The Halcyon Incubator celebrated its inaugural class of Fellows, committed to solving 21st century challenges throughout the nation and world, during its grand opening last month. The first class of Halcyon Fellows includes entrepreneurs intent on connecting people to opportunities for public service, providing affordable feminine products to women and girls in developing countries, and compiling thousands of government-released data sets into a single, cross-national open access database.
The DC-based 14-month residential fellowship program, an extension of the S&R Foundation which is committed to fostering talented individuals in the arts, sciences, and social sciences, is designed to find solutions to chronic national and global social issues through the promotion of social entrepreneurial endeavors. The Halcyon Incubator does so by developing the skills and providing the tools necessary for social entrepreneurs to succeed in effecting meaningful change across the nation and across the globe. Halcyon Fellows are afforded “complimentary living and work space [and] a full complement of support, including a podium stipend, a dedicated mentor, a leadership coach, access to a network of funders and supporters, and a full suite of business advice and assistance,” according to Kate Goodall, COO of S&R Foundation. These provisions are meant to “make sure that these big ideas [the Fellows] have are actually getting the support and space they need to take the risks necessary to create a successful venture,” says Ryan Ross, Program Manager of the Halcyon Incubator.
One advantage of the program is its location—the Halcyon House is located in the center of Georgetown in Washington, DC. “Nowhere else do you have such abundant access to [a] willing and diverse set of experts in every sector, and nowhere else can you reach out to every part of the world from one place,” says Goodall. Situating the center of Halcyon operations in DC also enables Fellows to engage with profit, non-profit, and public sectors alike. According to Goodall, “the lines between these organizations are blurring, and we hope to see new types of partnerships and efficiencies emerge from this cross-sector collaboration,” to better combat social challenges.
Compared to business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs focus on a double-bottom line: the ability to be a profitable venture while still producing social good. While other social entrepreneurship development programs place greater emphasis on profitability, the Halcyon Incubator has designed its program entirely around ensuring social impact is achieved. “Our return on investment,” says Goodall, “is the positive impact [the Fellows] ultimately have on the world.” Sonal Shah, founding Executive Director of Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation at Georgetown University and Halcyon Advisory Committee member, testifies to this: “You haven’t seen an incubator totally focused on social innovation and social impact—really thinking about the cause and why they’re doing it and how they’re doing it, and formulating all the support around that for that to grow.”
The rise of social entrepreneurship is fairly recent and has experienced criticism regarding a general inability to scale up to impact larger society. The Halcyon Incubator corrects for this deficiency by evaluating applicants’ social ventures on the capacity to “expand sufficiently to directly impact a large number of beneficiaries and influence broader systems for continued progress.” Scale, when concerning social entrepreneurship, may have different definitions depending on the project: “Is it scale of number of people, is it scale of impact, is it depth of impact…What Halcyon House has done well with its selection process is that they ask each of [the applicants] what scale means to them…defining that first makes a difference,” says Shah.
The Halcyon Incubator has developed a progressive, innovative model to provide social entrepreneurs with the skills and tools to succeed. The intentions of the program reflect the passion and desire of social entrepreneurs to initiate a positive feedback loop of social benefit. Following the current success of its inaugural class, the Halycon Incubator has recently announced its second class of Halcyon Fellows.
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Halcyon Incubator: An Innovative Model for Social Entrepreneurship
November 3, 2014
The Halcyon Incubator celebrated its inaugural class of Fellows, committed to solving 21st century challenges throughout the nation and world, during its grand opening last month. The first class of Halcyon Fellows includes entrepreneurs intent on connecting people to opportunities for public service, providing affordable feminine products to women and girls in developing countries, and compiling thousands of government-released data sets into a single, cross-national open access database.
The DC-based 14-month residential fellowship program, an extension of the S&R Foundation which is committed to fostering talented individuals in the arts, sciences, and social sciences, is designed to find solutions to chronic national and global social issues through the promotion of social entrepreneurial endeavors. The Halcyon Incubator does so by developing the skills and providing the tools necessary for social entrepreneurs to succeed in effecting meaningful change across the nation and across the globe. Halcyon Fellows are afforded “complimentary living and work space [and] a full complement of support, including a podium stipend, a dedicated mentor, a leadership coach, access to a network of funders and supporters, and a full suite of business advice and assistance,” according to Kate Goodall, COO of S&R Foundation. These provisions are meant to “make sure that these big ideas [the Fellows] have are actually getting the support and space they need to take the risks necessary to create a successful venture,” says Ryan Ross, Program Manager of the Halcyon Incubator.
One advantage of the program is its location—the Halcyon House is located in the center of Georgetown in Washington, DC. “Nowhere else do you have such abundant access to [a] willing and diverse set of experts in every sector, and nowhere else can you reach out to every part of the world from one place,” says Goodall. Situating the center of Halcyon operations in DC also enables Fellows to engage with profit, non-profit, and public sectors alike. According to Goodall, “the lines between these organizations are blurring, and we hope to see new types of partnerships and efficiencies emerge from this cross-sector collaboration,” to better combat social challenges.
Compared to business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs focus on a double-bottom line: the ability to be a profitable venture while still producing social good. While other social entrepreneurship development programs place greater emphasis on profitability, the Halcyon Incubator has designed its program entirely around ensuring social impact is achieved. “Our return on investment,” says Goodall, “is the positive impact [the Fellows] ultimately have on the world.” Sonal Shah, founding Executive Director of Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation at Georgetown University and Halcyon Advisory Committee member, testifies to this: “You haven’t seen an incubator totally focused on social innovation and social impact—really thinking about the cause and why they’re doing it and how they’re doing it, and formulating all the support around that for that to grow.”
The rise of social entrepreneurship is fairly recent and has experienced criticism regarding a general inability to scale up to impact larger society. The Halcyon Incubator corrects for this deficiency by evaluating applicants’ social ventures on the capacity to “expand sufficiently to directly impact a large number of beneficiaries and influence broader systems for continued progress.” Scale, when concerning social entrepreneurship, may have different definitions depending on the project: “Is it scale of number of people, is it scale of impact, is it depth of impact…What Halcyon House has done well with its selection process is that they ask each of [the applicants] what scale means to them…defining that first makes a difference,” says Shah.
The Halcyon Incubator has developed a progressive, innovative model to provide social entrepreneurs with the skills and tools to succeed. The intentions of the program reflect the passion and desire of social entrepreneurs to initiate a positive feedback loop of social benefit. Following the current success of its inaugural class, the Halycon Incubator has recently announced its second class of Halcyon Fellows.
