Social Impact Blog

Check out any Facebook or Twitter feed in this new work-from-home era, and you’ll see all kinds of new groups dedicated to helping and supporting local small businesses. Everyone seems to be worried—but most want to turn that worry into something productive, something good. People want to help. Enter SocialVentures. The nearly six-year-old nonprofit, whose […]

Glance above the counter at the Clintonville bakery Food for Good Thought, and it’s right there, printed in red. In 2018, the bakery’s customers tipped $653. These above-and-beyond incremental dollars provided more than 70 hours of paid employment to the individuals with disabilities, whose pictures hang on the opposite wall. But those numbers are now […]

SocialVentures is proud to announce the appointment of six new members to the SocialVentures Board of Directors. Joining the board, effective Feb. 1, are Ian Bailey, Seth Cramer, Derek DeHart, Jenna Mackey, Kimberly Tapia, and Donald Wells. The new members will serve under Board Chair Andrea Applegate. “We are thrilled,” Applegate said, “to have such […]

If you’re of a “certain age”—read, “OK, Boomer”—you likely remember the late ‘60s, early ‘70s ABC series “The Mod Squad.” The series featured an unlikely trio of undercover detectives, each representing a segment of the era’s counterculture, tackling big, sticky cultural issues. Today, Columbus has its own Mod Squad in the form of a social enterprise founded […]

Eddie Rapp operates two social enterprises owned by Lutheran Social Services. The businesses are dedicated to moving men out of homeless shelters by providing supportive employment to residents in the Lancaster shelter system. Fairhaven Lawn Care and Patriot Pride Painting have a customer mix that is 60 percent commercial and 40 percent residential, with Franklin […]

Social enterprise pursues market expansion, profit growth in pursuit of serving those with less. A lot has changed over the past two years at Double Comfort Foods. Gone is the Short North restaurant that once occupied 505 N. High St. in Columbus. Gone is the staff who worked the front and back of house. And […]

Freedom a la Cart offers drop-off catering for breakfast and lunch as the foundation for employment, workforce training, and supportive services for survivors of human trafficking. Working closely with the special docket Catch Court in Franklin County, the organization has shown remarkable success in changing lives: 85 percent of Freedom a la Cart employees stayed out […]

When HonestJobs.co and Nature’s Touch Landscaping & Lawn Care were named winners of The Metropreneur’s annual Social Enterprise of the Year Awards presented in partnership with SocialVentures at Aspire 2019, there were no red carpets, no smoke machines, gold statuettes, or long-winded, political speeches. For Ramona Wheeler of Nature’s Touch and Harley Blakeman of HonestJobs.co, […]

Apply by Tuesday, Nov. 12, for your chance to cash in on more than $100,000 in donations & funding Over the past half dozen years, Philanthropitch, the social impact fast-pitch competition, has been on a mission to scale innovative nonprofits in communities around the nation. Presented by the AEP Foundation and featuring SocialVentures as a […]

Farm-to-table food-grower preps for sustainability, 2020 launch John Schrock is an engineer who has an idea for how to transform the farm-to-table movement. Having worked on the concept for several years, this summer he plugged into SEA Change, an accelerator program in central Ohio focused on jumpstarting social enterprises. Roots Up will manufacture and operate […]