Santa Clara University

The GSBI's™ Impact

For the first time since I embarked on my journey I felt connected to a greater community of social entrepreneurs.  I answered some fundamental questions about how Kiva can grow to the next level, I developed a larger knowledge base about this field, and was inspired by examples of other people who have overcome similar challenges." Matt Flannery - CEO and Co-founder Kiva.org

ECCA '08, Nepal's Solar Tuki

The organizational progress achieved by GSBI™ alumni is high. Over the six year history of the program:

• 85% of alumni are still working in their social ventures.
• 35% of all alumni are scaling as measured by growth in beneficiaries served with a positive cash flow.
• An additional 45% are sustaining, half of whom are experiencing beneficiary growth with variable or unpredictable cash flows.

In for-profit incubators, 10% of ventures scale and an additional 30% manage to survive, while 60% will fail.  The percentage of GSBI™ alumni that are scaling currently stands at more than three times the rate of conventional for-profit incubators.

In a recent alumni survey, 20 of the 25 scaling organizations reported that the GSBI™ had a 'very high' or 'high impact' on the success of their organization.

Key Success Factors:

• A discovery and selection process that identifies an annual cohort of high-potential social entrepreneurs.
• Intensive in-residence executive education from leading-edge faculty, and integrated with mentor-facilitated, virtual, pre-work.
• A cadre of seasoned Silicon Valley executive mentors who provide coaching, business model validation, while developing tactical change-management strategies.
• A network learning environment which diffuses best practices to social entrepreneurs.

Our success is measured by the impact our alumni have on the lives of the beneficiaries they serve.

GSBI™ alumni organizations such as Digital Divide Data, B2BPriceNow, Drishtee, IDE-India, Thamel.com, Freeplay, Gram Vikas, Kiva,  IDE-India and VisionSpring (previously Scojo Foundation) are now serving millions of beneficiaries.  They are growing or scaling while income (earned and/or contributed) is growing faster than expense.

Social entrepreneurs tackle the world’s pressing problems.  The GSBI™ gives these enterprises the tools to sustain and increase this impact.