CSR Press Release

PHILADELPHIA, Apr. 13 /CSRwire/ - GoodCompany Ventures is pleased to announce the RHD Social Finance Prize.

The RHD Social Finance Prize

A prize of $10,000 is offered by Resources for Human Development, a founding sponsor of GoodCompany Ventures, to encourage entrepreneurial innovation in social finance in the 2011 GCV Social Impact Incubator.

The prize will be awarded to an entrepreneur to support the development of new models to fund unmet social needs, including: (i) complementary or virtual currencies; (ii) barter or in-kind donation markets; and (iii) other social investment structures or strategies.

To be considered for the prize, entrepreneurs must apply to and satisfy the criteria for admission to the Incubator, relating to innovation, impact and implementation. Applicants requesting consideration for the RHD Social Finance Prize will be reviewed by a special committee of representatives of RHD and GCV.

Applications for the prize will be accepted through May 6th and the winner will be announced on May 16th. The deadline for application to the Incubator in other sectors has also been extended to May 6th.

Applications may be submitted via the GCV website at http://www.goodcompanyventures.org.

Serving Social Entrepreneurs

GoodCompany Ventures is a non-profit supported by the venture capital community, whose leaders underwrite the costs of the program. The Social Impact Incubator is the only national incubator program that does not charge fees or take equity from its participants.

"GCV's 'no fee' policy is central to our culture of service. It attracts the best entrepreneurs and advisors and has yielded excellent results in obtaining investment funding for our graduates. Now, by partnering with sponsors, like RHD, who have an interest in promoting innovation in particular sectors, we are adding the means to provide living and launch expenses for our entrepreneurs." said Garrett Melby, GCV's co-founder and CEO. "We are extremely grateful to RHD for their vision and support."

Leadership in Social Finance

GCV supports social entrepreneurs in all sectors, including clean tech, education, public health and community development. We are particularly interested in social finance strategies that create new capacity for funding social change. The following are examples of recent graduates pursuing innovation in social finance:

Couchange: Develops innovative fundraising technologies to help nonprofits access over $8 billion dollars annually in abandoned assets such as leftover gift cards, frequent flier miles, and other reward point currencies. Winner, MIT $100K Twitch Competition.

Ads4Good: A platform that allows non-commercial websites to harness their advertising potential to create a new revenue source for charities. Winner, Skoll Foundation's DIYA National Social Ideas Challenge.

Wish Upon a Hero: A world’s largest peer-to-peer philanthropy site. Designed to allow anyone to be a hero by granting a wish, its a radically dis-intermediated model of philanthropy. Members consist of individuals and businesses who are passionate about helping. Since it’s launch, heroes have granted more than 75,000 wishes and the site has been the subject of features in CNN and USA Today and its founder was honored as ABC News' Person of the Week.

33 Needs: A crowd funding platform that enables thousands of people around the world to invest in social enterprises through a process they call "people powered investing". Their recent launch was featured in both mainstream (New York Times, HuffPo) and technology (TechCrunch, Venture Beat) media.

About GoodCompany Ventures
A GoodCompany pursues both profit and purpose. GoodCompany Ventures is a non-profit defined by the needs of the emerging social enterprise sector. The GoodCompany Ventures Incubator identifies entrepreneurs with innovative ideas for social impact and helps them implement these ideas with the strategies and resources of the venture capital community.

About Resources for Human Development

RHD is a national human services nonprofit founded in 1970. For the past 20 years RHD has pursued innovative methods of financing and crossover business models to foster economic development and social responsibility. Permanent housing for 46 homeless families; re-distribution of over $1M yearly in alternative currency and ground breaking ways of sharing corporate funds are just a few examples.

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