Process | Score Sheet | Judges | Advisors | Faculty Advisors

---

Overview

The long-term vision of the Haas Social Venture Competition (HSVC) is to change the way business measures success. The Organizers of the Competition envision a world in which business measures success by evaluating social, environmental and financial returns on investment. Doing so will help build enduring organizations that create value for future generations.

Our mission, therefore, is to catalyze and promote the creation of profitable social ventures. We seek to inspire business school students and their business partners to create social ventures: business enterprises that are both profitable and have a quantifiable social or environmental impact incorporated into their mission. To achieve our mission, we organize and host a social venture business plan competition that provides a national forum for entrepreneurs to showcase their plans and for investors to support groundbreaking social ventures.

Our strategic priority is to align the plans we attract with self-identified social venture equity investment funds. We believe this is the best means for the competition to facilitate the development of the social venture field.

Guidelines for Judging

Judges are asked to refer to these guidelines and to the Judging Score Sheet when evaluating business plans:

• Plan evaluation is to be based upon the feasibility of the plan and of the team achieving the financial and social goals laid out, given the criteria of extant social venture equity funds. 
• The beneficial social or environmental impact of the proposed venture should be one that conventional business operations either do not affect, or do not affect to the same degree or scale.
• The mission-related social or environmental impact of the plan should be one that a reasonable person would agree would have a beneficial impact on the constituents identified in the plan. 
• Judges will avoid moral judgment about the relative value of a given social objective. 

Judging Process: Round One

Up to 60 of the executive summaries submitted by entrants on January 22, 2001 will be admitted into Round One based upon screening by the HSVC Organizers.  Each team admitted to Round One will submit its full business plan to the competition not later than 5:00PM PST on February 20, 2001.  Each plan will be assigned to an HSVC judge based upon his or her relevant expertise as an entrepreneur, equity investor, and/or within the plan's most relevant vertical.  The judges will evaluate the plans according to the published HSVC Judging Guidelines and with reference to the HSVC Judges Score Sheet.  All Round One judges will convene at the Haas School of Business on March 5 to select the finalists.  Eight teams will be selected to proceed to the final round.

Honorable Distinction within Verticals

If several plans are submitted that fall within a given vertical, the best from that vertical may be selected to proceed to the Final Round depending upon their caliber and feasibility relative to other plans.  The best plan from within a given vertical, if it is selected to advance to the Final Round, will receive the distinction of Honorable Mention within the vertical.  With the permission of their authors, the HSVC will seek to make these plans available to early stage social venture investors within that vertical.  The HSVC will also seek to provide at least one opportunity for the recipients of this distinction to meet with a funder in the vertical for one-on-one advice on the plan but makes no guarantees (12/3/00).

SUMMARY TIMELINE FOR THE 2001 COMPETITION