Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA) is a nonprofit association of individuals and organizations building effective, more sustainable nonprofits through earned income strategies. SEA has emerged as the common ground for practitioners, lenders, investors, grant makers, consultants, researchers, and educators who recognize the increasing impact of social enterprise. SEA provides its members with current information, tools, and other resources that address the unique needs of social enterprises. Socia …

Wanna practice your pitching techniques BEFORE you get in front of investors? Let's beat each other up before we get in front of the bare-knuckle guys. If you're read Oren Klaff's book "Pitch Anything" or are a sales professional sale or a fund-raiser. This group may be for you.

We are dedicated to identifying, learning about and discussing various alternative investments. These are defined as "investments other than stocks and bonds, such as hedge funds, leverage buy-outs (LBOs), derivatives, private equity, arbitrage, event driven, and other hedging strategies. Term sometimes refers to real estate and venture capital investments." Some Examples: Non-Traded REITS Oil & Gas Limited Partnerships Equipment Leasing Raw land LPs

VentureSHOT Entrepreneur Collaboration Community brings together extraordinary entrepreneurs to help them grow their businesses and enhance their levels of success. This community was launched and is run BY Entrepreneurs...FOR Entrepreneurs. We REALLY know the issues entrepreneurs face in growing their businesses and our vision is to help hundreds of entrepreneurs achieve greater success through collaboration with their peers, mentors and unique, powerful collaboration sessions. Click Here For P …

How to Create a WordPress Crowd Funding Website to Raise Money Now! You've heard of Kickstarter.com and IndieGoGo.com. Both are websites where strangers from all over the world help fund your business idea, project, cause or mission by donating (or "sponsoring") money in the form of a "perk." This is not an investment, venture capital or loan. Millions have been raised using "Crowd Funding" websites. Most people have no idea they can launch a Crowd Funding website using WordPress and a PayPal ac …

Come join top local business professionals for an evening of Social Networking and Success Education from a global success coach from Venture Capital/Business coaching group Powerteam International. Imagine a group that brings together some of the sharpest minds in the country to create an atmosphere where you can do more business. Dress for Success and bring a business card to get in for FREE! See you there! Powerteam Success Center 1251 N. Plum Grove Suite 200 Schaumburg, IL 60173 866-238-5920

This group will meet to learn about the new crowd funding laws passed in the recent JOBS act and help prepare small businesses and entrepreneurs for raising capital through selling equity in their businesses using approved intermediaries. A couple of great articles to learn more about crowd funding, the JOBS act and more can be read here http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223290 http://www.fridayfirm.com/news/449-alert040612

Startup Grind is an event series and website designed to help educate, inspire, and connect local entrepreneurs. Each month we welcome an amazing speaker who shares their story with our community and tells us what worked, what didn't, and what they'll do differently next time. It's an amazing opportunity to learn from the best, network with other members of the startup community, and improve your chances of entrepreneurial success.

CEO Space is the world's oldest, largest & most successful network for CEOs, Entrepreneurs and Visionary Investors. We are an entrepreneurial training and world class business networking organization, providing MBA level ~ training, development and an immersion experience of cooperation that result in income acceleration through exponential business growth. Come experience our “Community of Cooperation” and extend this special invitation also to your partners, associates and other entrepreneurs …

We are a group of first or second generation Business Owners, Executives and Entrepreneurs that meet to discuss topics relating to starting up a business, scaling, selling, and planning for our exit from our business. We meet once a month. Each meeting has a presenter on a topic that Entrepreneurs want to learn more about. Some of our Past Topics include: Selection of a Business Entity, Acquiring Venture Capital, What to know about your Employment Agreements? Top Ten thing to know in being Acqui …

Venture Connects provides entrepreneurs, both seasoned and starting out, with opportunities to investment capital, strategic business partnerships and other essential business services needed to cultivate growth. Venture Connects does this through an online platform and in-person partnerships. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, investor, or business looking to help startups, Venture Connects bridges the gap and is the one stop source to assist your business. www.ventureconnects.biz

Imagine if there was a place, where at one table an entrepreneur meets her next $100,000 investor. A designer meets a new client, a web developer with a great internet startup. A Ruby engineer meets a charismatic founder that excites him with her vision, so much so that he can picture leaving his day job for the exhilarating experience of working tirelessly for technology stock options that could be worth millions one day... We're building this community. --- Part of the Tech Happy Hour Allia …

Inspire Startups gives Chicago's top early-stage startups the opportunity to showcase their solutions to 50+ techies and investors. This event combines the best of tech expos and networking in an intimate setting topped off with a pitch competition. Don't miss the opportunity to mingle with Chicago's elite startup community.

Chicago Food Tech offers a variety of meetup events to bring together restauranteurs, food and technology changemakers and innovators with diverse backgrounds in order to create dialogues surrounding new business models, showcase opportunities, challenges, synergies, and forecast food technology's future.

digitalundivided GROW Chicago is a monthly meet up of digital companies founded/co-founded by black women working together to GROW their tech-based companies from Idea to MVP to Growth and then Exit. Sponsored by digitalundivided, a company that builds forward thinking initiatives that change the digital space.