Founded in 1969, Pine Street Inn provides homeless individuals with shelter, services, and the means to become self-sufficient. The nonprofit serves more than 1,900 homeless individuals on a daily basis and over 9,000 annually. Launched in 2000, iCater is Pine Street’s social enterprise aiming to provide training opportunities to Pine Street clients while generating revenues for its job training programs, which support about 140 people transitioning from homelessness to self-sufficiency a year.
Boston Building Resources (BBR) is a social enterprise focused on providing affordable solutions that help area residents create stronger communities while benefiting the environment. The effort includes two components: 1) a consumer co-op (formerly called Boston Building Materials Co-op) that sells new home improvement materials and has a special focus on energy-saving, green products; and 2) a nonprofit Reuse Center, where people can donate new and gently used building materials for resale. In 2016, BBR received donations from nearly 1,700 people, diverting materials valued at more than $2 million from local landfills. Also focused on education, in 2016 BBR conducted 40 home improvement workshops.
Based in Austin, Southwest Key Programs is a national nonprofit organization providing education, shelter, and alternatives to incarceration to over 200,000 youth and their families on an annual basis. To create jobs for its residents while generating revenues to support its programming, Southwest Key operates several small social enterprise businesses including Cafe del Sol (a Mexican café), The Blooming Florist, Southwest Key Green Energy & Construction, Southwest Key Maintenance, and Southwest Key Workforce Development. The enterprises are all co-located with the nonprofit’s other workforce development initiatives at Southwest Key’s Social Enterprise Complex, which supports around 100 jobs and was the first complex of its kind in the country when completed in 2011.
Tech Corps Georgia mobilizes the resources of Georgia's business and technical community to help local area K-12 schools and school communities meet their technology needs and bridge the digital divide. Tech Corps computer recycling program has provided computers and training to hundreds of teachers in the Atlanta area. Fees for the recycled computers (which start at a low base rate of $100) help fund some of the group's work. The group also raises sponsorship and grant income to cover costs further for those who cannot afford to pay for its services. Read more about Tech Corps Georgia...
The Atlanta Center for Self Sufficiency aims to empower homeless individuals to achieve economic self-sufficiency. Since its establishment in 2010, it has helped connect 1,300 homeless people to full-time employment. A core part of its program is Café 458, which provides nutritious meals during the week to homeless men and women. On Sundays, Café 458 serves brunch to the general public, which provides revenues to the nonprofit and training opportunities for its clients.
Founded as a private business in 2003, Good Measure Meals became a social enterprise of Project Open Hand in 2005. The enterprise provides gourmet calorie- and portion-controlled meals to paying Atlanta clients, and funnels 100 percent of its revenues back to the nonprofit, which, in turn, provides home-delivered meals and nutrition education to seniors and those living with chronic disease. In 2014, Good Measure Meals generated over $2.7 million, 28 percent of Project Open Hand’s annual budget.
Founded in 1978, Focused Community Strategies (FCS) works in underserved Atlanta neighborhoods to nurture positive, sustainable change that builds from neighborhood assets, supports local leaders, and fosters social and spiritual vitality. Since focusing its programs on Historic South Atlanta in 2001, FCS has restored over 140 homes in the area and has catalyzed several social enterprises, creating local jobs and new community safe spaces. Most recently, in 2015, FCS established the Carver Neighborhood Market, creating 12 jobs and bringing fresh food and nutrition education to an area previously considered a food desert.
Spun off as an independent nonprofit from the Atlanta Alliance for Development Disabilities in 1989, Bobby Dodd aims to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities and obtains over 80 percent of its $15 million in revenue through business income. In 2015, the social enterprise employed 211 people with disabilities, and connected 246 people to other job opportunities. Its social enterprises provide call center and switchboard operations, facilities management, mailroom management, packing and fulfillment services, warehousing services, and toner cartridges.