Social Startup Success

How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up, and Make a Difference

By: Kathleen Kelly Janus

Narrated by: Kathleen Kelly Janus

With business advice from an expert entrepreneur, learn how to identify and leverage the key factors that will bring sustainability and success to your startup.

Kathleen Kelly Janus, a lecturer at the Stanford University Program on Social Entrepreneurship and the founder of the successful social enterprise Spark, set out to investigate what makes a startup succeed or fail. She surveyed more than 200 high-performing social entrepreneurs and interviewed dozens of founders. Social Startup Success shares her findings for the legions of entrepreneurs working for social good, revealing how the best organizations get over the revenue hump. How do social ventures scale to over $2 million, Janus's clear benchmark for a social enterprise's sustainability?

Janus, tapping into strong connections to the Silicon Valley world where many of these ventures are started or and/or funded, reveals insights from key figures such as DonorsChoose founder Charles Best, charity:water's Scott Harrison, Reshma Saujani of Girls Who Code and many others. Social Startup Success will be social entrepreneurship's essential playbook; the first definitive guide to solving the problem of scale.

Critic reviews

"The pressing social problems we face today require creative leadership. This book will teach you what you need to know to be a good social entrepreneur."—Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of the New York Times bestseller Banker to the Poor

"Shows how to scale an impact organization and, in so doing, change the world for the better."—Charles Best, Founder and CEO, DonorsChoose

"An invaluable resource for the next generation of changemakers."—Wendy Kopp, Founder, Teach for America, cofounder and CEO, Teach for All

"An inspiring must-read, with an empathetic voice, for all of us aspiring to maximize our social value through our organizations, work, and lives."—Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, Founder/CEO, laaf.org, author of Giving 2.0, Founder/Chairman, Stanford Center on Philanthropy & Civil Society, Founder/Chairman Emeritus, Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund

"Reveals the secret sauce behind the most influential nonprofits of our time, telling their stories in memorable ways that every nonprofit leader can learn from."—Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation

"Social Startup Success is a marvelous compilation of stories of some of the most inspiring leaders of our time."—Bill Drayton, CEO of Ashoka: Everyone a Changemaker

"An insightful and highly useful guide that breaks down how organizations maximize their impact and create lasting change. An important contribution to the field."—David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World:Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas

"Social Startup Success covers all of the important building blocks...necessary for early stage organizations to succeed and build a strong foundation for further scale."—Heather McLeod Grant, Cofounder, Open Impact, and author of Forces for Good

"[A] no-nonsense, energetic guide...Kelly hits her target perfectly, and this is a must-read for anyone who wants to combine a lucrative career with work for the greater good."—Publishers Weekly

Tools that are needed.

I heard the author speaking at an event and knew I needed to read and listen to it.

Excellent book on nonprofit success

Well-organized and well-delivered advice from the author's interviews of successful nonprofit leaders around the U.S. The advice feels real and also like a distillation of just good strategic management for any kind of organization although she does include examples and helpful nuances for the social sector. I would highly recommend it to nonprofit leaders, board members, students of business and social impact and teachers in these areas.

So Much To Understand about Social Start Ups

with so much to learn, Social Start Up Success provides amazing insight to what can seemingly be a complex and difficult realm to be in.

Inspirational

I get more idea about new projects and how to successfully run a nonprofit organization.

A step-by-step guide

Loved it, she really provides a step-by-step guide to creating a great and sustainable nonprofit!