education and training services. Actually the goal is to go beyond that level as women typically prove to be more likely to take money that they earn to take better care of their families.

This joint initiative looks to build positive community impacts by focusing on future and existing women entrepreneurs and their families. Both organizations highlight the challenges associated with such an endeavor, including the familiar challenge of measuring the positive social impact for women, their families and their communities.

Together the two partners bring a wealth of experience to this endeavor. For over 40 years, Opportunity alone has worked with approximately 5 million entrepreneurs, many of them women and is currently working in 20 countries worldwide. One Woman is a women-empowerment fund created in conjunction with the US State Department and USAID. The fund provides targeted grants to community-based organizations in developing countries to increase lending to women clients. Read the full Forbes article here.

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Terrence Isert

I recently sat-in on webinar on CDFI branding presented by Jeff Stephens at Creating Brand Communications (CBC). CBC has perfected its branding approach from its work with Craft3 (formerly Enterprise Cascadia CDFI in Portland, Oregon) and Simon Sinek’s book “Start with Why?”. The latter in particular hones in on the steps for overcoming the challenges of finding your brand identity. Jeff explained that CDFIs in today’s market face unique challenges that other financial service providers do not face. Reaching more clients in the community and achieving sustainable business growth are impeded without an effective brand. As Jeff described, CDFI are very good at telling “what they do”, “where they do it” and “how they do it”. It’s there bread and butter. Their staff know their products and services very well because they are tangible and real. But CDFIs lose sight sometimes of WHY they do things. This is the heart of effective branding. This is not the regurgitation of the mission or vision statements per se, although the goals and ‘dream statements’, respectively do feed into the “why”. Rather, CDFIs need to discover their “inner sole”. Conducting discussions with staff, partners, clients and community leaders will lead to the discovery of the value that the CDFI brings to each. The results of these discussions are used to craft the brand. For my own satisfaction, I revisited my old business school marketing textbook to look up branding. The book used words like “art”, “cornerstone” “culture”, “differentiation” and “attributes” to define branding. They all fit but my takeaway from the webinar was that branding can be challenging and complex — a simpler approach may be the more direct and easier way. But CDFIs have to begin by asking the right question! If you are interested in reading more, CBC has also distilled their message on this topic into a white paper entitled “The 7 Special Challenges for Branding CDFIs: And What To Do About Them”. It is well worth the read! Thanks to Jeff and his colleagues at CBC for sharing their experience and expertise on branding!

Welcome to the ProMicro Blog where we will look at entrepreneurship through a triple lens of  grassroots entrepreneurship, sustainable growth, and green technology applications. Our goal is to stimulate a rich discussion of innovative ideas, emerging trends, and promising practices — always with an eye on the challenges entrepreneurs have encountered along their journeys to success. To complement this blog, we will highlight small-business owners and their success stories in an Entrepreneur of the Month on our website. We welcome your feedback, comments and insights always!