I am inspired by entrepreneurs who base their business model on improving the wider community/environment.

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In August 2010, our legislature became one of the first to enact the low-profit limited liability company (L3C), which is a hybrid business form combining profit-making with socially responsible missions.  It can be the perfect venture for educational, scientific, literary or religious businesses that don’t want the hassle of complying with non-profit reporting requirements, or that have some activities that are not permitted by the federal tax code.

The L3C can be structured to take advantage of both non-profit and for-profit sources of capital.  It may offer marketing advantages by attracting socially aware investors and partners.  It may also attract private foundation program-related investments.

The biggest disadvantage, however, (and this is not a small disadvantage) is that the federal tax authorities have not ruled whether investments in L3Cs qualify as program-related investments.

We have a wide range of supports here for social entrepreneurship, including  informal meet-ups. formal academic programs at Duke and UNC,  community-based efforts to increase and support social entrepreneurism, and paid consultants.

How is your business giving back on a day-to-day basis?

Related articles

• One Entrepreneur Greets MLK Day with Work (smallbiztrends.com)
• United Way Triangle MLK Day of Service (unitedwaytriangle.org)
• Thousands In Triangle will Volunteer on MLK Day (nbc17.com)
• For-Profit Social Entrepreneurs (wealthartisan.com)
• The Rise of the Charitable For-Profit Entity (forbes.com)

Saturday, October 22, 2011 at the Community Room in Crabtree Valley Mall, Raleigh, NC.  

Why should you come?

The Keynote Speaker:

Olalah Njenga is the award-winning CEO of YellowWood Group, LLC, a strategic marketing firm that helps companies own their market and become unstoppable.  She is also the creator of Breakthrough Advantage™, an intensive event to help business owners create unfair competitive advantage.  A member of the National Speaker’s Association (NSA),  Olalah speaks nationally on business topics, including  one-page marketing plans, positioning and differentiation, the business relevance of social media and re-branding strategies to boost  industry presence.

The panelists:

Sue O'Lear

Sue O’Lear a.k.a “MrsFatAssBlogger” is a wife, mom, Nursing student, and writer. Her blog, Did I Just Eat That Out Loud? is a source of humor and motivation for anyone trying to live a healthier life. Cited in the July, 2010 issue of Women’s Health Australia magazine as one of the top blogs for laughter and inspiration, MrsFatass makes weight loss funny. speaks and provides training on a variety of business topics including entrepreneurship, market penetration, differentiation, branding and social media.

Born as a health and fitness blog, MrsFatass.com has grown into a mix of real life experiences, observations, successes, and flops in areas of diet, family, sex, friendship, social anxiety disorder, and pop culture. Read by men and women alike, MrsFatass.com’s unique blend of humor and honesty appeals to a varied audience, including mommy/daddy bloggers, humorists, foodies, fiction writers, and avid reality television junkies as well as the health nuts that were the first home for her voice.

Sue was born and raised in Flint, Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 1996 with a degree in Organizational Psychology. She spent several years working in marketing for a for-profit educational company before becoming a full-time stay at home mom to her first child in 2003. She now resides in Wilson, North Carolina with her husband and her two children.

Kelly Duffort

Kelly Duffort is a web strategist with 10+ years of experience in adopting and applying interactive technologies for communicating key messages to target audiences. She is the principal and founder of KD Web Strategies, a consulting firm that advises companies how to take their overall web presence (e.g., websites, blogs, social media profiles) to the next level. Before striking out on her own, Kelly worked in web and communications roles at GlaxoSmithKline, Towers Watson and Booz, Allen & Hamilton. She is president of the local chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators, IABC Triangle.

Kelly says, “Whether you love it or hate it and whether you understand it or avoid it, social media is changing the way people communicate – personally and professionally. If you use social media wisely to promote your business, you will be amazed at the connections it enables you to make and the doors it opens for you.”

Leah D. Gordon

Leah D. Gordon is a public relations consultant and knowledge management specialist with over 10 years of experience serving a variety of clients from local government agencies to small business retailers. Leah is co-author of “Knowledge Management for Data Use and Decision Making for International Public Health.” She provides training in communication strategy, image development, building and managing online communities of practice, and effective use of online and traditional media to meet business objectives. She leverages multiple, no to low cost social media platforms to strengthen web presence.

Leah says “Social media allows two-way communication between businesses and consumers in ways we have never experienced before. The opportunities are amazing.”

Donna Ray Chmura

Donna Ray Chmura is a North Carolina growing business attorney with Sands Anderson’s Raleigh, NC office. She came to the practice of law after a career in journalism, with the intent of becoming a legal affairs writer to explain how laws and decisions affect people. Now, she works as a strategic partner with emergent and entrepreneurial businesses to analyze the business, legal and capital needs of her clients, and plan for the future. Coming from a family business background, she also enjoys working with start-ups to structure a strong legal foundation.

