METAMORFOSIS

Since 1987, Echoing Green has provided seed funding and support to more than 450 social entrepreneurs with bold ideas for social change in order to launch groundbreaking organizations around the world. Echoing Green was established by the senior leadership of General Atlantic, global growth investors, to pioneer the strategy of applying entrepreneurial principles to social sector investing.

Echoing Green’s very broad portfolio includes the Reciprocity Foundation, founded by Adam Bucko and Taz Tagore to enable homeless and high-risk youth and young adults to permanently exit the social services system and start meaningful, sustainable careers in the creativity economy, including fashion, design, marketing, and pubic relations. Reciprocity seeks to expand beyond New York to build a national network of programs to enable homeless youth to enroll in college, secure hands-on work experiences and build professional relationships in their fields.

A young start-up, Reciprocity has already placed students in jobs and internships at such leading companies as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Chaps Ralph Lauren/Warnaco, Young and Rubicam, and America’s Next Top Model; students are prepared for interviews by Katzenbach Partners LLC. Students have gained admission to numerous colleges, and Reciprocity and LaGuardia Community College are partnering on an innovative venture to advance students’ success. Reciprocity has been featured on ABC, CBS, and Reuters, as well as in the New York Times and other global and national media.

Reciprocity’s students designed the graphics for Reciprocity’s own logo representing strength and humility, the organization’s brand new fundraising campaign featuring bags with the logo “Homeless Not Hopeless,” as well as the centerpieces for Fast Company’s Social Capitalist Awards in 2006.

In social psychology, religion, and even game theory, the term reciprocity represents the ideal that positive actions will inspire reciprocal positive actions. What better way for social entrepreneurs to invest in the future of the world.

| posted by Alice Korngold : fastcompany.com