Research

What you don’t know can hurt you, especially if what you don’t know leaves your business back in the 20th century while your customers are well on their way into the 21st.

In that case, you are losing opportunities to grow, to reduce costs, and to build customer loyalty.

I’m delighted with the recent Ernst & Young report, Thinking big: How to accelerate the growth of women-owned companies, which matches what I’ve found from talking with high-growth women entrepreneurs. With the number of women-owned businesses increasing yearly, accelerating their growth is important.

I knew it! But it’s nice to know that 10,000 consumers in 10 countries confirm my belief: Companies have a responsibility to promote social good and consumers will support those who do.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Nonprofits do not seem to be providing the essentials their employees want. Of the top 10 organizational characteristics deemed “essential” in the Good NonProfit Job Report by Professionals for Nonprofits, most were not provided by the current employers of respondents.

So much good information to choose from! But we have it now: Our list of 25 Best Social Media for Social Good blogs. These are the sites we think give values-driven organizations the best information about using social media to bring about social change.

As some of you know, Ventureneer is into social media big time. We've been cited for our best practices in several books, online and in print.*

What you may not know is that I'm also a research geek, having done market research for The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, and many small businesses and nonprofits. It's rare that I can combine both passions into one project but Ventureneer, in collaboration with Caliber just fielded a survey about social media habits and best practices among nonprofits.

No nonprofit will solve a large social problem in isolation. The multiplier effect of pooled resources is critical to success. Collaboration brings together the broad range of resources and expertise needed to achieve lasting solutions. 

Use and Value of Resources by Small Business Owners and Nonprofit Leaders is a newly released study by Ventureneer, which provides insights into support systems upon which small business owners rely. Entrepreneurs rely more on each other than accountants, lawyers, or anyone else. However, it appears the most successful entrepreneurs rely almost equally on professional services and peer support.

New research finds that small business owners learn in many different ways, but they have a strong preference for seminars over undergraduate business and MBA university courses. Use and Value of Resources by Small Business Owners and Nonprofit Leaders: A Survey Conducted by Ventureneer, August 2009 also finds that going online is a popular way of taking seminars.