Social Entrepreneurs: Don’t Keep Your Story in a Box

If you’re a social entrepreneur working on increasing your visibility, authority, trust and impact, you’re hoping everyone will soon care about who you are and what you stand for, right? But there’s a certain skill that shouldn’t be ignored when you’re in the business of social change: the art of character-driven storytelling.

Too many times, people in this space keep the business side and the storytelling side in separate silos. What could suffer is your ability to grow and what gets lost is your ability to connect the people with money (your customers) to the people you’re ultimately trying to help with your mission-driven business (your main character).

The concept is very similar to filmmaking, and this is one of the main secrets that Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, executive director of Social Venture Circle, shared with me during a recent interview about social entrepreneurship and content marketing.

In this interview, we covered many interesting topics that could help social entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their online presence:

• How Valerie used her background in filmmaking and investment banking to help Native Americans create social enterprises from the gaming industry
• Why it’s a mistake to keep your focus on the bottom line and your marketing efforts in a separate box
• The main content marketing component she looks for when she’s judging social impact pitch competitions
• The right mindset social entrepreneurs need to have when they’re trying to get their message out there, make money and make a significant social impact on the community they serve

You can join me in continuing this conversation about social entrepreneurship and content marketing during this special week as the Social Venture Circle Welcome to the NEXT Economy conference kicks off. Valerie will be there. I’ll be there. And so will hundreds of other investors, social entrepreneurs and thought leaders.