Albeit disappointed, I enjoyed the results of the 1st selection phase of the 2009 Echoing Green fellowship program. Of course, it had some positive consequences on my venture. But the most positive side of this is that Thierry Klein brought my attention to the fact that his own (French : Cocorico ! as we say here)  initiative, namely the Altruistic Capital, is selected as a semifinalist. I wish he will be at the next Echoing Green selection week-end in New York this spring and, hopefully, the Altruistic Capital project will be boosted by a 60.000 USD grant.

The Altruistic Capital concept is a nice and innovative way for tightening the public good to the performance of for-profit corporations, by letting nonprofit organizations receive a share of these profits. They indeed become shareholders of the forprofit, as the name « Altruistic Capital » suggests.

Next questions for me are :

• how can I let some open source businesses become more familiar (and hopefully fond of) such initiatives (this is also an open question for the economy of communion which shares so much in spirit with some aspects of free software)
• when, how and to which nonprofit(s) will I donate a part of the capital of my nonprofit ? this question is a bit difficult for me to handle given that my customers are nonprofits and I may prefer not to create interferences between business itself and the altruism of my capital… or maybe I should let this happen ?

I definitely have to spend some time with Thierry, face to face. Maybe next time he comes to Paris if our schedules can be synchronized.

Good luck, Altruistic Capital and Thierry, for the next phase of the EG selection process !