We invited the team from The Blink Tank, a social venture founded to jumpstart business models for organizations in the social sector, to meet with a few of our grantees today. Of particular interest is Mission Ad Works which is their socially responsible web advertising services business. Structured much like other businesses such as Federated Media, Mission Ad Works has a socially responsible filter on both the advertiser as well as the media partner.

I wasn’t at the CNN Democratic Presidential debate in Los Angeles tonight between Senator Hilary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, but I was at the debate in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. At the Las Vegas venue the audience was all minorities, union members, and civil servants, since it was sponsored by the 100 Black Men organization and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the College of Southern Nevada.

The Knight Foundation today announced the award winners of its innovation prize, The News Challenge. I’ve been following the challenge and was very curious to see who they would ultimately fund—the list of folks is downright impressive.

What do I like about what the good folks at Knight did?