REDF | Links | Social Entrepreneurs Around the World

In 1993 a small group of practitioners gathered in Chicago and tried to identify those who called themselves “social entrepreneurs.” At that time, we were able to find just 20 individuals. It has since become clear that there is a large number of organizations and individuals who identify themselves as social entrepreneurs and who are involved in the operation of social enterprises — market-based businesses that pursue a social mission and other income generating activities. We do not present our listing of practitioners as in any way a definitive roster of practitioners, but would like to assist both practitioners and those who support their efforts in more easily connecting with each other. Please note that the businesses listed here are not necessarily funded by REDF.

This directory is an effort to promote the work of the field. If your social purpose enterprise is not listed below, PLEASE CONTACT US and we will gladly post your venture on this site. Please send a description similar to those on the page and URL (if available) to info@redf.org. We look forward to hearing from you and promoting your efforts!

Ashbury Images *
Provides high quality, custom screen printing for corporate identity wear (t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.) and employs individuals in recovery from homelessness and substance abuse.

Bay Area Video Coaliton (BAVC)
The nation.s largest nonprofit media arts center dedicated to providing access to media, education and technology, since 1976 BAVC has offered broadcast-quality services to independent artists and nonprofit organizations. Located in the Mission District of San Francisco, it trains over 5,000 participants annually and publishes a host of resources for the media community.

Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Shops *
Juma Ventures operates retail outlets in the Castro, Haight/Ashbury and Marina districts of San Francisco, as well as Ice Cream on Wheels and a 3Com Park concession.

Bookshare.org
Bookshare.org is an on-line library for people with visual, physical and learning disabilities, structured as a social enterprise to meet the literacy needs of its customers.

Break Away Technologies
A web design service, the vision of Break Away is to provide inner-city youth and adults with the skills to become economically self-sufficient, the ability to provide effective leadership in their communities and the capacity to assist others in becoming self-sufficient.

BU Productions
Operates a custom screen printing shop for apparel and related accessories. Provides job training for at-risk youth.
Bu Productions
1817 Soquel Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
831-469-8337

Chrysalis
Chrysalis helps homeless people find jobs and return to long-term self-sufficiency. Chrysalis gives their clients the basic tools they need to find a job: resume assistance, bus fare, a set of clothes, and self-presentation pointers.
Chrysalis
516 South Main Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 895-7777

Community Gatepath (formerly known as Poplar ReCare) *
Community Gatepath, formerly known as Poplar ReCare, provides quality services for people with developmental disabilities in San Mateo County. Through its enterprise Impact Business Services, it employs over 50 individuals annually, offering more than 300,000 hours of vocational training, to provide local businesses with a range of services, including landscaping and grounds maintenance, for which it has won several awards.

Foghouse
Created in partnership with a leading not-for-profit theatrical research and development center, Z Space Studio, Foghouse enjoys a unique position in the market. Foghouse partners will measure the return on their investment in terms of personal financial gain, the quality of life contributions of the productions within the communities they serve, the creation of meaningful job opportunities for chronically under-employed populations, and the personal enjoyment that comes of having a backstage pass to the creation and production of quality new works of American theater.

Food from the Hood
This grassroots organization stresses development and values, skills, self-discipline and socially responsible business practice through the practicum of operating, managing and maintaining a natural product line, as well as a quarter-acre organic garden.

Goodwill Industries of the Greater East Bay
Goodwill provides community-based workforce development programs and services, including transitional employment, job skills training and job placement services for people with vocational disadvantages in Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties. The primary source of revenue to support Goodwill.s workforce development programs and the largest number of job training opportunities comes from the sale of donated goods in their network of Goodwill Stores located throughout the East Bay.

Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin Counties, Inc.
Goodwill’s mission is to train, support, and challenge individuals to overcome employment barriers and achieve self-sufficiency through work. Goodwill funds 15% of its social enterprise through grants and collaborative partnerships with the remainder coming from its thrift store businesses.

Invercity
Invercity provides recruitment, Information Technology (IT) training, and placement services. Recruitment targets an emerging workforce in chronically underemployed communities. Training and placement services are targeted at well defined, open positions in major corporations.

