ed2go Online

Enroll any time! Over hundreds of classes are offered through distance learning. New classes are now being offered!

We offer a wide range of highly interactive courses that you can take entirely over the Internet. All of our courses include expert instructors, many of whom are nationally known authors. The online courses are affordable, fun, fast, convenient, and geared just for you. 

Courses on:

Grant Writing & Nonprofit Management

Start Your Own Business

Web Page Design

Health Care, Nutrition, & Fitness

Test Prep

and more…

Nonprofits / For-profits Partnerships

Non-profits and for-profits can achieve significant results together that are often impossible alone. And partnerships between the two can be smooth and mutually beneficial. Our experience has shown that they are a great tool for Social Entrepreneurship as long as the benefits to both are clearly understood and all obligations are adhered to. 

The benefits to for-profits organizations can range from added publicity to access to new, hard-to-reach, markets. Social benefit ventures can gain tools, resources and even skilled management assistance.  

In my own case, a partnership between my non-profit advocacy website and a for-profit video website gave me online video editing tools, bandwidth and server storage I could have never afforded. The FPO (a start-up) got tens of thousands of new members, and my site was able to achieve its social objective.

How should you proceed if you work for a social benefit venture?

•    Approach the FPO with a partnership arrangement that offers tangible benefits (not just "good PR"), i.e., 100,000 new web visitors or advertising in your newsletter. 

•    Ask the FPO to provide you with services or products that are part of its normal business.Resist the impulse to ask for cash – that is charity, not a partnership.

•    Involve technical staff early in the discussions to ensure that operational problems are taken care of in the agreement, rather than fought over later.

•    Write a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and send it back and forth for editing and changes. Make it as detailed as the project calls for.  And remember, it is not the final agreement that is important, it is the communication process that creates it.

•    Make sure that all stakeholders in both organizations sign off on the MOA –anyone who will be involved or impacted. Make sure you deal with non-stakeholders who may have negative opinions, so they don't sabotage the agreement.

•    Stay involved and keep the relationships strong. Don't sign the MOA and then turn it over to staff to execute. Stay in touch with the project and the leadership of the for-profit organization – you may want to work with them again.

I love to work with start-ups. New companies are often easier to deal with than large established firms. They are hungry, open to new ideas, and have yet to grow a bureaucracy that throws up roadblocks to partnerships. And start-ups often have new tools and products that entrepreneurial NPOs can put to use quickly to gain publicity and new grants.

http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/business-models/archive/2007/03/19/nonprofits-for-profits-partnerships

Ten Characteristics of Successful Social Entrepreneurs

WHAT CHARACTERISTICS do social and environmental entrepreneurs share? 

Capturing the common characteristics of such extraordinary, diverse people is tough, but here are some especially noteworthy qualities. 

Among other things, these entrepreneurs: 

•    Try to shrug off the constraints of ideology or discipline 
•    Identify and apply practical solutions to social problems, combining innovation, resourcefulness, and opportunity 
•    Innovate by finding a new product, a new service, or a new approach to a social problem 
•    Focus—first and foremost—on social value creation and, in that spirit, are willing to share their innovations and insights for others to replicate 
•    Jump in before ensuring they are fully resourced 
•    Have an unwavering belief in everyone’s innate capacity, often regardless of education, to contribute meaningfully to economic and social development 
•    Show a dogged determination that pushes them to take risks that others wouldn’t dare 
•    Balance their passion for change with a zeal to measure and monitor their impact 
•    Have a great deal to teach change makers in other sectors 
•    Display a healthy impatience (e.g., they don’t do well in bureaucracies, which can raise succession issues as their organizations grow—and almost inevitably become more bureaucratic) 

But as interest grows in trying to solve the world’s great social, environmental, and governance challenges, the definitions —and the boundaries between fields— blur. In the process, the field of social entrepreneurship has become “a truly immense tent into which all manner of socially beneficial activities may fit,” as two board members of the Skoll Foundation —Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management, and Sally Osberg, the foundation’s president and CEO— put it.

One result, inevitably, is confusion. 

So, they argue, the real measure of social entrepreneurship should be “direct action that generates a paradigm shift in the way a societal need is met.” What such people do, in effect, is to identify and attack an “unsatisfactory equilibrium.” Their endeavors are transformative, not palliative, with the power to catalyze and shape the future.

http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/unreasonable-people/archive/2008/02/26/ten-characteristics-of-successful-social-entrepreneurs

Subcontractor & Vendor Registrations For Bid Opportunities

Schlitterbahn Vacation Village Continues To Welcome
Subcontractor & Vendor Registrations For Bid Opportunities

Although most of the jobs for the waterpark construction have already been awarded, there are plenty of opportunities for subcontractors and vendors when the focus shifts to building the rest of the resort, including the Riverwalk retail area and lodging elements. Those interested in bidding on projects at Schlitterbahn Vacation Village are encouraged to register with Schlitterbahn in order to receive bid op­portunities. Once an organization registers, they are added to the distribution list for bid opportunities as they be come available. Organizations must register to receive bid opportunities from  Schlitter­bahn. Please relay this information to interested parties.

HOW TO REGISTER WITH SCHLITTERBAHN

Subcontractors
If you are interested in bidding on a construction job, you must register with us in order to be consid­ered. To register, you must complete our short online form and the downloadable Subcontractor & Vendor Registration Form on our Web site.

· Go to schlittterbahn.com, click on Kansas City, click on Construction, click on Registration.
· Click on Subcontractor Inquiries and fill out the short online form and Submit.
· Download the Subcontractor & Vendor Registration Form, complete the form, and email it to SVVSubcontractor@schlitterbahn.com, fax it to us at 913.312.3199, or mail it to 9400 State Ave­nue, Kansas City, Kansas 66112.
· We will contact you to bid on projects as the become available.

Please email all subcontractor inquiries to SVVSubcontractor@schlitterbahn.com or call 913.312.3102.

Vendors
If you are a vendor interested in providing supplies or services for the waterpark, you must register with us in order to be considered. To register, you must complete our short online form and the downloadable Subcontractor & Vendor Registration Form on our Web site. 

· Go to schlittterbahn.com, click on Kansas City, click on Construction, click on Registration.
· Click on Vendor Inquiries and fill out the short online form and Submit.
· Download the Subcontractor & Vendor Registration Form, complete the form, and email it to SVVVendor@schlitterbahn.com, fax it to us at 913.334.5206, or mail it to 1709 N. 98th Street, Kan­sas City, Kansas 66111.
· We will contact you to bid on items as needed.
Please email all other vendor inquiries to SVVVendor@schlitterbahn.com or call 913.334.5200