Dear Reader, In a recent interview with Michael Shuman, author of the forthcoming Berrett-Koehler book, The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition, he stated that “the ship has come in for local and social enterprise. With the combination of peak oil, dollar decline, the need to define new community-based politics--all these things are coming together.

Dear Reader, As reported in the Alliance for Nonprofit Management study, The Expanding Universe: New Directions in Nonprofit Capacity Building, “connecting community building and capacity building is a trend in the field that will have increasing impact in the coming years.” In this issue of SER we look closely at the role of nonprofit management support organizations in creating a training infrastructure for social enterprise in their communities.

Dear Reader, This month’s issue of SER contributes to the evolving definition of social enterprise with a manifesto by Kim Alter and Vincent Dawans. Their “integrated approach” to social enterprise offers practitioners a new paradigm for creating High Performance Organizations. A social enterprise, in their view, is more likely to achieve sustained social value when the enterprise is integrated within an organization’s programs, operations, culture, and finance.

Dear Reader, This issue of SER looks at two sides of the employment coin: developing your client workforce and outsourcing back office functions. Workforce development is a significant program component of many social enterprises. The current installment of the Best of the npEnterprise Forum focuses on a few examples that have been successful for Forum posters. Future issues of SER will look at the role of social enterprise in providing a career ladder to a living wage for clients and staff.

Dear Reader, In our ongoing efforts to serve your information needs, SER initiates two new editorial initiatives in partnership with the NY-based law firm of Perlman and Perlman LLP, and the npEnterprise e-mail Forum. Allen Bromberger, an attorney specializing in representing public charities, private foundations and social enterprises, provides a quick summary of the critical regulations to consider when soliciting investments for and offering securities in your social enterprise.

Dear Reader, Social enterprise has been making great strides in Canada, the UK and other international locations. This issue was prompted by a recent visit to Vancouver, the largest city in BC. As many of my hosts reminded me, Vancouver is known for being home to the Canadian environmental movement, and as the birthplace of Greenpeace. Canada also introduced the concept of social economy back in the 1990’s and social enterprise is now frequently referred to as social economy enterprise.

Dear Reader, This issue of SER focuses on social entrepreneurs like yourself who are advancing the field, while creating new earned-income strategies for their organizations. In a classic example of advancing the field while generating earned-income, Larry Fehr, Senior Vice President at Pioneer Human Services in Seattle, Washington, contributes the lead feature article about Pioneer’s Social Enterprise Consulting programs.

Dear Reader, This issue of the Reporter looks closely at fostering entrepreneurial culture in social enterprises—what are some of key organizational and leadership qualities that encourage a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship? Peter Crosby’s lead feature article, Mission ONE:Integrating Nonprofit Right & Left Brainsprovides you with an important leadership tool to help facilitate cultural change. In times of rapid change, nonprofit leaders and staff need a common lexicon for decision-making.

Dear Reader: The lead story in this issue of SER features an article on the Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures' National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofits. This article is a good example of the cross-sector collaborations that have been the focus of the continuing SER series on Campus-Community Catalysts. This series will continue in the next issue of SER. Yma Gordon, Program Officer for Economic Development at the Ms.

Dear Reader, On the plane to Milwaukee for the 6th Gathering of the Social Enterprise Alliance, I took a refresher course from Peter Drucker. Re-reading his 1985 book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, I came across two passages that seemed very apt for the Gathering.