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I love this idea of creating a space for non-profits to make “pitches” of their program (or business) models to the support community: techies, businesses, funders, investors, etc. Providing an open and supportive, but at times tough forum for these organizations to make their pitches, it sets the stage for a more transparent and efficient process for philanthropic investment. Thanks, Net2Squared! I like that even though these projects have much potential to develop as ventures for earned income, they are not yet the social enterprise type organizations that are getting a lot of attention in the venture philanthropy space. Instead, they are much like the nascent, but enterprising endeavors that characterize many of the non-profits CTFC has been supporting for the last 7 years. Several of these organizations are developing technology based social impact projects in a way that is exemplary of the community enterprise concept we’re proofing with our ZeroDivide 2.0 investments strategy. If the Net2squared projects can get traction with the “experts” in the rooms here, then so can our grantee partners.

My role here was as an expert reviewer in the social impact track for 4 of the projects selected to pitch. The expert reviews were divided into three tracks: Social Impact, Tech Innovation and Economic Sustainability. Each of the 21 projects were divided into groups of about 4 and participated in a round robin of “defending” their project to the expert review panels and then answering direct questions from the rest of the audience in each track. My reviews included Maps2.0, Grassroots.org; FamilyFarmed.org; and TakingITGlobal.org. Who says social impact projects can’t develop a business model for financial and social return? None of these groups, for sure!

Like the four projects I reviewed, most of the pitched projects were developing applications and content for the social web. Many were asked to answer the question, “if you build it, will they come?” Answers to that question indicate that there is no dearth of ideas for technology enabled outcomes, however there is much convincing to be done to justify investment in social impact Web2.0 ventures. I was hoping to hear more about original digital content being created and pushed out using innovative technologies, but most of the projects were about social networking and aggregation of existing content. Many were focused around the globe, with developing countries as particular targets. Take a look at all the projects for yourself and let me know if I missed anything.

Unfortunately, I developed a cold and had to skip Day 2 so didn't get to vote on which projects would win the cash prize. Who would get my vote? Would CTFC fund projects like these? Possibly, but we’ll see what comes over the transom since we just launched our new Letter of Inquiry guidelines. Overall, N2Y2 had a good conference design that with some tweaking, TechSoup should develop and brand as the next best thing in not-for-profit meet ups for the not-so-geeky (that's me!) set.