Executive Summary Guidelines

Please read the following executive summary guidelines carefully to ensure your team addresses each of the six judging criteria in sufficient detail. These six judging criteria are weighed equally in the evaluation of your submission. Please make sure to address them comprehensively in your executive summary, as not doing so will significantly impact your score. However, these categories do not necessarily need to be the section headings in your executive summary.

Below you will find a few sample executive summaries from previous participants. They provide a good idea of what the judges are looking for in the summary, but in no sense perfectly fit each of the aforementioned judging criteria. Use them as a guide to writing your own executive summary, rather than a template.

Each executive summary will be read and evaluated by a variety of judges, including  judges with domain expertise in the area of your venture. Any comments provided by the judges will be available after the announcement of the semifinalists in early March.

Judging Criteria

The general criteria for judging the executive summaries are the following:

• Concept and Product
• Feasibility
• Market
• Financial Sustainability
• Team
• Social Return on Investment (SROI)

The following points should not be considered a checklist for the judges to use while evaluating entries. Rather, they are examples of the broad range questions we encourage judges to consider when grading the entries: 

1. Concept and Product:
• Is the social enterprise described unique and innovative?
• Is it tackling a real need?
• Does the organization present a compelling mission and clear theory of change?
• Is there a clear description of the proposed venture’s service or product?
• Why is this organization going to be sustainable and produce real impact in 5 years?

2. Feasibility
• Is the product and technology presented feasible? Is the business idea both highly attractive and clearly realistic?
• Is the team aware of risks and requirements for the social entreprise to be successful? Does the team account for possible deadlocks?
• Does the team own or have access to the intellectual property of the product or technology proposed for the venture?
• Is the social venture scalable?

3. Market
• Does the organization clearly define their target beneficiary? Is the organization able to reach the intended beneficiary with its resources?
• What is the market potential – size and growth – for this business? What comparisons are there to past success stories that indicate this venture will succeed? Can this venture achieve a dominant position in its market?
• How long will it take the team to bring its product or service from the current stage of development to the market?
• Has the team gone out to the market already to test its ideas?

4. Financial Sustainability
• What are the cost and revenue projections? Are they realistic?
• What is the amount of up-front capital investment required?
• What is the expected time and amount of pay-off to investors (if any)?
• Do the financial projections demonstrate that the team understands its business in an economic sense?
• For nonprofit entries, does the team indicate how they will obtain funds to continue delivering on their mission?
• For double or triple bottom line companies, does the team sufficiently describe how they will achieve self-sustainability and growth via profits, or their roadmap to be profitable?

5. Team
• Is the team of sufficient cross-functional skill, balance and quality to make its ideas happen?
• Is the team focused on its intended beneficiary group? Is the team familiar with and passionate about the given market space?
• Does the team have the necessary communication skills to present a compelling story/sell their product?

6. Social Return on Investment (SROI)
• What are the quantifiable social/environmental results or community impact and benefits?
• Is the potential social and/or environmental impact of the venture reasonably calculated and clearly presented?

Sample Executive Summaries