Our Major Sponsors

Josh Mailman

Chuck Dell

Sponsors

The Acacia Fund

Ader B. Gandi Charitable Fund

How to enter our 10th annual
Sustainable Business Plan Competition

1. Make sure you are qualified:
   • You can be of any age or educational status, and you can be based anywhere in the world. 
   • You must have a leadership role at a for-profit company (planned or existing) that has defined social and/or environmental goals built into how the firm will make money. If you can imagine a non-profit with the same goals as your for-profit company, you will probably qualify. 
   • Your company must either still be in the planning stage, or you must be considering a significant change of direction in how your company operates. (This is a business a plan competition. Our primary prize is feedback on your plans. Don't enter if you're not in a position to do something with that feedback.) 
   • Your plan must be written in English. 
      
2. Choose which of our two (required) categories fits your firm: Idea-Phase or Venture-Phase.
   • Idea-Phase entrants can have customers (or not), but are not (yet) seeking investment from anyone other than friends or family. For example: a pair of recent MBA graduates with an interesting clean technology idea that they are working on top of their regular jobs with the hope that they can leave those jobs and follow the idea full-time.
   • Venture-Phase entrants should be seeking professional investment. Most, but not all, of these companies will have some revenue. All venture-phase entrants must be able to explain how much money they are seeking, what they plan to do with that money, how it will take them to a discernable next level, and how they will be able to reimburse their investors. For example: a Cambodian fashion house that employs HIV+ women to produce fair-trade apparel. They have been around for four years, and have two successful retail shops in Phnom Penh, but are now looking to raise the funds they need to sell their products internationally so they can employ more women.
       
3. Fill out the Intent to Compete form by November 5th, 2012. Be sure to indicate which of our (optional) prize categories you are competing for. These categories (Clean Tech, DC, etc.) are described at www.williamjamesfoundation.org/prizecategories.
    
4. By 5:00 PM USA Eastern time on November 5th, email a 2 page summary of your business plan to us via email to competition@williamjamesfoundation.org. Please name your file "CompanyName_r013" and submit the file in Adobe PDF if possible. Your submission MUST be a single file. 
    
5. Formats for the text of the summary are listed at www.williamjamesfoundation.org/summaryformat.
    
6. On November 12th, at our Green Grab Event, we will announce which entrants will be invited to submit their plans into the business model round of our competition for feedback and a chance at prizes.
    
7. Companies that have been invited to submit into our business model round must do so by December 17th. The full competition timeline is at www.williamjamesfoundation.org/timeline
    
8. If you are unsure if this is for you, review our "Why Enter" page at  www.williamjamesfoundation.org/whyenter. 

What we are, and are not, looking for

We understand that that "defined social and/or environmental goals" is vague. However, if we set specific rules as to what counts, we might miss some amazing companies. So think of these more as guidelines.

1. We are looking to support business models that have integrated their values into how they do business. We are not looking for companies whose sole social / environmental contribution is to donations to charity. 
2. We are looking for ideas that can scale, allowing your business model to have maximum impact on the world. We don't care if you do this by scaling your company or the idea behind your company.
3. We are not interested in consulting firms / websites / mobile applications /etc. whose sole contribution to social responsibility is to help other individuals and companies become more sustainable using existing technologies. The exception to this is if your company has designed a new process or technology in this area.  
4. We are not interested in firms whose sole contribution to social responsibility is that all of their clients are non-profits or socially responsible businesses.
5. We are not interested in hobbies. At least one person must plan to make a middle-class living from your business.

In all cases, the choice of which plans that are invited into the feedback rounds is the sole decision of the staff of the William James Foundation.