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PORTLAND, Ore. - The global relief and development agency Mercy Corps is among an elite group of organizations to win Fast Company and Monitor Group's 2008 Social Capitalist Awards for its innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to tackling some of the world's most challenging problems. The winners are featured in Fast Company's December/January issue, which arrives on newsstands tomorrow.
"This is a huge honor for Mercy Corps," said Neal Keny-Guyer, Mercy Corps' chief executive officer. "We are wholly committed to the principles of social entrepreneurship. Fast Company's recognition confirms that our responsible risk-taking and our out-of-the-box approach make us better able to help people overcome huge obstacles like poverty, conflict and natural disasters."
For five years, Fast Company has partnered with global consulting firm Monitor Group to identify, evaluate, and celebrate top-performing nonprofit organizations. The Awards assess social entrepreneurial organizations of different sizes and ages across social sectors as an explicit effort to further performance measurement and accountability in the social sector in a highly rigorous, data driven, comparative approach. Organizations are rated on five critical components: social impact, entrepreneurship, innovation, aspiration and growth, and sustainability.
"This year we've seen an explosion of diverse experiments, many of them engineered by onetime Wall Street heavies, that attempt to bring new capital - and capital-market dynamics - to the realm of social good," said Fast Company Contributing Writer Keith Hammonds. "Through these deals, social entrepreneurs and businesses are raising the stakes, creating both business and social impact, and changing old-style capitalism as we know it."
The 2008 Awards feature 45 non-profits who use the tools of business to solve the world's most pressing social problems - ranging from poor healthcare in developing nations to unequal education access, homelessness, unemployment and substance abuse in the United States - and who have demonstrated a consistent and unusually large impact on society. This is the first time Mercy Corps has won a Social Capitalist Award.
Complete information on this year's Social Capitalist Awards winners, including expanded profiles and links, can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.
About Mercy Corps:
Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against nearly impossible odds. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided $1.3 billion in assistance to people in 100 nations. Supported by headquarters offices in North America, Europe and Asia, the agency's unified global programs employ 3,400 staff worldwide and reach nearly 14.4 million people in more than 35 countries. For more information, visit www.mercycorps.org.
About Fast Company magazine:
Founded in 1996 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures, LLC, award-winning Fast Company magazine (www.FastCompany.com) covers the ideas, trends and visionaries that are sparking change and creating the future of business. With a total paid circulation of 746,161, Fast Company explores the profound innovation, creative breakthroughs, best and "next" practices that are driving the business world.
About Monitor Group:
Monitor Group is a leading global professional services firm working with corporations, governments, and social-sector organizations to help them drive growth. Employing over 1,500 people in 22 countries worldwide Monitor offers a blend of advisory, capability building and capital services. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Monitor can be reached at 617.252.2000 or on the web at www.monitor.com
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For additional information, contact:
Eric Block, Mercy Corps, 206-321-4957, eblock@sea.mercycorps.org
Christina Duffney, Fast Company magazine, 212-389-5485, cduffney@mvpub.com
Jodie Petrie, Monitor Group, 781-487-4692, JPetrie@racepointgroup.com
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