Business Name (DBA): IdeaEncore
Business Address:               315 South Coast Hwy 101, Suite U-190, Encinitas, CA 92024-3555
Business Phone:                  (858) 204-4672
Email Address:                    ScottB-L@IdeaEncore.com
Website:                               www.IdeaEncore.com
Contact:                                Scott Bechtler-Levin

Categories of service:

Capacity Building
Free Services
Internet Technology/Computer Hardware and Software
Nonprofit Resources
 
Description of services:

IdeaEncore Network is a peer-to-peer, on-line learning marketplace (like Amazon or eBay) for nonprofits and those who support them to share, sell, and buy all types and forms of practical knowledge and information assets.  Members of the nonprofit community around the world (but starting in North America) will share and find a wide variety of re-usable documents - including ready-to-use tools, templates, grant proposals, planning strategies, training content, policies, procedures and social enterprise plans.

Our Mission: 
To democratize the sharing and distribution of nonprofit knowledge throughout the United States (and, eventually, around the world), so that:
•    Materials and information of all kinds – wherever they are located, whoever developed them – can be reused, combined or adapted to a new use or idea.
•    Nonprofits can innovate faster, at lower cost, in less time and with less risk, 
•    Nonprofit capacity and donor / funder return on investments are leveraged and multiplied, and
•    Nonprofit organizations become capacity builders of each other.

Our Approach:
While we use technology as an enabler, we view ourselves as creating an incentivized sharing ecosystem, more than an “online repository”.
•    We build knowledge sharing networks through affiliate partnerships.  Our initial focus is on capacity building organizations (including MSOs, community foundations, and central offices of regional/national nonprofits).
•    We attempt to align individual and organizational incentives by allowing nonprofits to create earned income by selling some of their tools / templates … in addition to sharing items for free.  We also allow our affiliate partners to create non-dues revenue based on the resource sharing of their members.
•    We use Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org) and other customizable licensing approaches to help content producers overcome concerns about sharing broadly without losing control over their intellectual property.
•    We focus on and balance the needs of content consumers, content producers, and information intermediaries / curators (e.g.: associations) to share more information, more broadly.
•    We invest in technology so our customers/users do not have to re-create it.  For instance, we have built a resource pool from which organizations can indicate which items they “like” and then easily categorize, organize and display them on their own (iFrame) or branded (IdeaEncore hosted) online libraries (this is just about to launch, so it’s not visible on our website).
•    We experiment and do pilot projects to learn and fail and improve as quickly as possible.  The overall theme of these experiments is to explore how groups can build time for sharing into their day-to-day activities and will identify the organizational changes, rewards and incentives that will be necessary for a more open culture of knowledge sharing to be incorporated into organizational life
•    We aim to be self-sustaining.  As a result, we are organized as a for-profit, social enterprise and a certified B Corporation (www.bcorporation.net) so that we are able to access capital from a variety of sources to achieve the scale necessary to make this work over the long-term.

Background on you and/or your business:

Scott Bechtler-Levin brings more than 25 years of experience in executive leadership, marketing management, and strategic planning in the medical device, healthcare informatics, nonprofit and consumer products industries. Scott was Founding Board Chair of Pacific Ridge School, an independent, non-denominational middle and high school in Carlsbad, CA, and continues to serve as a Trustee. He is Founder and President of Peak Marketing Group, a marketing consulting company that provides interim executive leadership and coaching on strategic initiatives to new venture and non-profit organizations.

Florence L. Green, recently retired Executive Director of the California Association of Nonprofits (CAN), has been a leader, consultant, and trainer in the nonprofit community for over 40 years. A founder of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, the Nonprofit Management Association (now the Alliance for Nonprofit Management) and the Terry McAdam Book Award, Ms. Green is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop facilitator.  In 2008, for the third time, she was named one of the 50 most influential nonprofit leaders in the country by The Non-Profit Times.   For over twenty years her consulting firm, Florence Green & Associates, provided consulting, assessments and counsel to hundreds of nonprofits and state and local governments.

Testimonials and/or references:

"I love IdeaEncore’s mission of creating a marketplace..." - Paul Lamb of Man on a Mission Consulting

"I love IdeaEncore ! Great site, great resources, nice, helpful folks...." - Alison J. Rapping of Southern Center for Human Rights

“Our Volunteering Resource Library at IdeaEncore was a cinch to set up, promote and maintain…” - Robert J. Rosenthal of VolunteerMatch

Names of and/or links to your books, articles or blogs:

www.IdeaEncore.com
 
Service area by country, state or zip code:

United States and Global Service Provider