New & Next: Summit15 Bringing Social Enterprise World to Denver

The future of "feel good" is here. Or at least it will be Sept. 16-18 when social enterprise leaders from across the country descend on Denver for the Social Enterprise Alliance's annual national Summit.

Summit15 will feature thought leaders from all aspects of social enterprise, including those running social enterprise businesses, entrepreneurs, consultants and individuals interested in funding great ideas that create social change. A social enterprise is a business that uses the marketplace to sell products or services to advance a social mission.

For the past 12 years, I have been fortunate to be the CEO of Women's Bean Project. We are a manufacturing operation, making gourmet food products and handmade jewelry that are sold through hundreds of outlets online and in stores. We are also a human services organization that teaches chronically unemployed and impoverished women in the Denver metro area the job readiness and life skills needed to get and keep a job. We are a transitional employer, meaning we employ women for only nine months with the objective at the outset to train them well and then help them leave us to move to career jobs in the community.

Women's Bean Project isn't an anomaly. There are many other social enterprises across the country. What makes the Bean Project unusual is that we have been doing this work since 1989. Today, while many nonprofit organizations are trying to start businesses as a way to create additional sources of revenue, the Bean Project is enjoying the advantages of having an established business while consumers are developing a dawning awareness that doing well by doing good is great business.

I've consistently witnessed transformations in the women we hire. They are women who typically haven't held a job for longer than a year, though their average age is 36. They are women with histories of physical abuse, substance abuse and incarceration. They are women who have experienced more failure than success. They arrive at Women's Bean Project with no belief in themselves or their abilities, but instead with a hope that perhaps the Bean Project is the place where they can finally create lasting change in their lives.

And more often than not, that's exactly what happens. Nearly 80 percent of the women we hire graduate from our program. All graduates move on to jobs in the community where they can advance, prosper, and often, feel valued for the first time in their lives. A year later nearly all of these formerly chronically unemployed women are still employed.

Imagine what could happen if we all rallied together to create a future in which we all support more businesses like Women's Bean Project with our buying decisions. Think of the lives that could be changed in our own community!

Hosting Summit15 in Denver serves as a rallying cry to turn out and support social enterprise. The entire Summit agenda is open to those interested in the field. Visit www.summit15.org for more information about attending the Summit, to be held at the Embassy Suites in downtown Denver. If you'd like a taste of local social enterprises, you can attend the Marketplace from 4-6 p.m. on Sept. 17, where more than 40 local social enterprises will showcase their products and services. You can sample, shop and learn more about some of the most innovative businesses in Denver.  

Summit15 will serve as a catalytic and important event for Denver and the future of our social enterprise community.

Tamra Ryan is the CEO of the Women's Bean Project, a nationally recognized social enterprise based in Denver that provides transitional employment, while operating two manufacturing businesses, to women attempting to break the cycle of chronic unemployment and poverty. She is a former board member of Social Venture Partners-Denver and the current board chair for the the Social Enterprise Alliance Colorado chapter.