Networking Event

Join social enterprisers at our second Cash Bar and munchies event at the beautiful Wind Watch Golf and Country Club on Motor Parkway in Hauppauge (next to the Hyatt Wind Watch Hotel. Bring you business cards to network with social enterprisers and those that want to do business with them.... Date: Monday, June 18, 2012, 6pm - 8pm.

Breakfast Seminar: June 14, 2012

Funding and Financing Social Enterprise

Whether you're an entrepreneur looking for start-up capital or a nonprofit organization seeking project funding, you need to focus your efforts towards the private sector for the support you need. SEA Long Island is sponsoring this breakfast seminar where you can learn about opportunities to fund and finance social enterprises. A distinguished panel of experts will discuss:

• Crowdfunding
• Slow Money
• Value-based Investors
• Program Related Investments

When: Thursday, June 14, 2012
            8:00AM - 10:30AM

Where: Suffolk County Community College, Grant Campus
            Sports & Exhibition Complex - Lecture Hall
            Crooked Hill Road, Brentwood

Fee: $20 - SEA Members
        $35 - Non-Members

Registration by check only, payable to: The Social Enterprise Alliance. Mail to: Cerini and Associates, 3340 Veterans Memorial Highway, Bohemia NY 11716. Please note the names/titles of guests that will be attending. Reserve your seating today!

April 17th Kickoff -- Social Enterprise Training

SEA-LI will be providing a Social Enterprise Training Program as follows:

• Tues Apr 17, 2012: The Case for Social Enterprise
• Tues Apr 24, 2012: Effective Business Practices for Nonprofits
• Tues May 01, 2012: Strategic Planning for Organizational Sustainability
• Tues May 08, 2012: The Venture Start-up Planning Process
• Tues May 15, 2012: Social Enterprise Legal Structures and Financing
• Tues May 22, 2012: Student Social Enterprise Presentations to Review Panel and Course Summary

The first session will be held at The Energeia Partnership in Farmingdale.

For further information click Training Program
or contact Paul Arfin at sea_longisland@yahoo.com

Newsday Article, December 8, 2011 about SEA - Long Island

http://www.newsday.com/columnists/james-bernstein/nonprofits-focus-on-business-of-fundraising-1.3377171

Nonprofits focus on business of fundraising

December 8, 2011 by JAMES BERNSTEIN / james.bernstein@newsday.com

Many nonprofit organizations depend on fundraisers, government grants and private donations for money. A new Long Islandorganization thinks they should try being more like companies that find ways of making money on their own.
Paul Arfin, an early Peace Corps volunteer who has spent his career working with nonprofits, has started a Long Islandchapter of the Social Enterprise Alliance, which has 11 chapters across the country. His first meeting will be at Woodbury Country Club at 8 a.m. Tuesday.
"We all know that government and traditional fundraising is just not enough these days," said Arfin. "And we have a growing need for more social services on Long Island" due to the weak economy. "If we're going to wait for the government or for people to buy tickets to golf tournaments, we're not going to meet the demand." Nonprofits could open retail stores, as some have done, as an example, Arfin said.

Arfin has put together a founding board of advisers and hopes to hold workshops and other sessions for nonprofits.
Board member Julie Samkoff, executive director of Garden City-based Community Mainstreaming Associates, which provides residential alternatives to institutional living, said some nonprofits are already adopting business methods to raise money. "We're going to find ways to use business methods in a way that makes positive differences in peoples' lives," she said.
Fran Karliner, president of the Long Island chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, said the idea sounds a bit "vague" to her but she's willing to keep an open mind and may attend the Dec. 13 meeting. "It doesn't supplant what we do," Karliner said.

Times have changed

It’s no longer business as usual in any segment of society. Americans have made it clear that they’re looking for well-organized efforts that make significant changes in the current economic climate. The time is ripe to do that which government can no longer effectively do - namely dramatically alleviate some of the social and economic ills that we face. It is up to nonprofits and the business community to join forces with government to help ameliorate these conditions. The lines between the business and nonprofit worlds must change, whereby businesses become more social minded and nonprofits incorporate business concepts to increase their efficiencies and effectiveness. We need to embrace collaboration and the sharing of ideas; create infrastructure and open communication; and enhance transparency and societal impact, in an effort to generate a ‘we economy.’ This does not mean businesses and organizations should not be profit driven, profits without conscience hurt everyone.

Types of Social Innovation

Social enterprises create positive social change and breakthrough business results. Many ventures involve employment of hard-to-employ individuals in the production of goods such as non-for-profit Greystone Bakery, a Yonkers NY bakery that produces confectionary products for high-end restaurants and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream stores while also providing jobs for the formerly homeless and pouring its profits into the organization’s social programs.
Community Mainstreaming Associates, a Long Island disabilities’ service agency operates the Sweet Comfort Bakery & Café, offering employment for people with developmental disabilities while also reducing the agency’s reliance on government. Other ventures serve unmet needs in ignored or hard-to-reach markets such as urban food desserts bringing healthy foods to communities that lack supermarkets.
For-profit Seventh Generation in Burlington VT , produces household and personal care products that protect human health and the environment while also donating 10% of profits to its environmental and health programs.
Nuestras Raices, a Holyoke MA nonprofit, operates Energia LLC, a socially-responsible for-profit energy service company, providing energy efficiency upgrades for residential and commercial clients. Story Pirates, a nonprofit writing and drama program in New York and Los Angeles owns a for-profit company that produces profitable stage shows.
For fifteen years, nonprofit Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Long Island has operated another highly-profitable nonprofit business selling used clothing, dramatically reducing its reliance on traditional fund raising efforts.