Develop and prove your skills as an entrepreneur and a philanthropist!
Ambassadors find and support social entrepreneurs. Ambassadors earn their Social Entrepreneur SErtificate by writing a plan and helping potential Social Entrepreneurs to earn their SErtificates. You need to take the same steps that the other Social Entrepreneurs take: write a plan, get your plan approved, and execute.
Skills:
You need to be able to write a simple business plan. You must be inventive, entrepreneurs are creative, in order to find social entrepreneurs. You must be a self-starter. And of course you need to have the compassion to help other social entrepreneurs help the world.
Compensation:
Yes, this can be a paid position! Compensation is up to you because you develop your own plan and you need to get your plan funded and approved. In many cases the SErtified Fund will provide you with a grant or an hourly wage or a stipend or a success fee. Submit your plan now!
Benefits:
This is not a job with traditional benefits but by earning your Social Entrepreneur SErtificate as an Ambassador you will enhance your career by proving both your business leadership skills and your philanthropic nature.
How to become an Ambassador:
1. WRITE A PLAN
Your plan should have the standard elements of a business plan, including your marketing plan, a budget, and a forecast.
Marketing Plan:
How will you find potential social entrepreneurs to help? For example, do you have any friends that have identified needs in your community and need some help to get started in addressing them? You can help them to develop a plan and earn their Social Entrepreneur SErtificate. Perhaps you are talented with social media and plan to find and support potential social entrepreneurs online, perhaps even candidates that live far away? Or maybe you want to host a series of meet-ups or round tables to identify problems in your local community so that you can help inspire people to solve them? You can reach out to local leaders in politics or education or religion. Almost every community has a “Community Foundation” that is focused on supporting local causes. You can also plan to identify and support other Ambassadors in addition to social entrepreneurs focused on a single cause.
Budget:
Your budget should include all the expenses you plan to incur. You can propose a budget that includes any type of expense from travel expenses to advertising costs to cell phone bills to pizzas. You can even include compensation for yourself, for example a stipend or an hourly wage or a fee for every “Plan Approved” badge and SErtificate earned by your candidates. However, keep in mind that you need to get your plan approved and raise the money you require. Raising money is part of the entrepreneurial experience. Yes, SErtified provides grants and you should apply for one. And raising money for your plan is aided by the fact that donations to The SErtified Fund are tax deductible.
Forecast:
Your forecast should include metrics that show how many SErtificate candidates you will target and how many will get to each step in the process. How many will earn the Member Badge, Plan Approved Badge and SErtificate? You don’t have to hit your forecast, most successful entrepreneurs routinely miss forecasts, but you do need to have a credible, thoughtful forecast.
2. GET YOUR PLAN APPROVED
The SErtified.org platform provides a simple tool for creating a Business Plan Website. When you have built your Business Plan Website, simply click on “Submit Your Plan” and the SErtfied committee will review your plan. Get some help with your plan before you submit it to insure that it contains at least the basic elements of a business plan. You can ask for help in the SErtified Forums. Plans are more likely to be approved when they are more innovative and ambitious. When your plan is approved you earn the “Plan Approved” digital Open Badge that you can include on your Linkedin profile.
Don’t hesitate to ask for compensation if you need it. It is easy to get a grant to cover expenses and you can also ask for personal compensation. The SErtified Fund is aggressively supporting Ambassadors financially. A success fee is the easiest to negotiate, for example a $ / € payment for each Social Entrepreneur SErtificate earned. The SErtified Fund will also consider monthly or quarterly stipends or an hourly wage other forms of compensation for example money for a laptop to get work done. You may be asked to do some fundraising for all or a portion of the funds you seek because fundraising is part of the entrepreneurial experience. In other words, The SErtified Fund may provide a matching grant. Donations made to the SErtified Fund on behalf of your project are tax deductible.
Plans are reviewed and approved by the SErtified Advisory Board. Grants and other funding requests are approved by the Board of the SErtified Fund.
3. EXECUTE
Go find Social Entrepreneurs and help them! You wrote the plan so you know what to do! When you are complete you need to post two things to your Business Plan Website; a comparison of forecast vs. actual and copies of letters or Emails from your social entrepreneurs acknowledging your leadership.