Want to change the world? Sir Richard Branson has just launched an online competition looking for the next big ethical or socially aware entrepreneurs and businesses ideas, so here is a chance for all you budding social entrepreneurs to be involved in something truly amazing and win an amazing prize, details below:

WHAT IS IT?

In conjunction with the launch of Richard Branson’s brilliant new book ‘Screw Business as Usual’, Sir Richard has launched a competition looking for the next ideas or businesses that are a force for good (the mantra of his non profit foundation Virgin Unite) and are screwing business as usual.

HOW TO ENTER…

An entry can be a story or brief description of a business or social enterprise in action anywhere in the world. An inspiration – in words, thoughts or on film – that shows a new way of creating or transforming a business, or will create a consumer movement that will create demand for better products or services.

Just log on to http://virginunite.screwbusinessasusual.com/uploadyourstory and share your idea or business that is screwing business as usual.

WHAT’S THE PRIZE?

Every month, the top five entries on the leader board – those with the most social shares (votes) – will each receive a prize. The top 10 ideas, as voted for by the online community, by 17th April 2012 will be evaluated by an Independent Judging Panel who will select the Grand Prize Winner !

THE FINAL WINNER

Firstly, the winning ideas or companies will be included Richard Branson’s next global business ‘book’, where they will be showcased as part of a growing community focused on business as a force for good.

There is also a Grand Prize which is a money-can’t-buy spot on a Virgin Unite Connection Trip with Richard to South Africa in 2012 for the winner of the competition. When you join a Virgin Unite Connection Trip you get to join Richard and a small group visiting and learning from front-line leaders who are making change happen in beautiful South Africa! Then you’ll spend time with an extraordinary new breed of emerging entrepreneurs creating new business models and turning capitalism on its head.

Lastly, you’ll spend a few days at Richard’s home in Ulusaba relaxing and sharing a unique time with an inspirational group of individuals. A once in a lifetime prize.

Here are some case studies for inspiration, if you really need – http://virginunite.screwbusinessasusual.com/casestudies

Richard hosts Connection Trip to South Africa from Virgin Unite on Vimeo.

We caught up briefly with Edwin Broni-Mensah, a social entrepreneur and the founder of GiveMe Tap where he shares his key advices for starting up a business and tips for aspiring entrepreneurs.

He talks about:

What GiveMe Tap is about
Some of the key things he’s learnt starting up GiveMe Tap
Advices to aspiring entrepreneurs

To see more interviews with top young entrepreneurs, Subscribe to our YouTube channel

If a foreigner were to ask about life in Great Britain, what would we answer?

Would we tell of our lives driven by family and community, of our young people engaged, educated, motivated, healthy and responsible, of our doctors and police valued and respected, of our innovative and forward-thinking politicians motivated by integrity and the genuine welfare of their countrymen, of a nation of social and business entrepreneurs fixing society and the economy?

Or would we tell of our individualism and lack of social awareness, of our young people’s disrespect and disillusionment, of our out-of-touch politicians’ detachment and ineffectiveness, of greedy and selfish mega-business, of our obsession with money, celebrity, fashion and material gain, of our blame culture destroying personal and collective responsibility, of our political correctness replacing common sense and common courtesy, of our pervasive security and fear culture stifling growth, or our welfare state promoting dependence rather than self-initiative?

We have arrived at a critical moment in time. The time has come to ask, here and now, what kind of society we wish to live in, what kind of society we leave for our children and their children, what kind of example we wish to set the rest of the world. Because as society stands, our future is bleak.

We therefore have no choice but to set an entirely new agenda for the way we live our lives, laying new foundations for a healthy society that places its values on individual and collective hard work, taking responsibility for our own lives, being involved in community and with family, on finding wellbeing and purpose.

It’s a task that calls on each and every one of us to take our place at the table and play our role in a better society that will continue to serve many generations after our time. It’s a task that requires us to stand up within our communities, to look around us, to help each other, to help ourselves.

In 1997, at age 18, I found myself with no job, little education, no home and no future. Despite coming from a broken home, a broken education and the odd encounter with police, I decided to take charge of my life and make something happen. Higher education was not going to provide the direction or the hunger for getting stuck into life and a conventional workplace was not suited to my creative drive.

Instead, I invested the £300 savings in my bank, printed some letterheads and started a small business. Over the next 11 years, that business went on to employ nearly 200 people, provide a valuable service to its customers and gave me a life of character-building hard work, determination and financial security that I could be proud of. My starting point was never something as cheap as money, prestige or material goods, but the inherent value of creating something and making things happen for me and others around me.

