Yale School of Management - The Goldman Sachs Foundation
Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures
Announces Winners of First National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations

New Haven, CT, May 5, 2003 - The Yale School of Management - The Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures announced its selection of four grand-prize winners and four runners-up at the final round of the National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations, in downtown New York City on Friday, May 2.

The eight nonprofit organizations are in the planning stage, or early stages of operating income-generating business ventures. In addition to cash awards, the winners will receive hundreds of hours of technical business planning consultations to assist their organizations in implementing the new ventures.

The four grand-prize winners of $100,000 each are:

· CompuMentor, San Francisco, CA
Contact: Daniel Ben-Horin, 415-512-7784, ext 303
www.techsoup.org/discountech

DiscounTech is a unique Web-based service of CompuMentor that distributes donated and discounted technology products, services, and support to nonprofits across the United States at the lowest possible cost. DiscounTech offers these high-demand products by working closely with leading technology companies such as Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Symantec, and Intuit to donate or steeply discount their products especially for the nonprofit sector. Earned-income is generated by charging a low but sustainable administrative fee for each item distributed.

· El Puente Community Development, El Paso, TX
Contact: Cindy Arnold, 915-478-0823 (cell)/ 915-533-6936 (office)
www.mujerobrera.org/elpuente

El Puente Community Development is dedicated to the empowerment of low-income Mexican immigrant women and their families that have been adversely affected by global restructuring. Diseños Mayapán is a garment manufacturing facility operated by El Puente that manufactures customized medical scrubs to meet the increasing demand for affordable, attractive uniforms for the expanding health, childcare, and medically related professions in the El Paso/West Texas area. The business will also create new business and employment opportunities for low-income, NAFTA-displaced workers, and Hispanic residents in the South Central El Paso area.


· Guthrie Theater and The Children's Theatre Company, Minneapolis, MN
Contact: Teresa Eyring, 612-347-1100
www.guthrietheater.org and www.childrenstheatre.org

Two of the nation's leading theater companies, the Guthrie Theater and The Children's Theatre Company, have formed a unique business partnership to capture additional value from the costumes designed for individual productions. CostumeRentals, LLC will enable schools, theaters, corporations and individuals across the United States to rent costumes at reasonable prices. The combined inventory of 17,500 costumes offers a broad selection of periods and styles, designed by the country's leading theatrical costume designers.


· Rochester Rehabilitation Center, Rochester, NY
Contact: Lynn Barber, 585-271-2520
www.rochesterrehab.org

Parrett Paper, an earned income venture of Rochester Rehabilitation Center, manufactures, markets, packages, and distributes unique die-cut greeting cards, gift tags and holiday cards. Parrett Paper markets its product line to a national and international customer base, including gift shops, zoos, aquariums, and museums. The company also provides meaningful work experiences for people with disabilities who are clients of its rehabilitation center.


The four runners-up and winners of $25,000 each are:

· Benetech Initiative, Palo Alto, CA
Contact: Jim Fruchterman, 650-475-5440, ext 106
www.benetech.org

Because current publishers make fewer than 5% of books available in accessible formats such as Braille and audiotape, Benetech has developed a subscription service, Bookshare.org, allowing users to legally share scanned books through a subscription service that meets stringent copyright exemption. Bookshare.org provides an extensive online library of accessible digital books to U.S. residents with severe visual, reading, and mobility disabilities.

· Benhaven, North Haven, CT
Contact: Larry Wood, 203-234-8454, ext 11

Benhaven is a nonprofit agency that has been providing services to children, adolescents, and adults with autism for 35 years. To support school system personnel in developing their capabilities to serve students with autism effectively, Benhaven has established a consulting practice called Benhaven's Learning Network. The practice focuses on providing consultation and technical assistance to public school special education programs throughout Connecticut, bringing clarity of instructional techniques to those charged with educating autistic children.


· Nation's Capital Child and Family Development, Washington, DC
Contact: Travis Hardmon, 202-841-6209 (cell)/ 202-397-3800 (office)
www.nccfd.org

Nation's Capital Child and Family Development has been running a food service operation for over 30 years to serve its 25 sites in the District of Columbia. The Harmon Central Kitchen is a commercial kitchen owned and operated by Nation's Capital Child and Family Development to prepare these meals. To leverage unused kitchen capacity into revenue gains for the organization, Nation's Capital Child and Family Development has created Make A Difference Catering to provide food services to licensed child care providers and elder care programs, as well as special events catering, and the provision of technical assistance support to nonprofits.

