Social Venture Network (SVN) is a nonprofit membership organization founded in 1987 by Joshua Mailman, Thomas H. Stoner Jr and Wayne Silby, SVN.

Events

Social Venture Network hosts two annual conferences, one on the West Coast in Spring and one on the East Coast in Fall, in addition to local gatherings held throughout the year.

Members

Some past and current members of Social Venture Network include: Thomas H. Stoner Jr. - Entelligent
Ben Cohen -

Ben and Jerry's Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc., trading and commonly known as Ben & Jerry's, is an American company that manufactures ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet. Founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, the company went from a single ice cream p ...

Amy Domini Amy Lee Domini (born January 25, 1950) is an American investment adviser and author known for her work in social investing. Early life and education Amy Lee Domini was born on January 25, 1950, in New York City, to Margot Cabot (Colt), a te ...

- Domini Social Investments

Eileen Fisher Eileen Fisher (October 4, 1950) is an American fashion designer and entrepreneur. She is the founder of the women's clothing brand Eileen Fisher Inc. Biography Fisher grew up in Des Plaines, Illinois, the second of seven children. When Fisher de ...

- Eileen Fisher, Inc.

Paul Hawken Paul Gerard Hawken (born February 8, 1946) is an American environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, economist, and activist. Biography Hawken was born in San Mateo, California, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where his father worked at ...

Smith & Hawken Smith & Hawken was a garden lifestyle brand that operated retail stores, direct mail and e-commerce in the United States. On July 10, 2009, it was announced that all Smith & Hawken stores would cease operation. Smith & Hawken stores were located in ...

Gary Hirshberg Gary Hirshberg (born 1954) is an American businessman. He is the former chief executive officer of Stonyfield Farm, the world's leading organic yogurt producer, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He joined the company just after its founding i ...

Stonyfield Farm Stonyfield Farm, also simply called Stonyfield, is an organic yogurt maker and dairy company located in Londonderry, New Hampshire, United States. Stonyfield Farm was founded by Samuel Kaymen in 1983, on a 19th-century farmstead in Wilton, New H ...

Jeffrey Hollender Jeffrey Hollender (born 1954 in New York City) is an American entrepreneur, author and activist best known for founding Seventh Generation Inc. Early life Hollender grew up in New York City and attended The Town School, The Allen-Stevenson Sch ...

Seventh Generation Inc. Seventh Generation, Inc. is an American company selling environmentally friendly, eco-friendly cleaning, paper, and personal care products. Established in 1988, the Burlington, Vermont–based company distributes products to natural food store ...

Adam Lowry Adam Lowry (born March 29, 1993) is an American-born Canadian professional ice hockey center and an alternate captain for the Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League (NHL). Early life Lowry was born on March 29, 1993, in St. Louis, Missouri, ...

Method Method ( grc, μέθοδος, methodos) literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In recent centuries it more often means a prescribed process for completing a task. It may refer to: *Scien ...

Anita Roddick Dame Anita Lucia Roddick (23 October 1942 – 10 September 2007) was a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, best known as the founder of the British version of The Body Shop, now The Body Shop Internationa ...

The Body Shop The Body Shop International Limited, trading as The Body Shop, is a British cosmetics, skin care and perfume company. Founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick, the company currently has a range of 1,000 products sold in about 3,000 stores, divided b ...

Awards

SVN's Innovation Awards began in 2007 as a way to provide scholarships through its Bridge Project to emerging social entrepreneurs to help scale and expand their impact. Honorees have included

TerraCycle TerraCycle is a private U.S.-based recycling business headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey. It primarily runs a volunteer-based recycling platform to collect non-recyclable pre-consumer and post-consumer waste on behalf of corporate donors ...

, Back to the Roots, Revolution Foods, World of Good, Root Capital, and Green for All, among others. Several of the Innovation Awards winners have also been honored as Echoing Green Fellows,

Hitachi Foundation () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo Gr ...

Yoshiyama Young Entrepreneurs, White House Champions of Change, and have been listed on the Forbes Impact 30.

Sister organizations

SVN has been identified as inspiration and catalyst for several other successful organizations in the

business ethics Business ethics (also known as Corporate Ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics, that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business co ...

and

corporate social responsibility Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethicall ...

spheres, including B Lab, Investors' Circle,

Net Impact Net Impact is a nonprofit membership organization for students and professionals interested in using business skills in support of various social and environmental causes. It serves both a professional organization and one of the largest student o ...

, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA), Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and

Bainbridge Graduate Institute Pinchot University was a private graduate university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 2002, Pinchot University was the first school to offer an MBA in Sustainable Business. In August 2016, Pinchot University was acquired by Presidio Graduate S ...

Resources

Book Series

In 2004, SVN began a partnership with publishers Berrett-Koehler to create the SVN Book Series. The books are written by SVN members as practical guides to starting and growing a socially responsible business.

Social Venture Institutes

Founded in 1996 by Gary Hirshberg, President and CEO of

, Social Venture Institutes are offered twice each year as a forum in which business and nonprofit leaders may receive expert advice and mentoring to overcome pressing challenges and to explore ways to succeed.

Esalen

The

Esalen Institute The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education. The institute played a key role in the Human Potential ...

was founded in 1962 as an alternative educational center. In 2011, Social Venture Network began its partnership with Esalen to offer a series of workshops on business practices, designed to help business professionals lead with passion, insight and authenticity.

Sustainability

The Social Venture Network office is located in the Presidio of San Francisco, California in the

Thoreau Center for Sustainability Tides' Thoreau Center for Sustainability are green nonprofit centers that house more than 70 nonprofit organizations in San Francisco and New York City. Thoreau Centers for Sustainability are operated by Tides Shared Spaces, a Tides initiative. H ...

and is a Certified Green Business. SVN publishes tools and best practices with B Corp Certification, as well as a Sustainable Shopping Guide.

References

External links

*
SVN's YouTube Channel
{{Authority control Business ethics organizations Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Business organizations based in the United States Environmental organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area Social responsibility organizations Social entrepreneurship Human rights organizations based in the United States Sustainability organizations