Social Enterprise Development • Upward Spirals

Join regenerative business experts Upward Spirals for a 13-week intensive organizational development program in person in the rainforests of Costa Rica, and coming soon virtually on your computer or mobile device. Learn the tools you need to run an impactful social benefit business, and equip yourself with strategic plans to create value for yourself, your community, and your ecosystem.

This innovative course for social entrepreneurs combines regenerative social benefit impact models, and conscious responsible business practices, with advanced financial and marketing management knowledge normally only found in MBA programs.

We have designed this unique educational experience to cover the breadth and depth you’ll need to create an organization which is not only financially, socially and environmentally sustainable, but one that acts as a beneficial, regenerative force in your community.

Program overview:

Together we will co-develop a social benefit business, including the business model, business and marketing plans, and prepare you to run the service. Assignments and skills development will help you expand your program, prepare it for market, and serve your clients and communities with top quality service.

The priority of this co-development process is to create a social enterprise, and a way for you to support yourself in providing a social benefit. We will use that collaborative process as an experiential learning opportunity to expose you to the skills needed to design, develop, launch,market, and run a successful, sustainable, social benefit business.You will be able to use the materials we create to run workshops, make public presentations,serve clients, operate an eco-social impact center, lead community development initiatives, and provide a framework from which to expand into content creation, curriculum development, or consulting.

Some recent clients have used the organizational development time and new skills to run a lifestyle design coaching program, an online holistic health membership site, and developing a wellness and education center.

Our primary learning objectives for our time working together:

Reframe social and environmental programs as market opportunities
Evaluate your social enterprise to maximize impact
Help you develop a fuller understanding of the problem your social enterprise is trying to address
Design your social enterprise business and revenue model

Develop marketing strategies and digital marketing skills
Produce a plan to scale and sustain your social enterprise
Learn how to evaluate strategic alliances and other partnership opportunities
Assess best sources of funding and investment

Topics include:

Mission, Vision, Objectives
SWOT, Gap analysis
Forecasting & Backcasting
Business modeling for social and environmental impact
Business plan outline
Program development, content design
Strategic collaboration (alliances, partnerships)

Financial management (Cash flow, Revenue planning)
Marketing & Sales strategies
Marketing & Sales tools
Project management basics (need estimation, budgeting, timelines, tools)
Roles, position descriptions, training
Relationship Management (CRM, SCM, DRM)
Tech for empowered virtual collaboration

Sustain What?
Systemic Sustainability
Social and environmental implications of profit maximizing business models
Sustainable business practices (Supply chain, materials, processes)
Social capital and community building
From sustainable to regenerative
Regenerative business strategies

About your instructor and personal consultant:

Eric Baudry, Strategic Director & Co-Founder of Upward Spirals has synthesized 15 years of strategic planning, organizational development, financial management, and business optimization experience into a powerful and empowering social enterprise development and incubation program.

Eric has been helping organizations become more effective and sustainable since 2001. Originally for an international strategic consulting company serving the largest corporations in the world, and later for social entrepreneurs, community development organizations, and eco-social impact centers.

From a recent graduate:

“At last I found Social Enterprise Development to be the perfect social innovation and entrepreneurship incubator. My thirteen weeks working through this program with Eric Baudry was by far the most engaging, productive, and inspiring professional development experience I have ever participated in. Each week was another clear and exciting step in a tangible progression toward actualizing my vision.

I am very grateful for the exemplary mentorship, on call availability, extensive subject knowledge, and overall commitment to excellence Eric demonstrated during my time with Upward Spirals. Topics like regenerative business optimization, effective team building, and whole systems design added so much value to lessons on foundational elements of business development, marketing, and growth strategies.” – Kenan Aldana