The past month in Seattle has seen an incredible surge of efforts around sustainable, conscious, impactful business. Showcased across four events, more than four dozen emerging, impactful, social enterprises have shared their stories with the city and with the world. The tsunami of activity began on September 23rd at the Fledge “Demo Day”, where seven “fledgling” companies shared their visions...
Seven inspiring companies with the potential impact to improve the lives of billions… to save millions of lives… to make it easy to share and reuse the planet’s limited resources… to make it easy for us to share our time with those in need… to recreate the world where we know our neighbors… and to work with those neighbors to create the world we want to live in...
This month begins a tsunami of social entrepreneurship: #SocEnt Weekend, Fledge “Demo Day“, and Social Innovation Fast Pitch (SIFP).
The mobility of Americans over the past six decades has led to huge cultural changes, with the norm now for Americans to move every five or so years, and with those moves, to have friends scattered across multiple states. The rise of email, instant messaging, and most recently, social networking, it is become commonplace for Americans to connect to those friends online. Meanwhile… as we spend...
Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charities last year (2011). That is almost $1,000 per person, and surveys show almost 90% of that giving was by individuals, with those individuals consisting of 67% of the total U.S. population. Meanwhile… in the same year, 64 million Americans volunteered their time, just shy of 25% of the total population. Why do more Americans give away their money vs...
I want to live in a town with a thriving downtown core, with good restaurants, a great bakery, nice shops, and a comforting grocery store. I want to live in a community which supports these business owners. A community where I don’t have to get in a car, drive a half hour, sit in traffic, and shop in a 100,000 square foot store to buy things made halfway around the world. The problem is… it’s...
Living in our comfortable homes in America, boiling a pot of water is as easy as turning a dial on the stove. We forget that for billions of people around the world, heating water involves making a fire. Where is the fire, there is smoke, and where there is smoke, there are shortened lives and early deaths. The team at BURN Design Labs on Vashon Island outside of Seattle knows all about fire, and...
Seven exciting, impactful teams comprise the Summer 2012 cohort of “fledglings“. These companies are busy refining their ideas and polishing their plans. On September 23rd, come be inspired by their visions and plans, presented live, on stage, at the Playhouse/Intiman Theater at the Seattle Center as part of the Seattle Next 50’s celebration of commerce and innovation...
SEATTLE, WA – August 19, 2012 Social Innovation Fast Pitch (“SIFP”) has partnered with Fledge, the “conscious company” incubator, to provide additional advice, mentorship, and support to the for-profit finalists of the SIFP 2012 program. Additionally, the SIFP 2012 Fund II investors have selected Fledge to manage the operations of this year’s $100,000 investment fund. Fledge will invite eight...
Seven exciting, inspiring teams make up the Summer 2012 cohort: BURN Manufacturing BURN Manufacturing was created to address the enormous need for clean cook stoves in the developing world where 2 million people die each year from indoor cooking smoke. BURN will locally manufacture 3 million high efficiency cook stoves in East Africa in the next 10 years that will impact the lives of 16.5...