Jenny, CEO of Cutting Edge Capital, has over seventeen years of experience as an attorney for and creator of social enterprises. She has raised funds for and launched a public space cleaning and maintenance business, a landscapers’ cooperative, and a public market. She has extensive experience with direct public offerings, nonprofit-for-profit joint ventures, cooperatives, and creative financing tools. She has a law degree from Yale and a masters in city planning from U.C. Berkeley.
Jenny's full bio can be found at: http://cuttingedgecapital.com/team/jenny-kassan
VC and angel investments are very difficult to get. You can spend months perfecting your pitch and never find an interested investor. Less than one percent of businesses receive this kind of funding. As our pie chart shows, private investment capital only represents about 4% of the total capital that is available for investment. The [...]
Greg Steltenpohl, the founder of Odwalla, spoke to a rapt audience at the recent Social Venture Network spring conference in San Diego. Here are some excerpts from his talk: The riskiest thing I ever did was bring an investment banker in to invest in the company. Us entrepreneurs don’t think nearly enough about the decision [...]
In California it is possible to do a private securities offering without a great deal of regulatory compliance work. This offering under Section 25102(f) of the California Securities Code is sometimes called a “friends and family” offering. Using this exemption from the general requirement that securities offerings must be registered, you can sell securities to [...]
When the predatory and irresponsible practices of mortgage lenders like Countrywide caused a financial meltdown, who did the Countrywide CEO blame? In April 2007, Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide’s CEO, in a speech at the Millken Institute, blamed the Greenlining Institute, a nonprofit organization that had been advocating for more lending to minorities. Mozilo stated that Greenlining’s [...]
A coop incubator is an organization set up to help coops form. Most coop incubators are nonprofit 501(c)(3)s or they are coops themselves. How can a 501(c)(3) justify setting up coop businesses as a charitable/educational activity? Generally speaking, an organization that provides business services to disadvantaged populations qualifies for 501(c)(3) status. So if a nonprofit [...]
This is common question and the answer is – it can vary quite a bit! There are three stages of a DPO: preparation compliance filing selling the investment opportunity Preparation The preparation to do a DPO can take as little as a few days or several months. This process involves ensuring that the entity that [...]
I recently listened to the TedX talk by Chinwe Onyeagoro of Fundwell called “I’m an Inefficient Market Entrepreneur.” The talk provided good insight into the small business financing market and its many inefficiencies. Ms. Onyeagoro provided some very interesting information about small business financing: 7 out of 10 small businesses are rejected for loans businesses with revenues [...]
Mike Hannigan of Give Something Back, the third largest office supply company in California, spoke at a recent event hosted by the Sustainable Business Alliance, a local network of Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. His talk demonstrated how a company’s practices change when they focus on stakeholders vs. shareholders. In contrast to companies that [...]
Personal finance gurus shout about the latest stock picks on MSNBC. Radio shows like Marketplace Money repeat the mantra that you are an idiot if you don’t maximize your contribution to your 401(k). A recent book, “Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry,” by Helaine Olen, provides evidence that much of [...]
In 1996, the City of Chicago, the Chicago Park District, and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County formed a nonprofit organization called NeighborSpace. NeighborSpace is a nonprofit “land trust” that acquires properties to ensure their continued use as gardens and urban farms. According to the Land Trust Alliance, “a land trust is a nonprofit [...]
