<\/a><\/p>\nWhat fascinates me about John\u2019s story as the Founder of Room to Read is that what has become a large global institution started with a simple act. It all began with a single mission no bigger than a typical \u201cEagle Scout Project\u201d from the Boy Scouts of America. John saw a need and he took a pile of books to a Nepalese village. He even wrote a children\u2019s book about it, \u201cZak the Yak with Books on His Back\u201d.<\/p>\n
Here I was at the Room to Read fundraiser events thinking about how John Wood was traveling the World and he saw some kids in need and he invented and implemented a way to help them. My Dad had helped lots of kids but I am an entrepreneur and I had done some traveling and I had not helped anyone in this way. I felt guilty. I felt guilty but then again I knew lots of people that had travelled and seen needs and not filled them. There are millions and millions of people like me. We should all be like John Wood. We didn\u2019t need to all build great institutions like Room-to-Read but wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could all do small missions that were philanthropic and entrepreneurial and maybe some would grow to be big?<\/p>\n
And then my guilt turned to inspiration! I had an idea! I had an idea that could help me to navigate around the \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d<\/em> question that I dreaded at these fundraiser events.<\/p>\nNow when people asked me the dreaded question I responded that what I really wanted to do was to figure out a way to help lots of people to become social entrepreneurs like John Wood. This is a crazy thought but these rooms are full of big thinkers that could give me feedback on my line of thought. Helping people to be entrepreneurs is a pleasurable thing and helping people to be entrepreneurs that help people would be even better.<\/p>\n
As one example of what was on my mind was all the money and time people spent on travel like John Wood\u2019s trip to Tibet. People traveling have some time and some money and they are self-starters that planned a trip. These people could perform a social entrepreneur mission if they wanted to. How could I create a World in which more of us were inspired to find a social need and fill it? You can\u2019t just wish this to happen. One way that might help is to make an act of social entrepreneurship good for your career. We would need a paradigm in which employers and investors recognized and rewarded proven social entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
That is how I came up with the SErtified Certification<\/strong> process. The key to creating this new paradigm is a development and certification program that helps employers and investors and others to appreciate and respect the effort to become a social entrepreneur. SErtified serves as a third party to help insure that the effort is truly entrepreneurial and truly philanthropic. And hopefully SErtified delivers inspiration and support that helps to create great entrepreneurs that do great things.<\/p>\nAnd, so, \u201cSErtified\u201d<\/strong> was born at a series of cocktail parties. The goal is to create a new paradigm in which social entrepreneurship can be a recognized part of a career path so that we can all have a shot at at being like John Wood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This blog post is a personal, self-centered story about my history in founding SErtified. Reader beware. Here are the Cliff’s Notes: \u00a0It is about the joy of being an entrepreneur, a joy that is good for the World, and the lesson I learned about the meaning of life at my Dad\u2019s funeral. The idea for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sertified.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}