Reflections, Growth, and Social Impact in the Valley of the Sun
February 23, 2016 / Lauren McDanell / Comments Off on Reflections, Growth, and Social Impact in the Valley of the Sun
A post from Courtney Klein, Co-Founder & CEO
Four years ago today, we set out on a mission to do something that a lot of people thought was impossible. Back then, there was some good buzz in Arizona around co-working spaces thanks to the leadership of Co+Hoots and Gangplank and disruptive entrepreneurs were starting to see real support from places like CEI. The momentum was headed in the right direction and yet the thought of a social impact incubator – one focused exclusively on supporting entrepreneurs solving social problems – sounded preposterous to a lot of people. My challenge to the nay-sayers was that if people in Arizona could bring water to the desert, we could do just about anything.
We have a lot of people to thank for where we are today. First and foremost, the entrepreneurs who have trusted us with their dreams. It takes serious guts to put your ideas out in the world and we are inspired and thankful every day for the entrepreneurs that trust SEED SPOT with their dreams. We had some early adopters; people who provided us with connections, office space, furniture, supplies, and money to help us open our doors. We have a network of donors; individuals, corporations, and foundations who have made it financially possible for us to support social entrepreneurs without charging outrageous fees or taking equity positions. And we have an awesome Board of Directors and an insanely dedicated team that works round-the-clock to support those brave enough to dream.
We did it! We built SEED SPOT Phoenix. Now SEED SPOT Phoenix will serve as the model for other cities to follow and will be our flagship city where we test new ideas to better support social entrepreneurs as we scale. Thanks to recent funding from the Kauffman Foundation, we are planning to launch city #2 by January of 2017 to follow in the footsteps of Phoenix.
We are on the search for a Phoenix Executive Director.
We need a super strong leader who has a passion for social entrepreneurs and a proven track record of building community who can dream big with us. This leader will report to our newly formed Phoenix Advisory Board and will support our Phoenix Director of Entrepreneur Initiatives and our Phoenix Operations Manager.
We are building a National team to support all of our future cities so the Phoenix Executive Director will be supported by an awesome team that I will be leading as Co-Founder & CEO. As SEED SPOT builds out our national presence, we are super proud to be headquartered in Phoenix.
If you know of anyone that may be a good fit as our Phoenix Executive Director; please send them to our website to apply.
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