Thursday, March 12, 2009

Cause Subgroup Kick-Off night: Creating social good through bootstrapping

The Bootstrap Cause Subgroup was finally kicked off on Wednesday, March 11, after a long Ideation. We had a great group of people gathered at House Wine and while sipping wine and beer, attendees got to know each other and talked about each others venture.
Bijoy started off with defining what Bootstrap is, and what it is not, so new people in the group would understand the culture of the Bootstrap Austin community.
Then I shared that the mission of this group was to simply create social good through bootstrapping, which means that we welcome anyone from either a non-profit organization, looking for new ways to be self-sufficient, or from social entrepreneurs looking for some help to get started. Our group will have a speaker each month who has been through the journey and from whom we can learn.
Martin Montero, co-leader of the group, made a short presentation where he explained the differences between social business, social enterprise and conscious capitalism. He also briefly told everyone about different social business groups in town.
The discussion picked up after Martin's presentation, where some members shared the challenges they were having in either their non-profit organization or social business and the group brainstormed on some solutions.
Bijoy brought up a very interesting point about duality while working with cause businesses. He asked why do we feel like we have to compromise one thing or the other and can't have both.
The meeting ended with Martin clarifying that this Cause Subgroup will be a place where Cause Bootstrappers will find tools and support.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Olga,
Great summary of the event! I had really wanted to come so I am glad to have a general idea of what happened at the meeting. I love the idea of bootstrapping social ventures and look forward to making a future meeting and to meeting you!
Blake