Lamp Community
Lamp Community is a nonprofit organization serving homeless adults with mental illness in Los Angeles. We have three small businesses, a Linen Service, a Laundromat, and a Public Shower, that employ about 25 homeless members with severe mental illness. The Linen Service serve the linen needs of nonprofit shelters and motels in the skid row area. The Laundromat and Public Shower are the only such facilities serving the community in the entire skid row neighborhood in Los Angeles. Our members learn various skills in customer relations, machine maintenance, packaging, product delivery and money management.
Lamp Community
527 South Crocker Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
213-488-9559 ext. 46

Merit Corporation
Merit is a 501(c)(3) social enterprise providing jobs and job training for young adult offenders housed within the California Youth Authority. We employ at a fair market wage young men who for the most part have never before been gainfully employed. Our goal is to develop within them the work ethic and confidence in their own abilities to begin earning their own way following release from prison.

New Directions, Inc.
New Directions manages and develops a small conglomerate of businesses in which thirty homeless veterans earn their living and develop their skills in the trades, including Commercial and Residential Handy Worker, Janitorial, Construction, Remodeling and Catering.
New Directions’s Inc.
11303 Wilshire Blvd, VA Bldg 116
Los Angeles, CA 90073
(310) 914-4045 x120

Plugged In Enterprises
A web page design business run by teenagers. The program provides intensive education in the latest web design technology, supports them in managing client projects, and provides authentic work experience and structure.

RelyAble Choices
Operates a temporary employment business employing homeless and low-income adults. RelyAble Choices
1915 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 628-0449

Rubicon Bakery *
Producer of high-end desserts distributed to retail stores and food institutions throughout the Bay Area. Employs low-income and disabled adults.

Rubicon Landscape Services *
Provides janitorial and grounds maintenance services for contracts throughout the Bay Area. Employs low-income and disabled adults.

San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG)
Slug Enterprises develops revenue-generating projects like Urban Herbals that build community and employ residents of underserved San Francisco neighborhoods.
2088 Oakdale Ave.
San Francisco, Calif. 94124
(415) 285-SLUG (7584)
(415) 285-7586 fax

TMC Development Working Solutions
TMC Development Working Solutions is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that assists underserved entrepreneurs in the Bay Area to access the capital and resources they need to successfully start and grow their businesses in order to strengthen the economy, create jobs, reduce poverty, and build strong communities.

Toolworks
Toolworks, in partnership with people with disabilities, is a human service agency dedicated to providing the tools and resources that promote independence, equality and personal satisfaction. Toolworks has been a self-supporting social purpose enterprise since its inception in 1975. Toolworks has a well-established commercial janitorial business and an outsourcing business both of which provide invaluable partnership opportunities for people with disabilities and the business community.

America’s Family
America’s Family is a non-profit dedicated to helping working individuals. But a wonderful by-product of our program is that it helps save businesses money. America’s Family offers businesses nationwide proven strategies to cut costs, reduce turnover and increase profits by helping them invest in employees.

Baby Bud’s
This innovative faith-based venture employs inner-city single mothers in a career and life skills development program that uses a baby thrift store to provide the resources and environment in which to change lives. Baby Bud’s is managed by Belay Enterprises.

Bud’s Warehouse
This home improvement thrift store provides career development and life skills training for individuals rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness or prison. The warehouse is run by Belay Enterprises, a faith-based organization.

Urban Landscapes
This for-profit landscape company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Urban Solutions, a nonprofit building stronger urban neighborhoods.
Urban Landscapes
92 Kensington Street
PO Box 200021
New Haven, CT 06520-0021
(203) 773-0829

Anixter Center
The Anixter Businesses began as a means of providing work skills training for people with disabilities. Today, they are each successful revenue-producing enterprises, including imaging, packaging and janitorial services.

The Enterprising Kitchen
An innovative nonprofit business providing meaningful employment and job training to impoverished women in Chicago’s Uptown community. Women in the program are hired to produce distinctive gourmet grains and natural hand-made soaps, acquiring valuable work habits and job skills in the process.

Growing Home Growing Home is a non-profit organization located in Chicago. Our mission is to develop job-training programs and create jobs for homeless and low income people in Chicago through the development of an organic agriculture business. We have both rural and urban land for the development of this business, and have access to farmer’s markets and Navy Pier for the marketing of our products.

