<b>All royalties from the adoption of this case will be donated to Birchway Niagara. </b><br><br>In March 2023, Women’s Place of South Niagara (Canada), an organization focused on ending abuse and intimate partner violence, rebranded as Birchway Niagara, to better represent what Birchway offered: it was not only a place for women. However, Jennifer Gauthier, its executive director, found herself in the fall of 2023 reflecting on the mixed success of the rebrand. The problem, according to Gauthier, was that “our communication was not as bold as it needed to be to really get the message out there.” Should she back away from the new brand and focus on the organization's core mission or go all-in on the new brand? Was a solution using both goals within one marketing campaign the right way forward? <br><br>

Founded in 2008, EOS was a US-based nonprofit dedicated to using technology to improve livelihood in rural Nicaragua. Over the last ten years, EOS had developed a portfolio of tech products such as ovens or drip irrigation systems that impacted more than 400,000 inhabitants in rural Nicaragua. With a mix of funding strategies, EOS had been able to show steady annual growth in revenues, with roughly 80% coming from grants and donations and the other 20% from fees for services and products paid by its clients. In late 2018, Meier, cofounder, and Rodriguez, Nicaragua Director, found themselves pondering the direction the organization had taken. Running five different product lines was pulling the nonprofit in many directions, so they had to take a hard look at the best way to scale their impact. Should they keep this diversified multi-product approach, or should they narrow down their portfolio and become a one-solution organization? It was time to urgently make a decision to ensure they could maximize EOS' impact in the region and beyond. The 2018 political and civil unrest had severely impacted EOS revenues, and organizational survival was at stake.

The case portrays Dr. Tamara Stenn, a researcher and social entrepreneur wrestling with a market entry decision in December 2020. Stenn spent three years in Bolivia researching the quinoa farming industry as a Fulbright scholar. Upon her return to the US in 2018 she founded a co-operative, A Perfect Seed (APS) with Bolivian farmers and US-based academics in order to import exclusive Royal Bolivian quinoa varieties into the US market. Quinoa, considered a superfood, was already widely available in the US market but most of the sales were of the cheaper Peruvian variety farmed with industrial means. Stenn saw an opportunity to appeal to the most sophisticated US consumer that valued the authenticity and cultural nuances of foods. However, in late 2020 Stenn found herself with limited sales, opportunistic in nature, and needed to decide on what market to focus on as she was re-applying to the Start Co-op accelerator in Boston, MA. The case includes the social entrepreneur and APS' backgrounds, challenges faced, elaborates on the quinoa industry, and discusses different market options. This case is written to be used in undergraduate courses related to marketing, entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship. Additionally, it could also be used in development economics courses, as the students need to grapple with market-driven conditions, brought about by economic development projects and global trade, that impact the wellbeing of native producers.

This social entrepreneurship case, anchored in 2018, portrays Go Baby Go's (GBG) founder Cole Galloway, Ph.D., debating how to scale GBG's impact given the numerous resource constraints. GBG was a project started by Galloway, a full professor at the University of Delaware. Galloway, a top physical therapy scholar, began to modify ride-on toy cars for his research on infants and mobility and serendipitously discovered that he was fulfilling an unmet need that could positively impact the development of hundreds of thousands of children and their families. What started with a simple idea - adapting ride-on toy cars turned into an international advocacy movement for infants and children with significant mobility issues. After eight years of organic growth with limited resources, Galloway was trying to figure out how to scale GBG's impact. The case describes Galloway's background, his journey as an "accidental" social entrepreneur, and his unique approach to scaling GBG. Through Galloway's experience, students will be able to discern social entrepreneurs' characteristics and analyze existing social enterprise growth strategies.

Rob Taylor, Founding Chairman, and Tracy Hackland, CEO of Columba Leadership, an award-winning South African non-profit organization, pondered a strategic question in March 2018. Columba Leadership was a non-profit values-based youth program that had facilitated individual change since 2009. By February 2018, Columba Leadership had organized 449 residential academy programs and graduated 5,211 high schoolers and 1,260 educators from 169 schools in some of the more disadvantaged areas. Columba Leadership had also pioneered the use of the Social Return on Investment methodology in South Africa. Columba Leadership's value proposition consisted of a six-day residential academy where high schoolers received training in 21st-Century leadership skills (critical thinking, leadership, problem-solving, communication, etc.) based on a framework of six values, including awareness, focus, creativity, integrity, perseverance, and service. Since its inception in 2009, Columba Leadership's focus had been on facilitating positive individual change. However, in 2017 Columba Leadership's executives observed how some schools, that they called "catalytic", had produced higher performance rates and the institutionalization of youth leadership after some of their students had attended Columbia Leadership academies. The systematic impact of these high schools prompted an internal reflection at the Board level, while the organization was also experiencing substantial pressure to change externally from funders. Should Columba Leadership keep its existing approach to youth development and focus on running more residential academies in a broader geographical area? Alternatively, was it time to re-evaluate the residential program and develop a more systemic approach that involved working more with schools in order to scale their impact? What were the key arguments in favor of the different approaches to scaling? What potential objections could the Board raise?

In 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. (Laureate) was the largest for-profit post-secondary education company in the world, with almost one million students enrolled in more than 50 institutions across 20+ countries. During that year, this multinational corporation (MNC) was considering modifying its legal status to become a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) in Delaware (U.S.) and completing the certification process to become a certified benefit corporation (B Corp). They had also decided to file an initial public offering (IPO). The IPO was planned for late 2015, so Laureate could potentially become the largest PBC and the first one to go public in the world. The case presents Laureate's founder and CEO, Doug Becker, in late 2014, evaluating the long-term value of the B Corp certification. To evaluate the decision, students must first understand what the B Corp certification and PBC legal status are and assess if they are helping the organization to fulfill its mission and to manage stakeholders' interests within the context of soon to be a publicly traded company. To do so, the case describes Becker's entrepreneurial background, Laureate's history, and critical developments up to 2014. The case highlights key points in the evolution of the for-profit higher education industry from the late nineties through 2014, as well as an introduction to the B Corp certification and its B Impact Assessment (BIA). The case also clarifies the difference between the B Corp certification and the legal statute of the same name adopted in 27 states by the end of 2014.