 Good morning. My name is Laura Kalanian and I'm here to tell you a story. The story of the surprise social entrepreneur. Professor Greg Dees from Duke University tells us that a social entrepreneur has five characteristics. A social entrepreneur is socially driven. They're motivated to make social change, not just to create private wealth. A social entrepreneur is growth focused. They're looking for ways to scale and sustain their solution. A social entrepreneur innovates, they adapt, and they learn. A social entrepreneur is resourceful. They're not daunted by the fact that they may not have capital or assets in hand today. And a social entrepreneur is accountable. They're accountable for delivering social results and financial results. So now onto our story of the surprise social entrepreneur. 22 years ago, this person started a social purpose business, and equity and access were key values for the company. So they've made a special effort to be sure that their price point is set at an affordable level. The company is brave, and they're willing to use their bully pulpit to take on controversial issues. In year one, this company had a budget of $35,000. Last year, the budget was $12 million. And the company has recently opened a new production facility, so they've been able to expand their production capacity by 700%. When this company started, they had an absolutely unique value proposition. And frankly, over the last two decades, other organizations have tried to copy or mimic them. But that's okay, because our surprise social entrepreneur has an in-house incubator, which allows them to continue to experiment, try new things, and stay ahead of the curve. That new production facility they opened recently, they financed that through a public-private partnership. They were able to raise $70 million of expansion capital that way. And in terms of being accountable, really, I don't think I know another organization that uses feedback from constituents, from peers, and from experts the way this organization does. They're continually making real-time quality improvements to their work. So when I thought about this person and the company that they created, I went through the five criteria from Greg Dees of what makes for a social entrepreneur, I felt there was a pretty good fit. But then it occurred to me, not everyone would necessarily look at this person and see a social entrepreneur. Because I think we have sort of a pre-determined view in the sector of what a social entrepreneur looks like, who a social entrepreneur is. There are a few people that we've all come to agree are our representative social entrepreneurs. We think we know what a social entrepreneur looks like. Jacqueline is a social entrepreneur. We have a sense that certain people are really leading social innovation in the space. They're working in education, they're working in health, they're working in Africa. These are the folks that we all pretty much agree are social entrepreneurs. And then on a day if we're feeling very provocative, we might stretch the envelope a little bit and say, okay, this is a social entrepreneur. But I'm not talking about any of those folks today. This is the person that I'm describing. And frankly, if anybody knows who this is, I will give you my free beer ticket because I would be pretty surprised. This is a fellow named Jim Houghton. Jim is the founding artistic director of Signature Theatre Company in New York. And at this moment, I'm sure you're wondering why you got up early to come to the first plenary of the day, because what could Laura be thinking? Here she is, she's comparing some guy in New York City who runs a nonprofit off-Broadway theater company with two Nobel Peace Prize winners and a very rich 29-year-old wearing a hoodie. But stick with me, right? Because let's look a little bit more into Signature Theatre Company. Signature was built around a mission. They're dedicated to celebrating the writer. And they started with this purpose 22 years ago. They recently opened a new facility in Midtown Manhattan, the Signature Center. It's a 70,000 square foot facility. It was a fabulous new space. Frank Geary in the yellow hard hat was the architect for this space, financed through a public-private partnership that included New York City and the related companies. New York City put in $28 million, and they granted a zoning bonus to the related companies. Signature is built on the first two floors of a new luxury high-rise building on West 42nd Street, which was constructed by the related companies. This public-private partnership also included some funding from philanthropy. Bloomberg Philanthropies put money in. Pershing Square Foundation funded this. And I just want to underscore this. We know Bloomberg Philanthropies, and we know the Pershing Square Foundation here at SoCAP, because these are two foundations that support social innovation. And here they are funding Jim Houghton and Signature Theatre Company. It's a great new space. They have office space, rehearsal space, studio space, three theaters, as I said, which is how they're able to expand their production capacity. They also made an investment in a 75,000-square-foot lobby, a 7,500-square-foot lobby, an open lobby, to be a bit of a meeting place, a community gathering place in their Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. So you can come into Signature. You can buy a cup of coffee at the cafe. You can browse at the bookstore. You can sit in the comfortable lobby. There's some free, pre-performance musical entertainment. So you don't need to buy a ticket to participate at Signature Theatre Company. But if you'd like to buy a ticket, you can probably afford to do it, because for the next 20 years, all tickets at Signature Theatre are $25. And this is where the company's commitment to equity and access comes in. Now, I understand why people often don't think that the arts are very social, because they see them as being expensive, and that means that they're elitist, so they don't include everybody. But Signature used its position as a nonprofit organization to raise subsidy from government and from philanthropy. So a ticket that costs them $75 to produce becomes available to you at the box office for $25. This does a couple of things. First of all, it makes the revenue for Signature much more predictable, right? They don't have to wonder if their $75 seats are going to be