First, a very big THANK YOU! to Christopher Jeffers and everyone at SMOKE for being such a generous host and helping us kick off Year Two!  And if you didn't make the event, you missed a very energetic evening filled with new ideas, business opportunties and connections!

We shared a lot of news about new partnerships and new projects we have on deck for Year Two to help you magnify your impact, and we will recap the highlights for you here:

PARTNERSHIPS

NIDFW Partners With Your Green Path to Beta Test People-Powered Sustainability

We are very excited to partner with Tom and Barbara Kessler and their innovative new Dallas tech start-up Your Green Path to serve as beta testers for its online program that helps you learn about and live a more sustainable life step by step and day by day. You can get all the details here.

Make sure and go ahead and sign up now to earn your first 100 points! And a very big THANK YOU! to our new Engagement Chair Anna Clark (founder and president of EarthPeople) for making the connection that made the partnership possible!

INFORM + ENGAGE + EMPOWER

NIDFW strives to help do just that for its members and community, especially when it comes to very important, new, emerging community issues/movements, as well as models that will allow businesses and not-for-profit organizations to address the complexities presented by an increasingly challenged world in more sustainable ways.

And that is why we are very excited to announce our new INFORM + ENGAGE + EMPOWER community liaison partnerships program that initially will help educate, inform and engage us in the evolving movement for the B Corp business model and for the growing movement for the L3C model for not-for-profit organizations. We are finalizing details for a third Liaison on a very important topic to our local community, and we will post that information here, so check back! (Meet our new Food + Community Liaison Susie Marshall!)

Starting late October, the Liaisons will provide monthly updates (more if necessary) about their topics on the NIDFW website, and they also will post interesting items to our facebook page. In addition, they will let us know about related events and when action is needed.

B Corp Liaison - Lori Darley

Many of you will remember Lori from the tremendous job she did as one of the founding board members of Net Impact DFW. Lori, who is Executive Coach of The Transitions Coach, caught the B Corp bug several years ago, and she has been a leader of the growing effort here to bring this new socially responsible business model to Texas.

L3C Liaison - Charlotte Keany

Charlotte is Director of Development for the Center for Nonprofit Management, and she leads the Center's Social Enterprise Consulting Practice. She is a partner with Dallas Social Venture Partners, and she also is a member of the inaugural board of the North Texas chapter of the Social Enterprise Alliance. We were very proud to partner with NTSEA this past June to bring Marc Lane, the foremost national expert on the L3C model, to Dallas for a special event.

North Texas Sustainability Leaders Roundtable

Net Impact DFW is a member of this new regional organization.

PROJECTS

sustainability + me - 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 5, KERA Studios

We have just about finalized our list of speakers and sponsors, and will give you all the details when we do, but right now, please mark your calendars and plan to join us as we break down the often times lofty concept of "sustainability" to the real-life, day-to-day ability to engage with and interact with community and the planet in more positive, accessible and meaningful ways.

One thing we can tell you right now is that the day will end with a cocktail reception hosted by Veev, which also is a certified B Corp that made the 2011 Inc. 500 List.

We also are looking for volunteers to help with the event. If you are interested, please send us a note, and we will get you plugged in!

Volunteerism: A New Approach

If you are a paid member, perhaps you are familiar with Net Impact's Service Corps and Board Fellows programs. We think they are good programs. But given the increasing need to bring down the walls that put unnecessary barriers between members of the same community and can impede true understanding of pressing challenges and slow the creation of solutions with true, sustainable impact, we decided that it was definitely time to Think Different.

So, we are reached out to leaders in the nonprofit volunteer community and asked if they would be willing to do some brainstorming and what-ifing with us and create a sandbox where we could experiment with and build a new model for community engagement, empowerment and improvement. They said, "Yes!!"

The plan right now is to kick off this exciting new adventure/project probably in late October, and if you would like to come along and join in, please do!  Just send us a note, and we will let you know about the first pow wow. And then watch this required homework and mindset!!!

These are the highlights of partnerships and projects we have in place and underway right now, and there are more to come. Stay tuned!