Jerr Boschee founds Peace Corps Veterans
Founder and Executive Director
Jerr Boschee has spent the past 20 years as an advisor to social entrepreneurs in the United States and abroad. To date he has delivered seminars or conducted workshops in 41 states and nine foreign countries and has long been recognized as one of the founders of the social enterprise movement worldwide.
Mr. Boschee is currently Executive Director of The Institute for Social Entrepreneurs, which he created in 1999, and Chairman and CEO of Peace Corps Veterans, Inc., a nonprofit he founded in 2003 to re-deploy former Peace Corps volunteers and staff members on short-term assignments. He also serves as an advisor to England's Department of Trade and Industry and is teaching a series of master classes throughout the English regions.
Mr. Boschee joined The National Center for Social Entrepreneurs in 1984 and served as President and CEO from 1990 to 1999. He has also been the catalyst and co-founder of The Forum for Nonprofit Leadership (1987), The Affirmative Business Alliance of North America (1989), The National Gathering for Social Entrepreneurs (1997), The Red River Academy for Social Entrepreneurs (2001) and The Executive Academy for Social Entrepreneurs (2002). The Alliance and the Gathering were the first two membership organizations created for entrepreneurs in the field of social enterprise.
The Institute for Social Entrepreneurs provides education, training and consulting services for nonprofit entrepreneurs throughout the United States and draws on a virtual community of social entrepreneurs and others to collaborate on specific projects. Mr. Boschee is also continuing to partner with individuals and organizations to foster social entrepreneurship around the world; his work thus far has taken him to England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, India, Japan and Ghana.
During the past 35 years, Mr. Boschee has also been an executive for a Fortune 100 company, an executive for both regional and national nonprofits, managing editor for a chain of newspapers, a Peace Corps volunteer, and a frequent writer, speaker and trainer in the social service and public policy arenas.
He is currently a member of the national advisory councils for the Social Enterprise Alliance and the National Peace Corps Association, the adjunct faculties at The School for Social Entrepreneurs (London, England) and the Institute for Human Services and Public Policy at Louisiana State University-Shreveport, the Practice Advisory Council for the National Center on Nonprofit Enterprise, the international advisory council for NESsT (the Nonprofit Enterprise and Self-Sustainability Team, which helps civil society organizations in Central Europe and South America develop entrepreneurial strategies), and the Board of Directors for MAP (The Management Assistance Program for Nonprofits, which is located in Minnesota). He is also the founder and one of three senior partners in The Social Enterprise Fund, a private operating foundation currently under development that will provide unsecured mezzanine financing for social entrepreneurs in need of working capital.
Mr. Boschee served previously as Senior Fellow at the Northland Institute (a national think tank devoted to social enterprise) and as a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of St. Thomas, the American Symphony Orchestra League Management Academy and The Learning Institute for Nonprofit Organizations (a distance learning subsidiary of The Society for Nonprofit Organizations).
His recent publications include The Social Enterprise Sourcebook (2001), which contains profiles of 14 nonprofits that have started business ventures; an article about the organized abandonment process entitled "Keep or Kill? Score Your Programs" (Nonprofit World, September/October 2003); "Eight Basic Principles for Nonprofit Entrepreneurs," (Nonprofit World, July/August 2001); A Reader in Social Enterprise (co-editor, 2000), a collection of 20 essays by leaders in the field; and Merging Mission and Money: A Board Member's Guide to Social Entrepreneurship (1998), a monograph published by BoardSource (formerly The National Center for Nonprofit Boards).
Mr. Boschee has three grown children. He and his wife, Linda Ball, live in Minneapolis.