MarketPlace: Handiwork of India
Catalog business which sells clothing made by artisans in India. Fabrics are hand block batiked, hand block printed, tie-dyed or hand painted.
MarketPlace: Handiwork of India
1455 Ashland Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
(800) 726-8905

World-Shoppe
www.World-Shoppe.com has always used our business to promote fair trade and sustainable living conditions in our community, our country, and around the world. We encourage our family, friends and customers to get involved because we believe that the smallest voices, joined together, can make the biggest change. We have beautiful handmade jewelry, gifts, home accesories and children's toys, among other items, from more than 22 countries around the world. We invite you to visit us, sign up for our monthly newsletter, and help make a difference in our world!

Cape Cod Works
This specialty packaging and assembly business provides direct mail fulfillment and assembly operations, and has recently expanded to include food packaging and furniture assembly.
Cape Cod Works
96 Airport Road
PO Box 1212
Hyannis, MA 02601
(508) 790-9500

CitySoft
CitySoft is a high growth Internet company that builds leading edge web sites and applications for high profile clients. In addition, CitySoft recruits and hires from under-represented urban areas as well as from traditional business and technical sources. Locations in Boston, New York and Baltimore.

Recycle Ann Arbor
Recycle Ann Arbor (RAA), founded in 1977, is a private, nonprofit organization which provides education and innovative services in the collection, processing and shipping of recyclable materials.

The Green Institute
Minnesota Founded in 1993, the Green Institute is an entrepreneurial environmental organization that seeks to promote urban development through sustainable enterprise, job creation, and environmental education. The Institute operates three nonprofit businesses.

WREN
WREN inspires possibilities, creates opportunities, and builds connection through community. WREN was founded in 1994 to assist rural women in achieving sustainable incomes through business ownership. Today WREN is the fastest growing not for profit in New Hampshire and includes a diverse mix of rural people and opportunities.

Baked in the Hood
A project of the Association to Benefit Children, the kosher kitchen trains homeless adults in bakery skills. Famous for its secret fudge brownie recipe!

Common Ground
Common Ground Community HDFC, Inc., is a nonprofit housing development and management company, originally created to renovate and operate the former Times Square Hotel as a model of permanent supportive housing for low-income people, formerly homeless single adults, and individuals with disabilities, including mental illness and AIDS.
Common Ground Community
14 East 28th Street
New York, NY 10016
212-471-0815

Greyston Bakery
Zen and the art of job creation...a sister bakery to our own Rubicon Bakery here in the Bay Area, Greyston has done excellent work over the years.

Harlem Textile Works
A fabric design workshop which trains and employs students and artists.
Harlem Textile Works
186 East 122nd St.
New York, NY 10035
(212) 534-3377

Housing Works Thrift Shops and Cafe
New York State’s largest provider of housing, support services and advocacy for homeless people with AIDS & HIV, opened its first fund raising thrift shop in 1992 in a carriage house on W. 18th Street. A success from day one, there soon was a need to expand. “Shopping here is like going on a treasure hunt. You never know what you will find.”

Jericho Computer Learning Center
A venture of The Jericho Project, offers instruction in computer software applications and provides customized trainings for small businesses and organizations.
The Jericho Project
891 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10025
(212) 316-4700

WHEDCO
A women-led nonprofit organization dedicated to the economic advancement of low-income women and their families through the integration of housing, workforce development, microenterprise and social ventures, supportive services, and advocacy. WHEDCO operates two social ventures: a food comapny and a fitness center.
Whedco
50 East 168th Street
Bronx, NY 10452
(718) 839-1100

Five Under
Operated by Alamance Affirmative Enterprises (AAE), a not-for-profit company registered in the state of North Carolina since October 1st, 1998, Five Under offers a high quality line of golf clothing, including an exclusive designer label and logo.
Five Under
200 North Main Street
Graham, NC 27253
(336) 570-1500
Fax: (336) 570-2778

Sohodojo
Sohodojo is an independent, applied research and development laboratory supporting entrepreneurial free agents and dejobbed small businesses. Its domain of social action is helping solo and working family entrepreneurs in rural and distressed urban communities through the development of new business models and associated Open Source software technologies consistent with Small is Good organizing principles.

