Mills College Conference Assembles Country’s Foremost Experts in Social Enterprise

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On Friday, March 15, 2013, Mills College will present “Creating Shared Value and Evaluating Social Impact.” The daylong event will showcase how companies can develop and implement profitable business strategies while having a positive social impact in communities.

“The panelists and speakers we gathered for this conference will demonstrate how they have realized success by employing these principles.”

Hosted by the Center for Socially Responsible Business (CSRB) at Mills, students and promising social entrepreneurs alike will have the opportunity to engage with some of the country’s top business leaders to learn how innovative business practices can create economic and social value.

Leila Janah, founder of San Francisco-based Samasource, will deliver the keynote address. Samasource is a nonprofit that trains individuals in impoverished communities around the world to conduct useful online jobs that lift them out of poverty. After leading successful employment centers in 16 partner-delivery relationships across nine countries, Samasource is currently launching its first US-based pilot, SamaUSA, to provide training and jobs to community college students in the Bayview/Hunters Point district of San Francisco.

At this year's CSRB conference, industry leaders from Visa, Cisco Systems, FSG, Revolution Foods, Grameen America, and Numi Organic Tea, among others, will provide insight on how to identify strategic opportunities for social impact and how to design, measure, and communicate that impact. Sessions will explore the meaning and importance of “shared value” and explain various methods of clarifying and demonstrating social impact goals to attract funding. Attendees will have direct access to funders who will elaborate on how they look for the potential impact of a project before making an investment.

Another session will look into Oakland’s burgeoning renaissance in social enterprise which—with the help of a grassroots effort—is helping improve local communities.

“At the Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business, we are educating a new breed of ethical and socially responsible organizational leaders who can deliver strong financial performance while positively influencing society and the environment,” said Deborah Merrill-Sands, dean of the Business School. “The panelists and speakers we gathered for this conference will demonstrate how they have realized success by employing these principles.”

Sessions and Presentations:
●	Shared Value: Business Meets Social Impact: Moderated by Chad Bolick, associate director of partnerships at FSG
●	B Corporations: Impact is in our DNA: Moderated by Dermot Hikisch, director of business development at B Lab
●	Clarify Your Organization’s Social Impact Goals: Featuring Mills Lecturer Seth Barad, formerly of Bridgespan, and Serita Cox, co-founder of iFoster
●	How Funders and Social Businesses Evaluate Social Impact Differently: Moderated by Jose Corona, CEO of Inner City Advisors and Kristin Groos Richmond, CEO of Revolution Foods
●	My Impact Story: Capture and Communicate Success: Moderated by Diane Johnson of NeighborWorks America
●	Oakland Revitalized: Shared Value and Impact in the Community: Moderated by Konda Mason, CEO of HUB Oakland
●	Keynote Speaker: Leila Janah, founder and CEO of Samasource

2013 Conference:
“Creating Shared Value and Evaluating Social Impact”
Friday, March 15, 2013
8:00 am—5:00 pm
Mills College, Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business, first floor
Register online at: http://j.mp/CSRB132

About Mills College
Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering a dynamic progressive education that fosters leadership, social responsibility, and creativity in approximately 950 undergraduate women and 600 graduate women and men. The College ranks as one of the Best 377 Colleges in the country and one of the greenest colleges in the nation by The Princeton Review. U.S. News & World Report ranked Mills one of the top-tier regional universities in the country and lists it among the top colleges and universities in the West in the “Great Schools, Great Prices’’ category. For more information, visit www.mills.edu.