Entrepreneurialism, from the French ‘entreprende’ for ‘undertake’, is typically associated with business, but it is really about making things happen, in business or society. It is about identifying problems and creating and trying out new ideas and solutions, whether starting a business venture, a community project or a personal project, simply taking a seed and growing something new and unique.

Across the undeveloped and developing world, the one aspect of poverty that nobody talks about is the entrepreneurialism and industriousness. Despite the harshest conditions, millions of individual people make the most of their lives, running businesses, scratching a living and in doing so, they achieve self-worth. Not a single handout sought or blame apportioned. Just hard work and self-help. And always with a smile.

In Britain, we have seemingly lost the power to help ourselves, looking to others for solutions. But we are capable beyond measure. We are our own leaders if we choose to be. We do not need politicians or bureaucrats to tell us what to do, how to live and what we need to improve our lives, what is best for us and when, where and how. We have the self-knowledge and power to take control of our own lives and those around us, to do what is best for our children, our families and our communities. Politics is simply the business of people and public affairs.

Following the riots which brought home quite how broken and separated we are from ourselves and each other, we have an opportunity to change the course of history and every single person has the power to be a part of that change.

But that is only possible if we stand up and take part, if we participate, if we are interested, if we take responsibility, if we lead our children by example and affect others to do the same with a sense of common good. It is every man’s responsibility and anything less is a dereliction of duty. And in doing so, we can be proud of the society that we have each played a part in creating.

The time has arrived to become a nation of business and social entrepreneurs who make things happen, for ourselves, our families, our communities, our country. As a great man once said, ‘become the change you want to see’. In work, in personal life, everywhere, walk out of the door today, find purpose and make something happen that matters to you and for those around you. It’s not apathy or lack of purpose that has stopped us so far, it’s just that nobody has shown us how fulfilling and rewarding it is to participate and make things happen.

This post was written by RUDI SCHOGGER
Rudi Schogger is an Business and Social Entrepreneur.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Noam Kostucki, Noam is a social entrepreneur and recently a speaker at TED, Noam has given training, coaching and consulting at Yale University, HP, Tata, UnLtd and the British Heart Foundation. He is the founder of Seeducation (www.seeducation.org) and SeedPro.

In the UK alone, the social enterprise market grew from $24 billion (2007) to $97 billion (2010), and some people are still wondering whether “making money from doing good” is realistic.

I believe that everyone can make a healthy living from doing good. In my TED talk, I explored the question of “when is doing good the best way to make money“?

Now I want to look at what kind of social enterprise model can work for you.

If you are part of the 75% of the people who start by telling saying “but… you don’t understand: what I do is different. In my business we can’t do [...]“, don’t worry: just write down all the problems with doing what you would want to do and find a solution for each barrier, one by one, rather than all together.

When starting with social entrepreneurship, people wonder what they can do and how it applies to their industry or specific business. I don’t have a set answer, and no good consultant ought to. But we’ve got 2 other things in our sleeves:

1) a set of questions to ask you… most people I meet don’t actually know much about their market and own line of business

2) a set of models you can get inspired by… most people find the answer themselves once they’ve seen how someone else has made it work

This is why I have identified for you 6 of the most common big models. Take a look at how different organisations understand the idea of “making money from doing good” and take the best from each.

1. Buy 1, get 1 free for someone else: like the Jojo Project or Tom’s shoes, for every item you buy, someone else gets the same for free

2. Profit go to do inspiring good: OneWater that sells commercial water in supermarket invests most of its profit to build roundabouts for children to spin in Africa. As they turn the roundabout, they pump water to a water tower for the village and the surrounding ones. They also sell advertising space at the top of water towers to generate more revenue.

3. Intrinsic good: FEED Project is a company that sells bags and clothes that do good. Each items you buy is intrinsically good because they are made of eco-friendly material, and as an added value, each item also helps feed people in the developing world. So as they do more good, they make more money, the more money they make, the more good they do!

4. Invest in your future market: Seeducation is the “charity” that gives free education to individuals on how to make a living from doing good. SeedPro is the “company” that get paid by organisations for training, coaching and consulting on how to make money from doing good. These charitable activities support people in creating social enterprises. The more people Seeducation helps, the more social enterprises there are… and therefore the biggest the market is for SeedPro.

5. Improve the chain: Innocent drinks sells high price top of the range juice. They charge you for quality product, but also for the quality of the service they provide you: the go back all along the chain of production and makes sure every aspect is ethical and sustainable. They pay fair price and help their providers improve their sustainability and profitability.

