The Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs - BusinessWeek.
Now, meet the winners:
No. 1 With 36% of the vote, online bookseller Better World Books led the pack. The 200-person company makes money selling books it gets for free from a network of individuals and institutions across the country. Co-founder Xavier Helgesen says the Mishawaka (Ind.)-based company has donated over $5 million to literacy programs and libraries around the world since it launched in 2002. “Right now only one out of seven people is a potential customer,” he says. “If we can bring people up to levels of equivalent literacy, we’re helping our long-term business model.” Helgesen expects Better World, which has secured around $4 million in equity investment in total, to bring in $30 million in revenue this calendar year and be profitable in 2010. The company sells about 10,000 books a day.
No. 2 Impact Makers, based in Richmond, Va., earned 11% of the vote. The $300,000, nine-employee health-care management and consulting company constructs disease-management programs, and performs IT work, systems consulting, and program audits. One of its big social goals is to provide free medication to the uninsured through its primary nonprofit partner RXpartnership.org.
No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5 The next three runners-up: Londonderry (N.H.)-based organic yogurt king Stonyfield Farm (7% of the vote); university lecture video site Academic Earth (6% of the vote); and San Francisco’s sustainable fish purveyor Clean Fish (5% of the vote). A round of applause to all. You can read profiles on each of the top vote-getters as well as the rest of the finalists in our slide show.
Be sure to check our staff blog for periodic follow-ups on this year’s alums, and keep your eyes peeled for candidates for next year’s roundup. We’ll post a nomination form near the top of the Small Biz channel next year. As the ranks of the estimated 30,000 social entrepreneurs continue to grow, there are sure to be plenty of outstanding contenders.