Michele Frugel-Gartner

Guest Blogger: Michele Frugel-Gartner is the Executive Director Social Venture Partners Calgary. Prior to this role, Michele was employed with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and participated in Rotary Internationals Group Study Exchange to Saitama, Japan where she studied the role of philanthropy and Japanese civil society.  She received her M.A. degree in International Studies and Diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and is an alumna of the Asia Pacific Leadership Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu, HI.

Note about this post: Michele and I are on the planning committee of the Innovation Exchange.  This blog originally appread on the Social Finance site.  It has been reposted with permission from the author.

A year ago, I started quietly along a path to understand the legal and regulatory structures and challenges of social enterprise. It was a quest for knowledge and was parlayed into a course on public policy for nonprofits. For six months, I diligently read everything published on the topic with the hopes that my knowledge in the topic would expand and I'd be able to influence the topic. Starting out slowly and independently, I never imagined how quickly the ball would start to roll. Read more »