‘Digital Bridges’ Meet At Middlebury College Focused On Impact Of Millennial Generation

This year’s annual Digital Bridges conference  at Middlebury College focused on “The Millennial  Generation,” (the 75 million people born  between 1980 and 2000), and the changes they  are making in a variety of fields, with special  emphasis on connections between businesses  and philanthropy.  The 15 Middlebury College students who put the conference together with economics professor Michael Claudon wrote an introductory brochure for the participants, who ranged from fellow students to faculty to outside experts, business people, and members of the community.  “Gen Xers, the digital immigrants, used technology,” the summary said. “Millennials assume technological literacy. They are porting an ever-larger share of their offline lives and habits onto the Web and tend to spend as much time ‘living’ in virtual communities as they do in ‘real’ ones.”  “Tapping into this new generation depends upon how well politicians and enterprises understand the evolution of social networking in general and the Millennials in particular,” the introduction said. “Digital Bridges 2007 will focus on four of those areas.”  The two-day event looked at social networking  (including sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Face-Book, SecondLife, and Gaia Online), observing that there are 50 million blogs and two new ones are launched every second. Digital influences on politics and political participation got attention, as did the question of how the Millennials are affecting business opportunities.  The fourth session focused on “social entrepreneurship” and its collaborations. The four panelists included three examples of what some have called “philanthropreneurs,” plus one example of how a Baby Boomer is helping to bridge the experiences of different generations.  The older panelist, Elizabeth Glenshaw, said that while growing up she had good models for community involvement in her step-father Warren Kimble of Brandon and her mother Lorraine Kimble. Mrs. Kimble was the business manager for the internationally known folk artist’s commercial distribution. Early in her career, she played an important role in starting the Chittenden Bank’s socially responsible investment fund, Glenshaw said.  Recently, she said, Chittenden invited her back to be on their board of directors—now that she is the director of the Calvert Social Investment Fund’s community investment market and industry development.  Her Powerpoint presentation, from someone of the Boomer generation, offered a contrast to the other, more anecdotal and free-form talks.  But, also, its well-organized overview of the ways that people are helping the less favored served as a useful framework, both for the discussions and the whole field.  As Glenshaw explained to the attendees, the Calvert Foundation (a spinoff from the Calvert Socially Responsible Mutual Fund) has developed an unusual way of investing in community development. For a minimum of  $1,000, the investor has the promise (though not a guarantee) of getting that principal back, plus a percentage return that is not meant to be commercially competitive (currently it is three to four percent). This leaves room for continuing fund investment in what may look like fragile enterprises but are actually profitable.  If the investment is unrestricted, someone can take a hand in the success of 216 (last count) efforts that Calvert has deemed positive for groups of people, though they are too small for the regular stock market. Glenshaw gave a breakdown: 32 percent community development financial institutions; 26 percent microfinance; 14 percent certificates of deposit with community development banks and credit unions; 10 percent affordable housing developments; 9 percent targeted securities; and less than 5 percent for alternative media, fair trade co-ops, and social  enterprises.  Within the spectrum of such activity, Glenshaw placed Calvert near the middle—a strategic central point, she said. At one end of that spectrum are philanthropists and traditional foundations; the engaged philanthropy and venture capitalization; then community development lenders (such as Calvert); then community development venture capitalists  (hereafter called VC); then socially responsible investors and mutual funds; then traditional financial investors. “There are many actors, on both the investor and investee side.” Glenshaw said. “It becomes increasingly hard to maintain quality relationships with little transparency and access to information, with each deal being essentially a one-off. It is exactly this missing conformity and information that serves to drive the traditional markets.”  Organizations like hers have a governance structure and can offer senior capital, subordinate debt, guarantees, net assets, and loss reserves, together with professional analysis,  packaging and administration, Glenshaw said.  With that kind of fi nancial infrastructure in place, investment for the public and social good can be scalable—and ultimately sizable.  Calvert does not target social enterprises? Not  because it’s charity for the poor. “They’re solid borrowers,”  Glenshaw said. “They provide resources.  They create jobs.” The difference is, “they are  motivated by the social and public good.”  Rolfe Larson, moderator of the 400+ member  listserv at http://www.npEnterprise.net, shared what  he considered a vitally signifi cant question  someone had posted: “I was wondering are there  any investment banking fi rms specializing in  helping social enterprise structure non-investment  grade bond issues? Specifi cally a fi rm  that would perform an in-house evaluation of  existing or start-up social enterprises that have  not established the credit ratings with standard  credit agencies. It seems to me that this would  be a great resource for attracting potential social  enterprise investors.”  That’s one altitude at which the newly  confi gured social investment world is evolving.  Meanwhile, there are entities that excel at making  things work where the rubber meets the road,  at the local, individual level.  In Southern Vermont especially, people are  aware that Bennington tried last year to best  Guinness Book of World Records winner Keene,  NH for the number of carved Halloween pumpkins,  an effort done in by phenomenally wet  weather. Meanwhile, Boston beat Keene. But  many may not have realized that Boston Common  became cluttered with 30,178 pumpkins and  nearly 100,000 people because Life is good, Inc.  created the event, as a way of raising close to  $680,000 “for kids facing unfair challenges.”  That phrase came from the company’s communications  director Jim Laughlin, one of the  panelists. “It’s a non-traditional example of a  company trying to do good work,” he said. Yes, he  said, the digital revolution has indeed expanded  the number of modes of helping others.  Though Life is good is now an $80-million  business dealing with about 5,000 shops and  online retail sources, it started as two men  peddling homemade t-shirts up and down the  East Coast, Laughlin said. “Parents take heart,”  he said, “there was a decade during which John  and Bert Jacobs, both college graduates, had  family members asking, ‘When are they going  to get a job?’”  A brainstorming session about where it was  all going produced the phrase “Life is good” as  something they thought sounded good.  “Then 9/11 came along,” he said. They decided  to sell “Life is good” tee shirts in Derry, NH, where  they have their distribution center, to raise money  for the families of 9/11 victims, and were amazed  when 25,000 sold, bringing in $207,000.  Every company should have a BHAG (BEEhag),  Laughlin said: a Big, Hairy, Audacious  Goal. After what happened in Derry, the phrase  “Life is good” became “absolutely central to the  business,” and their mission became “to have  the greatest impact on people worldwide.”