Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship

• Round I
• Round II

The Phoenix Project is leading a social entrepreneurship movement in Virginia. We believe that to ameliorate Virginia’s most pressing and long-term public challenges, especially poverty, we need a new type of leader and form of leadership: social entrepreneurs. A social entrepreneur combines passion for a social mission with business-like discipline, innovation and determination. Found in the nonprofit, public and private sectors, social entrepreneurs are drawing on skills, best practices and relationships from every sector to bring brilliant new solutions to our toughest social challenges in the Commonwealth and around the globe.

We lead this movement by educating our next generation of social entrepreneurs through our leadership programs. We also convene statewide events at which leaders from our public, private, nonprofit and academic sectors discuss strategies for accelerating social entrepreneurship in the Commonwealth.

On July 25, 2007 the Phoenix Project was honored to cohost with former Virginia Governor Mark Warner a luncheon and panel discussion on "Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship in Virginia." One-hundred and thirty leaders of Virginia's public, private, nonprofit sectors and representatives of twenty-one Virginia institutions of higher education gathered in Falls Church for this groundbreaking dialogue.  Read speakers’ remarks, see event photos and read press coverage from Round I.

On March 19, 2008, the Phoenix Project Board of Directors, Governor Tim Kaine and Lt. Governor Bill Bolling convened Round II of our discussion on Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship in Virginia.  This event was held in Richmond with over two-hundred participants, and nearly thirty colleges and universities represented.  The positive feedback from this event has been extraordinary.

We are exploring the possibility of hosting Round III of our Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship gatherings.   Please check back for additional details as they become available.

We invite you to join us in formulating the next steps in our shared mission to bring Virginia to the vanguard of the social entrepreneurship movement. Please email us your ideas at info@phoenixproject.org.