Weekend Briefing No. 11

Etsy & Target take a refreshing approach to retail. Etsy (featured in Profit & Purpose) recently announced its wholesale program to bring Etsy sellers into brick and mortar retail stores. A big win for craftsmen and craftswoman on Etsy. Target unveiled its latest move toward expanding sustainable, organic and natural product offerings. Housed under its Made to Matter label, 120 new organic or natural health, wellness, grocery and beauty products - made by various manufacturers, curated by Target - will roll out to all of Target’s 1,754 stores over the next several months.

Uncovering the secrets to crowdfunding. Last year, Forbes reported that 30% of the $5 billion crowdfunded went to social causes. Nonprofit and social enterprise crowdfunding is growing at an exponential rate. CauseVox, a social good crowdfunding platform, wrote a free ultimate guide to help you figure out all the nuts and bolts of putting together a crowdfunding campaign. Download it here.

Lyft vs. Uber. Last week Lyft closed a $250 million Series D round, bringing its total funding up to $332 million – several million above Uber’s $307 million (although some reports claim Uber has actually raised between $361 million and $405 million). Uber wasn’t going to let Lyft steal the headlines, so they announced their new bike messenger system Uber Rush, which just launched in NYC.

How Berkley MBA’s beat the market with a socially responsible fund. A group of MBA’s from Haas manage the $2 million Haas Socially Responsible Investment Fund. Last year, the fund beat the market by almost 5%. It has achieved over 50% return on investment since its inception. Read more about how they did it in this Guardian piece.

New York City’s top 20 young philanthropists. The New York Observer put out a list this week of the next generation of philanthropists in a city with a deep history in philanthropy. Glad to see friends Adam Braun, Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, Alex Forrester, Scott Harrison, and John Kluge on the list.