The authors would like to thank and acknowledge all those who helped to make this work possible.
First and foremost, tremendous gratitude is owed to the Skoll Foundation, for its very generous grant to underwrite this paper and our larger “field building” project.
Very special thanks to CARE Enterprise Partners for making the first commitment toward developing seToolbelt (www.setoolbelt.org), a free open source resource library for social enterprise practitioners.
Appreciation goes to The SEEP Network for supporting an international social enterprise practitioner working group pilot, online conference, and several information meetings and events at its annual conferences (2007-08).
We are grateful to the Great Bay Foundation for corralling their grantees for workshops, focus groups, and surveys, and generally allowing us to use them as “guinea pigs” from which to gather primary research and test our concepts.
We appreciate contributions and support from Social-Impact to support development of Industree and MARI case studies as well as to the Philippson Foundation for its support of the APOPO case.
A mention is also owed to the Grassroots Business Initiative/IFC for sponsoring a special lunch meeting of social enterprise practitioners in economic development.
Considerable recognition goes to Christian Pennotti for writing the case study on MARI in India. It should be noted that Christian also helped develop the case study research questions, provided feedback on the early framework, and was the first to test the framework in the field.
Last, but by no means least, a very special thanks is owed to all social enterprise practitioners from Great Bay Foundation, The SEEP Network, Social Impact, UnltdWorld, Skoll World Forum and others that were instrumental in contributing to the development of the framework and other products for this project.
Project Advisors are owed immense gratitude for their guidance and advice, and moreover supporting the project long before we received funding. Each one is a respected leader and major contributor to social enterprise; their thoughts, ideas, words, and previous work laid the foundation for this piece.
Additional thanks are owed to Tom Davis, Melvin Muriel, Kathy Freund, Maureen Beauregard, Ted Regan, Robert Chambers, Cathy Duffy, Amaan Khalfan, Margaret Mimoh, and numerous other practitioners who provided valuable information and insight for this report. Special recognition goes to Laura Brown who has been our editor for longer than many marriages last. Finally appreciation goes to staff at The Great Bay Foundation and The SEEP Network, namely Sabina Rogers and Travis Cummings, for their support.