6. Uncontested experts: For example, Age UK, the charity to help the elderly really runs 4 businesses that generate 104 million pounds from trading in 2010 or the Directory of Social Change that makes year on year about 95% of the money it needs from selling training, books, conferences and online tools.

If you want to learn more about how you charity can start making money from doing good, check the TED talk or tell you what you want to know about through comments, questions and ideas!

Press Play Productions a private company categorized under Motion Picture Producers and Studios, located in New York, was founded and created by young entrepreneur Jenna Arnold.

Jenna was inspired after a trip to Mexico when she was just 13 when the bus she was in had to stop abruptly because a man in a wheelchair was passing by, there was no platform available for the man to go easily on. Touched by this she thought why anyone had not done something about it yet it seemed simple enough to do.

She then developed the interest to reach all people and educate them about social welfare of people in less developed countries. She knew that the only way she could reach a large number of people with her message was through media at the same time she needed the flexibility of her own company to produce things how she wanted. She then joined university where she enrolled in media classes and upon graduation went to work with the UN.

After working in the education system and the United Nations Jenna started her own company, Press Play Productions. The company focuses on developing innovative multi-platform content to inspire global awareness among youth and their participation in social causes. With offices in New York, Los Angeles and the Middle East, Press Play reaches this key audience through educational and entertaining film, television, online programs and academic material that bridges the gap between the classroom and pop culture.

This attitude is what led her to success on numerous projects most notably “Exiled” which was sold to MTV and is now airing in over 100 countries.

In the Summer of 2008 Arnold produced and assisted in the development of the first Dubai Documentary Film Festival: Pulling Focus. The symposium provided young filmmakers from the region the skills and tools required to tell their stories through a documentary lens. In addition,  Arnold was the youngest American to work at the United Nations serving as a Media and Education Specialist where she created multi-platform programming that co-branded the UN with Fortune 500 companies, reputable celebrities and international institutions.

While at the UN, Arnold was a Producer for the Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life, an MTV program that focused on the lack of accessible and safe drinking water around the world. She also brought the celebrity- studded What’s Going On? Showtime network series into classrooms making it the second best-selling education product nationwide. Arnold has extensive world knowledge having taught in 13 countries and authored 15 different curricula about global topics. She graduated top of her class from the University of Miami with an honors degree in Education and Astro-Physics. She received a Masters in Education from Columbia University with a focus on developing education systems in post conflict and emerging conflict regions.

Her advice to young entrepreneurs, ‘Do something that has not been done yet. You can sit there and say I’ll make a TV show or something. but what is the next twitter? It’s a crazy idea but you have to set yourself up for success.’

Written by Christine Maema

How to be a Social Entrepreneur: Make Money and Change the World

29 year old Lauren Craig is the founder and owner of ‘Thinking Flowers?’ an environmentally ethical floral design consultancy company founded in 2003.

After only 7 years, Lauren has combined and respected the natural beauty of flowers with her creative flare to produce breathtaking flower installations for prestigious venues and organisations, including, The Tate Modern, BAFTA, Westminster Cathedral, The Royal Festival Hall and created an installation for the Obama inauguration celebrations at The House of Commons on request.

Despite the encouraging outcome of a rapidly flourishing business, the trigger that initially caused Lauren to turn to the beauty of flowers was far from positive. After experiencing losses of loved ones through knife and gun crime, Lauren realised the comfort and joy that flowers bought her in a time of sadness. After completing a BA Honours degree in Marketing and Advertising, she decided to focus on the power of flowers through studying floral design.

In her first year, she managed to secure three contracts, turning her dream of combing art with trade into a reality. Her perseverance eventually resulted in Lauren being the youngest ever post graduate in floral design and enterprise.

Thinking Flowers’ main aim is to highlight the demand for flowers and the unethical elements that have come with the cut-flower industry. By raising awareness and offering an alternative through the use of sustainable sources with low impact transport and packaging, Lauren hopes to create natural, beautiful, simple floral installations with a cleaner supply chain by using fewer resources.

Inspired by the Eden Project and Patagonia, Lauren attempts to keep installations beautiful in their simplicity by keeping the flowers close to their natural state. The services that ‘Thinking Flowers?’ offers are: floral design and consultancy, floral installations, design workshops, styling services and green-waste disposal (many flowers are re-used and recycled).

Lauren Craig also has other strings to the ‘Thinking?’ bow, including ‘Thinking Images?’, which was initiated by her photographic documentation of the aftermath of street crime and culture and ‘Thinking Therapies?’, an alternative medicine company.

With three rapidly developing businesses, Lauren Craig is surely one to watch. For more information on ‘Thinking Flowers?’ please email info@thinkingflowers.org.uk.