She is an author of NC Law Life, and is active on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Organized by Beverly Mahone, founder of Boomer Diva Nation, the summit will be moderated by executive life coach Martin Brossman.

President Obama at NC State University in Raleigh:

“The time for hand-wringing is over. The time for moping around is over. We’ve got to kick off our bedroom slippers and put on our marching shoes,” he said.

Obama’s job’s plan calls for tax cuts, infrastructure spending and new job training assistance to be funded by ending tax loopholes for corporations and American families earning more than $250,000 a year. According to the White House the act will create jobs in NC as follows:

• The President’s plan will cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on the first $5 million in wages and in North Carolina, 170,000 firms will receive a payroll tax cut under the American Jobs Act.
• The President’s plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for highways, transit, rail and aviation which would include at least $797,900,000 in North Carolina that could support a minimum of approximately 10,400 local jobs.
• The President plan proposes to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. The plan will provide $900,300,000 in funds to North Carolina to support up to 13,400 educator and first responder jobs.
• The President’s plan includes a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools across the country including $675,700,000 in funding to North Carolina to support as many as 8,800 jobs.
• The President’s proposed new Pathways Back to Work Fund would provide hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries and could place 4,000 adults and 12,700 youths in jobs in North Carolina.

Do you support this jobs bill?  How will it help the Tarheel State reduce unemployment? What else would you like from our state and local government?

Related articles

• President to rally support for American Jobs Act in Triangle (charlotte.news14.com)
• On tar and Tar Heels – Obama on N.C. infrastructure (politico.com)

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Eight times a year in anticipation of the Federal Reserve Board’s meetings, each Federal Reserve Bank gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions in its District through reports from Bank and Branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources. Commonly known as the Beige Book, this information is summarized by District and sector and an overall summary of the country’s economy is given.

On balance, economic conditions in the [Richmond] District remained weak in June and early July. Retail and services firm revenues continued to shrink, and contacts reported falling wages and steady or declining employment levels. Price growth in the service sector was slow. Commercial real estate activity softened further, with declining rents, increased concessions, and rising vacancy rates in some markets. Commercial lending activity continued to decline as loan demand remained subdued and some institutions reported tightened credit standards. Meanwhile, residential real estate contacts gave mixed reports about housing activity. Residential lending slowed as the slight increase in purchase loans was offset by a drop in demand for refinances. On a brighter note, manufacturing activity continued to strengthen in recent weeks as contacts reported increased shipments, new orders, and capacity utilization, and a moderation in the employment decline.

The other significant economic news is that new house sales increased nationally by about 11 percent, the steepest increase in more than eight years, as buyers apparently took advantage of low interest rates and a federal tax credit for first-time home-buyers.

Locally, the news was not as good, in statistics compiled by the Associated Press and reported in the News & Observer:

In the Triangle, which was slower to join the housing downturn, 401 new homes were sold in June, Triangle Multiple Listing Services data show. The total, which includes homes in Durham, Johnston, Orange and Wake counties, was down 38 percent from the same month last year. The average price of a new home dropped 9 percent to $295,500 during the year.

Existing home sales, meanwhile, totaled 1,997 during June, down 14 percent from a year ago. It was the slowest June in a decade, but it was the smallest year-over-year decline in any month since late 2007, hinting at stability. The average price of a re-sold home sold in the four-county area last month was $224,200 — 7 percent

How is your business weathering the recession and recovery? What programs would make a difference for yoru business?

Among the local and regional projects, as reported by the Triangle Business Journal:

• Raleigh receives $465,785 to build rainwater collection and reuse systems at city fire stations;
• Roxboro, north of Durham in Person County, gets $465,548 for a sewer system rehabilitation project;
• Wilson, located about an hour east of Raleigh, receives $1.39 million for various sewer system improvements;
• Mebane, which straddles the Orange/Alamance county line, gets $230,000 to replace a sewer outfall on Ninth Street; and
• Moore County, located south of Raleigh and part of the 13-country Triangle area, gets $3 million for three lift stations at Pinehurst Lake.

It’s nice to see the money filtering down, and some benefit to both the local infrastructure and economy.

Our rankings looked at the 200 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., which range from the New York metro and its 11.7 million people to Olympia, Wash., with a population of 241,000. We examined each on 11 different criteria. Economic research firm Moody’s Economy.com supplied data on job growth over the past five years and projections through 2011. Economy.com also provided business and living cost data as well as income growth and migration trends.

Greenville, NC also ranked second in the survey of Best Places for Small Business and Careers. Rankings were based on the following criteria: cost of doing business, educational attainment, income growth, job growth projected, and net migration.

It’s always nice to hear a little good news, among the job losses and coming consumer credit crunch.

How do things look from your view?