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TORONTO, February 25, 2002 -- Ask yourself to describe the average MBA student and you are likely to imagine a future stockbroker or banker. What you will typically not envision is someone working in the community, providing support and training to those Canadians most at risk.

Bill Young would like to change all that. As President of Social Capital Partners and the Bealight Foundation, he is launching an ambitious plan to invest in Canada's youth.

"A business education with a social services perspective makes for a formidable combination," says Mr. Young, "We think we can foster better social entrepreneurs by setting up this award."

Through the Foundation, Young has created the MBA Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs at the University of Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management. The $10,000 annual, renewable scholarship was made possible with a $200,000 gift, matched by the University of Toronto. Its aim is to encourage students to use the entrepreneurial skills they develop at Rotman to lead projects within the not-for-profit sector upon graduation.

But real benefits of the scholarship, the first of its kind in Canada, will be seen years before graduation. It will have a significant impact on the School's ability to recruit the next generation of community leaders, who, traditionally, find it difficult to finance an MBA. "Student experience is one of the top two measures of business school rankings," says Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School, "and the very best schools offer financial support and encourage learning beyond the classroom."

The MBA Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs builds on the reputation of the Rotman School as a school aware of its role in the larger community. Professor Ann Armstrong teaches a popular second-year course in social entrepreneurship. Her students include active members of the Rotman Community Services Club, who were responsible for this year's United Way student campaign. In 1999 and 2000, Rotman MBA students won the United Way of Greater Toronto's Spirit Award for Best Student Campaign at a post-secondary institution.

The fellowship complements the vision behind the Bealight Foundation and Social Capital Partners. The private Foundation provides donations for the purpose of developing social entrepreneurship. It is aligned closely with Social Capital Partners (SCP), whose primary goal is to create scaled models of social purpose businesses that can exist without government funding, models that will create improved social outcomes and financial self-sufficiency for people at-risk. Social Capital Partners plans to invest in and incubate revenue-generating social enterprises that employ at-risk youth and other populations outside the economic mainstream in Canada. It is hoped that SCP will be a catalyst for encouraging other innovative approaches in the social sector aimed at improving social outcomes for much less cost.

"How compelling might it be if we could change the traditional paradigm of helping at risk youth and other disadvantaged populations by using government money to train and teach them job skills? Why not create a different model, one that gives them real jobs in a real business that aims for financial self-sufficiency for both the business and the employees it serves?," asks Young.

With that in mind, Social Capital Partners announced last week the Social Enterprise Business Competition, which aims to identify social entrepreneurs with viable business ideas that will employ disadvantaged populations. Social Capital Partners will award a cash prize of $15,000 for the best plan, but more importantly, will potentially give a social entrepreneur the opportunity to work with SCP to create an action plan to launch the business. The winner could potentially receive up to $1 million in funding from Social Capital Partners to get it started. For more information visit: www.socialcapitalpartners.ca.

The University of Toronto's Rotman School offers leading-edge research and degree programs, including the prestigious Rotman MBA, the newly redesigned Part-Time MBA, the Rotman One Year MBA for Executives, a first-rate Doctoral Program, the distinctive Master of Management & Professional Accounting program, the undergraduate Commerce program in partnership with the Faculty of Arts and Science, combined programs with the University of Toronto faculties of Law, Engineering and Nursing, and an innovative series of Executive Programs tailored to the current needs of businesses and individual managers.

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