Written by Emma McWhinney

Farrah Gray is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and motivational speaker. He became a self made millionaire at 14 years old!

Farrah started his first entrepreneurial venture at the age of just 6 years old. He would sell homemade body lotions and hand painted rocks, for use as book ends and doorstops, in Chicago’s south side where he grew up. At 7 years of age he regularly carried his own business cards which read “21st Century CEO”.

When he was 8 years old this remarkable young entrepreneur was officially the youngest person to have ever had an office on Wall Street. This was the home of his newly founded company New Early Entrepreneur Wonders (NE2W), which was set up to educate and support “at risk” youth by developing and providing the tools to acquire additional income legally.

When Farrah Gray was 12 years old he founded KIDZTEL, pre paid phone cards for kids, which would end up making him a teenage millionaire.

His list of incredible achievements doesn’t stop their as he was a host on an interactive teen talk radio show where his voice was heard by over 12million listeners every Saturday night. At the same time he had yet another venture running, ‘Far-Out Foods’, food with a twist aimed at young people which brought in $1.5million plus, in revenue, in the first year.

Amongst many awards and accolades Farrah has received, he was given an honorary doctorate degree of Humane Letters from Allen University. ‘Dr’ Gray also uses his drive, enthusiasm and experience to host motivational speaking conferences.

At the age of 26 he is currently best-selling author and CEO of Farrah Publishing. What he has achieved so far in his life is extraordinary and is more than most people complete in a lifetime.

Farrah was motivated to work hard toward financial gain, after seeing his mother suffer in dire financial situations, as a youngster.

He is not all about money, money, money for himself though as he is a companionate person and regularly gives back to the community. Many of his entrepreneurial activities also are targeted at providing help and opportunities for those who are going through difficulties.

He is a social entrepreneur and this was evident in him from an early age as shown by his commitment to NE2W. I have no doubt you will be hearing a lot more about this young entrepreneur in the future.

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Ethan Austin is the founder of GiveForward, a privately held social venture. The idea behind the organisation is to make it easier for people to raise money online for the things they care about.

Ethan Austin started GiveForward with Desiree Vargas in August 2008. Mr Austin is a social entrepreneur, which is someone who identifies a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.

Ethan, along with Desiree, has recognised the difficulties in individuals raising money for good causes and created a space online with helps make the process easier.

At first Ethan didn’t feel he had the guts to go through with the idea, but the idea of working with Desiree allowed him to make the jump easier.

Sometimes it can be daunting starting a business yourself and so making sure you have like minded people around can sometimes make all the difference. Often partnering up with someone can help make it easier when starting up your first business.

Austin’s biggest lesson as an entrepreneur is to always be flexible and willing to adapt to changes in the market.

Ethan graduated from Emory University in 2004 with a B.A. in political science and holds a J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law and he is actually licensed to practice law in California.

Ethan is helping to change people’s lives for the better by providing a platform that enables this.

I wish him good luck in his future endeavours.

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I would like to thank Emmanuel Anthony of treehouse In for making this feature possible

Naomi Jane is an award winning entrepreneur, model and ex- European title Beauty Queen.

Naomi runs The 4WD Foundation, an award winning social enterprise that specialises in youth engagement strategy and youth-led research. The 4WD Foundation helps London’s young people access life-changing information, opportunities and resources through various youth-led multi-media platforms.4WD projects aim to enable London’s young people to make informed positive life decisions, reach more of their potential, and become proactive assets to their community.

Naomi is a public speaker and specialist youth trainer and has delivered and facilitated various training programmes, developmental workshops and motivational speeches for The Safety Box, The Helena Kennedy Foundation, The Peace Alliance, The World Entrepreneur Summit, Royal Holloway, University of London, The Youth of Today, 2morro, WestFocus and Young Enterprise London.

Naomi is also a freelance sales, marketing and online media consultant. She is also a partner in FrSH Entertainment, an independent urban music collective.

Naomi is a member of the Channel 4 Educational Advisory Board and is also the Youth Trustee for the Donald Chesworth Educational Trust, providing disadvantaged young people with grants enabling them to continue their education and for OSW (Off the Streets and into Work) a charity supporting homeless people in their journey to enter sustainable living.

Naomi has just secured her first ever radio show; Naomi will be producing and presenting ‘The Forward Show’ with Kaylie Boyce. It will be aired on Reach 87.7FM every Tuesday in May 2010, 8.30-9.30pm and will feature special guests and conscious UK music in order to discuss and address issues that affect young Londoners.

What do you do in your spare time?

