Darien, Panama trip in January

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Photo: An investor stands with a young mahogany tree during Planting Empowerment's first investor trip in 2008An investor stands with a young mahogany tree during Planting Empowerment's first investor trip in 2008As we do every year, Planting Empowerment is hosting a group of investors and interested people in Panama to tour the Darien and our operations. This is a great opportunity to learn about Planting Empowerment’s Equitable Forestry Model and see the first hand benefits of your investments.

We are offering trips to the campo (countryside) December 31st-January 15th. As we have already had numerous inquires, don’t hesitate to contact me at amparrucci@plantingempowerment.com if you’re interested in joining.

These trips are always informative and engaging for those involved. The last group to attend, a group of UN climate change negotiators, found the trip to be very relevant to their work.

As a social business, we use these trips to both generate interest in our investments and raise awareness of what those investments support. You’ll learn about the numerous challenges posed by tropical deforestation and see how we’re creating solutions that meet those challenges.

Interested to know what you'll see?

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Four recommendations for social businesses and nonprofits

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Advisory Board member Ned Symes stands with a spiny cedar tree in PanamaLast Wednesday I had the opportunity to sit down with some grad students at American University's International Training and Education Program (ITEP) to discuss social enterprise.

The goal of the discussion was to give up-and-coming entrepreneurs a sense of the challenges behind starting and managing a nonprofit or mission-focused business. Three former ITEP students who have gone on to start their own enterprises also helped lead the discussion.

The two nonprofits represented, Access to Success and Simply Equal Education, are both young and obviously passionate about their work. As they described the challenges they were facing, I thought back on our own version of those same challenges. That's not to say that we're not still dealing with some of them—maintaining a flow of operating capital, managing our operations efficiently, and mission creep to name a few—but now we have the benefit of viewing our early mistakes in hindsight.

Some of the recommendations that came out of our discussion include:

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January trip

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We’re happy to report that our January visit to Panama was successful, and lacked any (major) accidents. The main purpose of this trip was to introduce two members of our Advisory Board to Planting Empowerment’s work on the local level.

I flew down with one of Planting Empowerment's advisors, Grace Goodell. As a distinguished anthropologist and one of our earliest advocates, Grace brings years of experience to the business, providing guidance on everything from our social and environmental programs to the best channels to offer our investment products.

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