Inspiration All Around

Stumbling on the brief mention of Martha Matilda Harper in a Rochester, NY Chamber of Commerce publication, helped spur on my six year journey to discover and document  Harper’s story.  Criss-crossing the U.S. and Canada, visiting family and former Harperites was a blessed adventure. Now two sixteen year old students, Jenna Fortunati and Margaret Mirabella, […]

Making A Difference

As I reflect on the our world today and its incredible divisiveness, greed, and hatred, I find inspiration from those special people using business for social change, folks who are determined to apply good business thinking and practices in an effective way to make an economic  difference in people’s lives.  Surely Martha Matilda Harper was […]

Time for Business Basics

It’s graduation time and lots of young people are moving on up and becoming (we parents hope)  self-sustaining men and women.   Hopefully, they have been taught to read, write, and think clearly.  Perhaps they have even been to taught to think creatively and not simply regurgitate back answers, but to even think through new […]

Turning Change Into Dollars $ – George Eastman Had It Right–Too Bad His Successors Did Not

On January 19, 2012  Eastman Kodak declared bankruptcy because its executives lost their way, drowned by their greed to stick with the profitability of film when the digital revolution was calling.   Just when they needed another George Eastman, who transformed the world with his KODAK concept by mainstreaming photography, the KODAK leadership got lost […]

Turning Coffee Grinds Into A Fertile Business

Back to the Roots founders Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora have proven that you don’t need  Wall Street to be successful, nor smelly compost piles to use coffee grinds creatively.  The Company uses one million pounds of coffee grinds as  a growth medium for their retail kits — Grow Your Own Mushroom Garden–gourmet mushrooms that […]

Turn Change Into Dollars $

Women and Social Entrepreneurship ©Jane R. Plitt Women have always been at the center of social entrepreneurship as initiators and recipients.  Given the current world protest against the recent market abuses, it is particularly timely to understand what has and is being done to use business for social change and to urge women’s involvement in […]

Turning Change into Dollar$ -The Possibilities

Build on the Possibilities Jane R. Plitt 2011 There is encouraging momentum percolating around the world to do good using entrepreneurial know-how, but you rarely hear about it.  That’s why it is so important to share these ideas and successes with others. World Microcredit Conference October 1st in Calgary Leaders of the international microcredit effort […]

Turning Change into Dollar$ -MicroLoans

Innovative business people and multi-national corporations like Danone Yogurt, are finding entrepreneurial ways to enrich themselves, while also helping others.   Some people call this social entrepreneurship, others social  business.  Whatever it is called, it IS working and our challenge is to spread the word. This blog will spotlight for profit businesses and/or practices that […]

Turning Change into Dollar$

Martha Matilda Harper touched many people’s lives, including mine. While she and I were both entrepreneurs, she created a business that incorporated social change by purposely creating franchising and putting poor women into ownership roles. For me, my social change activities were separate from my business. As a result of discovering Harper and her innovative […]

Welcome: Discover the Buried Story of the Creator of Modern Franchising

Harper’s  franchising system empowered and enriched poor women, as well as herself! •Servant Girl Creates 500 Franchises Around the World Bound out into servitude from the time she was seven years old, Martha Matilda Harper knew she had to change her life. •From Suffrage to Franchising Susan B. Anthony while campaigning for suffrage cited Harper […]