SEARCH Plan of Action

This plan of action is the work of the students in Hampshire College's Exploring Social Entrepreneurship Application at Hampshire College‎ group independent study, whose goal is to create a Social Entrepreneurship Aid and Resource Center at Hampshire.

These are the projects we have undertaken.

Courses

 * The Social Entrepreneurship Professor List lists professors in the Five Colleges who teach courses of interest to social entrepreneurs, with lists of some of the classes they have given in the past
 * Currently at Hampshire: Colin Twitchell
 * Currently at UMASS: Cynthia Barstow

Events

 * Pitch Competition
 * Pitch Workshop
 * Prospective Student day tabling
 * Various Speakers
 * "What is Social Entrepreneruship?" Event
 * The Economy Today Event--upcoming on April 21st
 * Social Venture Fund Information sessions--upcoming on April 21st/22nd
 * Meeting with the Western Mass Social Entrepreneurship Collaborative on the development of a valley-wide S/E group

Speakers

 * The Social Entrepreneurship Speakers List lists those who have spoken on related topics in the past, or whom we would like to invite in the future. There will also be a Speaker category in the network
 * Although we do not have dates speakers for this spring include: Cynthia Barstow and Stephen Kiernan

Mentors

 * Mentors will probably be a category that members of the network can be put into

Internships

 * CORC just recently unveiled an internship search engine. We should coordinate with them, so that there can be a "social entrepreneurship" tag on internships, allowing for them to be easily findable, and talk to those on our network and encourage them to post internships there

Conferences/Field Trips

 * This listing could easily be a pulled from a tag in the Events system, so that we could post conferences/field trips to Hampedia and they would be automatically be added to a list

Resources

 * We need to continue gathering the social entrepreneurship resources available through the five Colleges and the twelve Grinspoon Foundation Entrepreneurship Initiative member colleges and institutions, adding to the Social Entrepreneurship Resources and SEARCH Toolbox pages
 * The Social Entrepreneurship Library is the collection of books/articles the SEARCH student group has gathered. They can be checked out via the Five College Library system

Network

 * This system could easily be set up on Hampedia, especially since alums already have pages. There are many safeguard on Hampedia to ensure that information is not messed with, so there is no need to worry about pages being vandalized. Members of the network could opt to either provide us with their information, and we would put it on Hampedia, or simply edit their Hampedia profiles themselves. Profile information could include what they are working on now, past projects/jobs, what they studied at Hampshire (if they are an alum), and contact information. Those who do not want to publicize their contact information could provide it to us, and we could distribute it on a case-to-case basis. The power of this system is its accessibility and organizational power; it is an easy, simple way to collect and share information. There could be the following categories:
 * Alum Category- Connections with alums are also a big part of this program for many reasons including networking. In certain fields it is not always what you know, but whom you know. An alum social venture network would allow for possible internships, mentors, collaborations on future social projects, donations of money/time/resources, and connections into fields that these alums have made
 * Mentor Category – the two would overlap, but this could also include local businesses leaders, etc
 * Speaker/Field Trip Category – those who may not have time to do regular mentoring, but would do one-time events, could be in this category

Student Group

 * The SEARCH student group meets at SEARCH events which are organized and publicized through the SEARCH listserv. You can contact searchampshire@gmail.com to join or for more information. At the meetings, students can come in for help with their social enterprises, or to discuss articles/other interesting information in the manner of the CBD student group. This group will also be the one officially inviting and paying for speakers to come to campus, and organizing other events, as of now we don't have any money for speakers so we will need to find a way to raise funds.
 * Encourage members to bring up topics/readings for meetings, CBD-style

Outreach

 * There are many ways to do outreach.
 * With the network, we can keep in contact with them via a regular email newsletter
 * We have created stickers and shirts, both of which increase brand awareness

Support System

 * Another major goal of this program is to assist/support student/recent alum social enterprise start-ups. Very few social enterprises are able to make it past the first year of their creation. A major weakness of most newly founded enterprises is a lack of education on methods for establishing adequate social connections. By offering courses on basic entrepreneurship techniques and creating a network of relevant local and global connections, Hampshire would be a hub for student and recent alum startups.
 * A grants program would help immensely, student volunteers may be able to fulfill their community service by helping research and/or writing potential grants, and the college has access to a database of grants that would assist students in finding the right grant and how to access and use the database.

Social Venture Fund

 * While the Social Venture Fund falls within the "Support System" area, it deserves its own space as it is a project overseen by not only the student members of SEARCH, but also alums, parents, and others interested in investing in social ventures

While i agree this should have its own space this may be farther off then anticipated, we have to wait for institutional advancement to give us the go ahead.

Oversight

 * At present, the SEARCH student group will be the point people for this program, coordinating it and helping it grow, with the advice of Colin Twitchell and working closely with the those in charge of the Social Venture Fund