The Roberts Enterprise Development Fund: Implementing a Social Venture Capital Approach to Philanthropy

Analyzes the experience of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund (REDF) which transformed its philanthropic practice into a social venture capital practice in 1997 with a portfolio of nonprofit enterprises in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also presents REDF’s analysis of the changing needs of the nonprofit marketplace. Teaching Purpose: Allows students to analyze the applicability of a private venture capital model to social enterprise, including evaluating the changing nonprofit and philanthropic marketplace and looking in depth at one attempt to implement a social venture capital practice.