Fast Company Names Top Social Entreprenuers

Folks at Philanthromedia do the best we can to track philanthropy's currently most compelling evolution but the storyline is fully personified by the Class of '07: The The Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award Winners. From "A More Powerful Path" by Cherly Dahle in this month's issue:

We are waking to the idea that if business inevitably shapes the future, it has a responsibility to choose what that future will be...For guidance in this new realm, business is looking to social entrepreneurs. Not because they excel at that do-gooder thing, but because they have sophisticated, tested theories of change. They know their markets. They understand systems and levers of action as few others do. And, as many clever companies are learning, they can be great partners in endeavors that are good for the world and good for the bottom line...

On these pages, you'll find evidence of a movement that's not just changing the world, but changing how we think about creating change. Increasingly, we're witnessing the blurring of commerce and charity: Companies now tend to their citizenship; nonprofits hitch income-earning solutions to markets. That phenomenon led us this year to assess the most innovative corporate partnerships among our winners--alliances that represent both business value and a choice about what kind of future to create.

Also worth checking out are podcasts from several awardees including:  First Book's Kyle Zimmer, who has worked with the nation's leading publishers to provide millions of new books to thousands of children in need,  EcoLogic Finance's Willy Foote who works with green mountain coffee roasters and other companies to support coffee growers and other rural enterprises in developing nations and TransFair USA's Paul Rice who is using fair trade guidelines to raise the incomes of 1.1 million farmers and producers worldwide.

Susan Herr