Needful Provision, Inc.
We assist the poor and disadvantaged, worldwide, without discrimination, by teaching .self-help. approaches to achieve homeland security .while also renewing communities, conserving resources, and protecting the environment.
P.O. Box 1595
Tahlequah, OK 74465
918-868-5710

Bay Area Enterprises
A diverse set of operations, including custom cabinets, temporary employment and commercial custodial services, and a thrift store.
Bay Area Enterprises
245 S. Second Street
Coos Bay, OR
(541) 269-9306

Central City Concern
Central City Concern (CCC), a 501 (c)3 community development corporation, operates 1300 units of low income and subsidized housing, a model workforce development component, program services and two medical clinics. It provides for high risk clients in alcohol and drug recovery. It has a successful business model: Building Services with revenues for 2002/03 estimated to be $1.9MM+ in janitorial, painting, and rehab/maintenance of industrial, commercial and residential properties.
Central City Concern
232 NW 6th Ave
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 294-1681
(503) 294-4321 Fax

New Avenues for Youth
New Avenues has created programs where these kids gain the life skills and support necessary to not only leave streetlife, but lead sustainable lives . and avoid lifelong homelessness. Since 1997, New Avenues has successfully guided over 1,200 youth back into positive living situations and prevented hundreds more from becoming homeless.
1220 SW Columbia
Portland, Oregon 97201
(503) 224-4339
dholley@newavenues.org

The Back Home Cafe
Operated by Project H.O.M.E., the Cafe offers “delicious, affordable food in a lovely setting,” and catering.
The Back Home Cafe
1515 Fairmount Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 232-7272

Cornerstone Books & Art Center
Operated by Project H.O.M.E., sells “books for the spiritually and socially conscious.”
1515 Fairmount Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 232-7272

Our Daily Threads Thrift Store
Sells “high quality clothing at ridiculously low prices.” Operated by Project H.O.M.E. Our Daily Threads Thrift Store
1515 Fairmount Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 232-7272

Four Angels Cafe
Four Angels is a cozy and comfortable cafe offering organic coffees and teas, vegetarian soups and sandwiches and homemade baked goods and desserts.

Sight Connection
Community Services for the Blind and Partially Sighted (CSBPS), a Seattle-based nonprofit agency, launched one of the first online stores featuring products for living with vision loss.

3rd & Eats
A restaurant and catering business owned by Community Family Life Services (www.cfls1.org). CFLS provides comprehensive social services including housing and job training for homeless and low-income families and individuals, serving 10,000 individuals each year. Open for breakfast or lunch, 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, with two locations near the Judiciary Square metro in downtown Washington, D.C. (at 500 3rd Street, NW and at the U.S. Tax Court — use the D Street entrance). For catering, please call (202) 347-7035.

Ben & Jerry’s
This Ben & Jerry’s franchise on Capital Hill is owned by the Latin American Youth Center (www.LAYC-dc.org). Founded in 1974 for the purpose of serving at-risk immigrant Latino youth, LAYC now works each year with over 5,000 infants, children, teens and adults from DC’s Latino, Vietnamese, Caribbean, African-American and African communities.
Eastern Market Ben & Jerry’s
327 7th Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
202.546.2253

Appalachian By Design
Appalachian By Design trains and markets for a network of knitters in rural mid-Appalachia. They have a wholesale line of children, home and holiday knits. They also produce for knitwear designers on a contract basis.

Showcase West Virginia
Showcase West Virginia is an innovative access-to-markets program sponsored by the Center for Economic Options (CEO). Serving small-scale enterprises, Showcase West Virginia provides markets for a wide-range of high quality West Virginia-made products, such as fine arts and crafts, jewelry, toys, pottery, pet treats and furniture at a retail store in the Charleston Town Center.

UniversaLink
A division of the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, UniversaLink offers a wide variety of state-of-the-art living and listening devices for home, workplace or community use, such as assistive listening devices, hearing aids, signaling and alerting equipment, and telecommunication equipment like text telephones (TTY) and amplified phones.

Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation
Assists entrepreneurs with a variety of services to strengthen their ability to operate and grow their businesses.

YW Works/Generation 2 Plastics
Generation 2 Plastics is a recycling business purchased by the YWCA of Greater Wisconsin in 1997. Its mission is to increase the self-sufficiency of central city residents by providing living wage jobs and training in skilled labor for W-2 participants.
1839 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53212
Phone: 414-267-8465
Fax: 414-267-8467

Center for Community Organizing (CCO)
CCO works to provide home care to adults and children with severe mental and physical disabilities. CCO provides Consulting services to local/municipal governments on implementing public participation programs for development planning.

