While we like to celebrate Boston as an innovation hub, our neighbors to the south in Rhode Island took the lead last Wednesday at an event at the NERD Center to teach us a thing or two about social enterprise ecosystems.
Rhode Island’s Social Enterprise Greenhouse has led efforts to create a vibrant social enterprise ecosystem in their state – bringing together practitioners, business leaders, academics, impact investors, students, and policy makers with hopes of cultivating economic development and innovation. And their work has been successful, leading to the proposed SEEED Act, legislation that would establish the Commission on the Advancement of Social Enterprise. The Commission would then make recommendations to the federal government on how to support and utilize social enterprises.
Social Enterprise Massachusetts (SEA MA), Massachusetts’ counterpart to Social Enterprise Greenhouse, valued the advice and discussion from the event. Around 80 people from nonprofits, mission driven enterprises, entrepreneurs, human service providers, foundations, consultants, academics and others (a very diverse crowd indeed!) sparked conversations and asked relevant questions to the topic at hand.
Kelly Ramirez, CEO of Social Enterprise Greenhouse, lent her expertise as the featured speaker. With over 15 years of social enterprise and international development experience, Ramirez spoke on how Massachusetts can connect key stakeholders and improve the innovation ecosystem in our state. With new insights in hand, Massachusetts’ social enterprise community will continue to grow and flourish.