I am very passionate about healthy living, so I spend a large amount of time in the gym training with my good friend and ex-professional athlete Jonathan Barbour. I also enjoy swimming, yoga, pilates and running in the park.

I love traveling and leave the UK to get some alternate culture (and sun!) as often as I can. This Summer I am off to the South of France, Antigua and New York.

I also love dancing to good music, luckily in London there are great music and night scenes that enable me to indulge myself in a night of dancing my feet off / singing along to a great artist whenever I have time. In the coming months I am seeing Alicia Keys, Raheem DeVaughn and Erykah Badu!

What are your plans for the future?

The 4WD Foundation has currently secured funding to pilot a research and online-based youth engagement project. These pilots will be taking place in the London Borough of Croydon and their outcomes will determine the future direction and expansion of The 4WD Foundation. In order to make a great success of the next step in the development of the 4WD Foundation, we are currently recruiting a senior management team.

To Get in touch/involved with The 4WD Foundation:
“4WDFoundation” Twitter | WordPress |
The 4WD Foundation’ on Facebook

Vicky Mariano is the brains behind the SH (Spiritual Haze).

Spiritual Haze is a SOCIAL ENTERPRISE (meaning it has a social mission rather than profit mission) was created by four Clark University students for their Entrepreneurship class project. After a year and a half of hard work, struggles, and problems trying to open while maintaining its social mission base, they finally opened to the public November 8th, 2007.

Vicky, how you doing? Thank you for the opportunity.Welcome to YHP.

What made you start SH?

- I’m a social entrepreneur! But the story is, SH was formed in a class at Clark University in the Entrepreneurship program. I came with an idea for SH, and it evolved in the class as a project with other classmates. I presented my concept of SH, which essentially is a community venue/social enterprise, in which is always available for people to feel comfortable and de-stress. The products and services of SH are purely to sustain itself and to fill the social mission. I got the idea because I was sick of people not having a space consistently available to de-stress. I saw so many people turn to drugs and alcohol abuse just to de-stress or socialize due to no other options, and it ended up having lots of negative effects on themselves and the community.

Briefly give us some background information about yourself?

- I grew up in Colonie(Albany), NY, and got my bachelors at Clark University in Management with an Entrepreneurship track in 2008. I’ve had a number of different jobs, anywhere from Customer Service to Business Development. I’ve always been a social entrepreneur, I’ve had my own money making projects since I was 10.

I know some people are still curious about what SH is about?

- I guess I answered this in the first question! But I consider it a community venue, a grassroots approach to strengthening the community. We help people truly feel good and de-stress from life troubles, with hopes this will help them lead productive and happy lives, at least at that time. Our main products we sell are hookah (flavoured tobacco) and food and drinks from our cafe, selling these products both sustains us economically, and helps to create an atmosphere that’s social and comfortable. Daily/weekly/monthly entertainment, benefit/organization/private or public events, and the art gallery is decided on by our employees or customers (we call hazers). 4 out of 7 days a week something is planned, whether it’s an open mic, benefit show, art gallery opening, college orientation party, and lots more.

How did you market your business?

-Word of mouth primarily, also Clark Universities Entrepreneur program helped us with getting the word out through articles and such, flyering, and of course the internet!

How did you get funds to run the business?

- Friends and family

How has the journey been so far?

- Lots of ups and downs. It’s amazing just to think about how much SH has positively changed people’s lives in the community. Nothing feels better than when a hazer will sincerely tell me how happy they are I created SH, which happens all the time. Not to mention how much it’s positively changed my life, and how much fun I’ve had running it the past almost 2 years. Although I think there has been much more good than bad, I’ve dealt with a lot of bad things, mainly involving stealing and being harassed (which is common in the area SH is located).

Do you have anyone you model yourself around?

- I wouldn’t say I model myself around anyone, but two of my professors, George Gendron and David Jordan, and my dad were very inspiring.

What is your definition of an entrepreneur?

- Someone who inherently can see trends in their surroundings which leads them to a business concept that they take a financial risk to create and operate.

Do you have any books/audios you read that you would like to advice to the readers?

- Not really a book reader, but one book I really liked was “Growing a Business” by Paul Hawken

What advice can you share to our readers, especially young entrepreneurs starting their business?

Make sure you do the most preparing you possibly can before beginning to act on your business idea. By preparing I mean; get advice specifically on your idea from professionals, do as much research as possible on all topics of business.

“Do good for yourself, by doing good for others!” Shape your idea not just around making money, but around what people actually need and want, this way you’re helping your community and making money off it (social enterprise).

Thanks for the time.

Contact Vicky Mariano
www.spiritualhaze.com