P-Centrum
The Center for Prevention, Treatment and Integration of Persons Endangered by Drug Dependence (P-Centrum) provides treatment and after-treatment to recovering drug addicts and their loved ones. Woodwork business (employing recovering drug addicts and at-risk youth) producing handmade benches and sculptures for playgrounds and parks.

Tamizdat
Tamizdat promotes independent, progressive culture as a means of furthering an open society in the formerly-communist block of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Tamizdat RPM is an on-line record shop offering the most comprehensive and authoritative catalogue of independent music in CEE.

Tereza
The Civic Association Tereza is an independent non-governmental organization that works in the fields of environmental protection and further education for children and adults, organizing programs that combine specialized, educational and recreational activities. Tereza has launched a consulting enterprise — the Czech Fundraising Center (CFC), which focuses on training and educational seminars in CSO management, and more specifically fundraising through workshops, consulting services and publications (e.g., printed, CD-ROM, or online).

HaitianCrafts
HaitianCrafts (formerly SHALE) is an innovative project in Haiti managed by the Program for the Recovery of the Economy in Transition (PRET) and financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This boutique was launched by Development Alternatives, Inc. and Datex to assist Haitian artisans in expanding their markets by finding clients and processing their orders for handicrafts.

Open Garden Foundation
Open Garden Foundation Promotes sustainable, community agricultural production and healthy lifestyles through the operation of organic farms and building a network of producers, processors and consumers of organic foods. Real Food Box is an up-market, door-to-door, home-delivery service of organic vegetables, fruit and groceries serving a growing demand for organic produce in the Budapest-Godollo area.

World Hope Foundation
World Hope Foundation is a relief and development organization with operating offices in Nigeria, USA and India. WHF seeks to become the face of love in action, bringing hope and succor to the suffering world. Their mission is to help individuals and families rebuild their lives through the expert delivery of developmental and relief programs in partnership with other organizations.
International Operation Centre
P.O.Box 4396
Festac-Town, Lagos
Nigeria
Tel: 234-8027116122
234-1-8178250
Email: info@whfdn.org

Energy Centre Bratislava (ECB)
ECB works to increase public awareness and use of efficient and renewable energy, and provide energy advisory services to households and small businesses.

Vydra
Vydra is a national association of young people that preserves local traditions, cultural and natural values and the sustainable development of the rural Microregion Cierny Hron in rural Slovakia.Their Tourist Camp is designed to encourage tourism, create local employment opportunities, and sustain Vydra’s operations. NESsT is supporting the development of Vydra’s restaurant/buffet offering refreshments and meals to tourists visiting the nearby Forestry Museum and other attractions.

Furniture Resource Centre Limited
Enterprises include a furniture manufacturing and provision store (One Stop), waste management and recycling (Bulky Bob’s), retail (Revive), removals (A Moving Experience) and they are moving into demolition and construction (Strippers), and have plans for tourism.
Atlantic Way Brunswick Business Park
Liverpool L3 4BE
Tel: 0151-330-4300
Fax: 0151-330-4323

Kibble Education and Care Centre
Kibble is one of Scotland’s largest social enterprises, working with young people who have a complex mix of social, emotional, educational and behavioral problems. They are social enterprise pioneers in Scotland with an aim to deliver high quality and sustainable services for the public benefit.
Goudie Street
Paisley, PA3 2LG
phone: 0141 889 0044
http://kibble.org/

Social Firms UK
Social Firms UK aims to create employment opportunities for disabled people through the development and support of social firms.
1st Floor, Furness House
53 Brighton Road,
Redhill, Surrey RH1 6PZ
Tel: 01737-764021
Fax: 01737-766699
Email: info@socialfirms.co.uk

Working Herts Ltd
Working Herts Ltd is an English “social firm” that undertakes large scale projects for local authorities, large companies, and housing associations. The organization develops these projects as a means of giving work experience to unemployed school leavers and young people.
12 Elstree Way, Borehamwood
Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, XX WD6 1JE
Tel: 00-44-208386-4848
Director / President: Paul Watkinson MSc
Email: thatsit@btinternet.com