· Scojo Foundation, Brooklyn, NY
Contact: Dr. Jordan Kassalow, 718-875-0312
www.scojo.com

Today, in India, more than 200 million people need reading glasses to see up-close-to read a ledger, to thread a needle, to mend a shoe, or to fix a radio. Yet last year, only 0.2% of the eligible population purchased reading glasses. Lack of access and cost are the underlying reasons for this disparity. Scojo Foundation will sell quality near-vision ("reading") glasses, starting in the urban markets of southern India and expanding into rural areas.

* * *

The First National Business Plan Competition attracted 655 entries from nearly every state in the country and all types of organizations both large and small: 58 percent are running service-related businesses, 27 percent product-related businesses, and 14 percent other types. Among them, 64 percent are new businesses and 36 percent are in their early stage.

A panel of distinguished judges that included investors and venture capitalists, academics, and consultants evaluated the 20 finalist organizations. Senator Bill Bradley, Chief Advisor to McKinsey & Company's Nonprofit Practice, delivered the Keynote Address at the Conference. Professor Greg Dees, Faculty Director of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University, The Fuqua School of Business delivered Opening Plenary remarks.

Yale SOM Professor Sharon M. Oster, a leading authority on competitive strategy and nonprofit management and co-faculty director of The Partnership, explained, "We are enormously enthusiastic about the quality of these ventures. Our judging team had a most rewarding, yet challenging task. Though it was quite difficult to turn down plans that were truly superb, we expect many of these businesses will move forward with other sources of funding and project champions, and we hope that they return to our Competition next year."

Stanley J. Garstka, Deputy Dean of Yale's business school and co-faculty director of The Partnership said, "We are most excited to watch these businesses get off the ground with our financial resources and intellectual support through continued management assistance."

Stephanie Bell-Rose, President of The Goldman Sachs Foundation, added, "One of the primary goals of The Partnership is to facilitate a transfer of knowledge between the private and nonprofit sectors, so while we are pleased to provide seed capital to the winning ventures through The Partnership, we are confident that all of the finalists have benefited from the competition and will be able to leverage the intellectual capital the conference has generated."

Rebecca Rimel, President and CEO of The Pew Charitable Trusts, said "These winners reflect the best of our country's nonprofits: vision, leadership, and a thoughtful plan for achieving measurable results."

About The Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures

The Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures was funded through combined grants totaling $4.5 million made by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Goldman Sachs Foundation. The Partnership grew out of the partners' growing concern that nonprofits increasingly find the need to enter the marketplace to generate new revenues beyond their philanthropic activities, and need guidance and resources to do so. The Second National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations officially started on May 2, 2003.

About The Yale School of Management

The mission of the Yale School of Management is to educate leaders for business and society. The school prides itself on preparing men and women to combine rigorous business skills with a broader appreciation for the economic, social, and political factors that shape the global environment. The Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures brings together three strands of the Yale School of Management's teachings-entrepreneurship, business skills, and social responsibility- to nonprofit organizations, infusing its program with the philosophy that superb business and management skills are a critical ingredient for leadership in every sector of the economy-private, public, and nonprofit. Since 1993, the Yale School of Management has been consistently rated #1 in Nonprofit Management among the nation's graduate management programs by U.S. News and World Report.

About The Goldman Sachs Foundation

The Goldman Sachs Foundation is a global philanthropic organization funded by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The Foundation's mission is to promote excellence and innovation in education and to improve the academic performance and lifelong productivity of young people worldwide. It achieves this mission through a combination of strategic partnerships, grants, loans, private sector investments, and the deployment of professional talent from Goldman Sachs. Funded in 1999, the Foundation has awarded grants in excess of $45 million since its inception, providing opportunities for young people in more than 20 countries.

About The Pew Charitable Trusts

The Pew Charitable Trusts ( www.pewtrusts.com) support nonprofit activities in the areas of culture, education, the environment, health and human services, public policy and religion. Based in Philadelphia, with an office in Washington, D.C., the Trusts make strategic investments to help organizations and citizens develop practical solutions to difficult problems. In 2002, with approximately $3.8 billion in assets, the Trusts committed over $166 million to 287 nonprofit organizations.

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