filled or empty on a given night. Another thing that it does is it means that there's a much more diverse audience at Signature than for other cultural events. You have younger people, you have greater socioeconomic diversity, and you have greater racial diversity. The new facility has also allowed Signature to expand artistically. Their dedication to celebrate a single writer in the past has meant that they dedicate a full season to one living playwright producing a retrospective of that writer's work. Now they're able to do that, but they're also able to bring back writers who they've celebrated in prior seasons, and they're able to begin relationships with new younger writers. But the title of our talk is the Surprise Social Entrepreneur. So let's look a little bit more into this fellow Jim Houghton. Now, granted, when Jim started Signature 22 years ago, I'm not sure that Ashoka or Echoing Green would have necessarily yanked his resume to the top of the pile, because when he started Signature, Jim was an out-of-work actor. But like any good entrepreneur, he spent his life savings, he maxed out his credit cards, and he started to build his idea. But what's a little bit different about Jim compared to the other entrepreneurs that I know is he didn't just build this single organization. Jim, from the very beginning, started to hold complementary roles within other organizations, because he understood that to accomplish his vision, he would need to rise the sector. In addition to building the single organization. As a result today, in addition to leading Signature, Jim runs the drama division at the Juilliard School, which has allowed him to put together a fantastic partnership where Juilliard students get some exposure to real theater, real professional theater, while they're still in school and coming out of school. And Signature has access to a fantastic talent pipeline of young professionals who are starting to come into the field. Every story has a moral. And the moral of our story is that it should not be a surprise that an artist is a social entrepreneur. And I worry that in the social sector, as we narrow our perspective about who's a social entrepreneur and who's not, we limit our ability to solve problems. A social entrepreneur has to have an MBA. A social entrepreneur is going to be working in education or health. A social entrepreneur will be using technology or will be innovating at the bottom of the pyramid. If we assume that about our social innovators, we're much less likely to solve the problems that we're seeking to solve. Now, in case you think that Jim is the exception that proves the rule, let me quickly describe to you four other amazing artists, social entrepreneurs. Let's look at Rick Lowe. Rick is down in Houston, Texas. In 1993, he created something called Project Roe House. He and other artists went into the Third Ward in Houston and they started to renovate some abandoned and debilitated housing stock because they needed some affordable live workspace. But while they were there, they accepted a challenge from their new neighbors. And the challenge was if you guys are so creative, why don't you create a solution to the problem in our neighborhood? And today, Project Roe House not only has provided fantastic live workspace for artists who are integrated into this historically African-American community, but they have also provided safe and comfortable housing for single mothers and children, community gardens, community health centers. Or let's look at Gregory's sale. Gregory's working in Tempe, Arizona. He's a multidisciplinary artist. And his recent work, It's Not Just Black and White, showcases artwork that was created by inmates who incarcerated for life without parole. And the intention of this installation is to provoke and support conversation about our criminal justice system. Or in Portland, Maine, Marty Pottinger in 2007 started something called Art at Work. Marty is a playwright and a performance artist and she believes that if you brought elected officials, city employees, union leaders together to make artwork that they'd get to know each other, that open up lines of dialogue, that build some trust, that let go of their typical traditional adversarial roles. And as a result, you have an open line of communication between the Portland City Police Chief and one of the founders of Occupy Wall Street. Or in Minneapolis, we've got Robert Karimi. Robert's a playwright, a poet and an activist. In his company, The People's Cook combines theater and cooking to promote health and well-being. One of their works focuses on type 2 diabetes and communities of color. You may have realized, if you looked in your program and you started talking to the folks next to you, that we have artists at Socap with us this year. For the first time, they've been at the accelerator. Hopefully they're sitting with you this morning. And they're on panels joining us in this conversation about social innovation. There are three great panels coming up. There's one today at 2 o'clock in the Marina Room that looks at what artists are contributing to healthy communities. Nine o'clock tomorrow morning in the Marina Room, there's a panel that looks at social impact video games for health. And tomorrow at 12.15 in the Marina Room, there's a meaning track panel where artists talk about their roles as storytellers, collaborators, activists and social entrepreneurs. So please come and participate in these panel conversations. But the reason that artists are here at Socap this year is because we believe that they are essential to the conversation that we're trying to have in this conversation. You may have seen last month in the news that they're updating the calculation for the gross domestic product. One of the things that they're doing is they're recognizing the contribution of artistic, literary and other creative originals in the GDP. You might have also seen that Fast Company recently published their list of the 100 most creative people in business. Well, 20 of the 100 creative people in business are artists. What this says to me is that the traditional economy and traditional businesses are understanding and appreciating what artists have to contribute. Help me to be sure that the social capital markets and our social purpose businesses realize how essential the artists are to the conversation about social innovation as well. Thank you very much.