By Todd Cohen
Battle Creek, Mich.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation aims to jump-start a virtual network that will link nonprofits and entrepreneurs and help strengthen investment in social change.

A new report by the Michigan-based foundation calls for the creation of a collaborative "marketplace" that would make it easy for nonprofits, entrepreneurs and public officials to form partnerships, stimulate social investment and exchange entrepreneurial know-how and tools.

"Right now, there are few places to connect streams of innovative thinking and action," the report says. "More shared knowledge about the available pools of capital for new ideas and more access to specialized technical assistance for these new challenges is vital."

The goal is to take advantage of opportunities being created as nonprofits act more like entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs become more philanthropic.

Kellogg's initiative runs parallel to a separate effort by the National Strategy for Nonprofit Technology, a growing group of nonprofit leaders, to create a "technology enterprise network" that would make tech resources more readily available to nonprofits.

Tom Reis, venture philanthropy director for Kellogg, does not expect the enterprise network to be a new entity, but rather a cooperative effort in which nonprofits and entrepreneurs alike participate.

"This must be an alliance, a collaborative venture, a shared cooperative venture, which nobody really owns but everybody owns," says Reis.

Technology would be key to the new venture, which would function as a virtual marketplace. It would handle communication and investment and provide access to entrepreneurial data, know-how, tools and other resources.

"What we really are talking about are all kinds of resources and assets and new ways of mixing or integrating or engaging those new assets and resources and perspectives," Reis says.

Last year, Kellogg reviewed entrepreneurial activity by nonprofits and interviewed 120 enterprising leaders from the nonprofit, commercial and public sectors. Based on its findings, the foundation now is looking for other foundations and corporate funders to help spearhead efforts to create the social enterprise network.

The foundation also plans in the next six months to a year to bring together small groups of leaders to talk about entrepreneurial resources needed for social investment.

The report says the marketplace it envisions would help individuals and organizations in all sectors learn from each other, share best practices, distribute information and produce and use knowledge.

The marketplace also would be a matchmaking vehicle for collaborative investment, and for investors and social innovators to work together while being part of a larger network.

"Although investors and innovators might not sit at the same table all of the time," the report says, "the inclusion of both could enrich the learning and begin to model a new 'investment philanthropy' that is a more seamless exchange between money and action."

Kellogg's report, "Unleashing New Resources and Entrepreneurship for the Common Good," identifies three big trends that offer opportunities for social investment:

• The work of "social entrepreneurs" who create social value through innovation and leveraging financial resources, regardless of source.
• Efforts by businesses to be socially responsible and to work in partnership with philanthropies, nonprofits and government.
• Strategies by philanthropic groups to find new approaches to social investment and the creation of social capital.

Kellogg aims to help harness those trends and connect resources dedicated to social investment, in effect bridging the worlds of nonprofits, entrepreneurs and government.

"This is pioneering country," says Reis, "and we must have some real commitment to learning and some real innovation in how we learn."

The new marketplace, for example, might be used to help:

• Create opportunities for nonprofit leaders to learn from one another.
• Build a system to collect, manage and distribute information about entrepreneurship.
• Develop and share possible approaches for entrepreneurial activity.
• Create services for finding and recruiting enterprising nonprofit leaders.
• Provide mentoring, technical assistance and apprenticeships.
• Foster connections, deal-making and investment.
• Map, track and distribute information about good entrepreneurial practices.
• Share information about assessing and measuring the impact of entrepreneurial activity.
• Exchange management expertise and products, such as investment tools.

For a copy of the report, call the foundation at (616) 969-2160 or send e-mail to ksw@wkkf.org

Todd Cohen can be reached at
tcohen@mindspring.com