For many entrepreneurs, the inspiration for starting a business is rooted in personal experience. An enterprise is born not just to fill a neglected market niche but a personal need as well. Such is the case with ventures created by HBS graduates, Darren Brehm (MBA ’07) and Brian Elliot (MBA ’08/MPA ’09). Both have been named HBS Social Entrepreneurship Fellows for 2010 and awarded $25,000 grants to advance their enterprises.

Brehm, along with his wife, Faith, is cofounder of the online venture AbilityTrip (www.abilitytrip.com), which aggregates information on accessibility to travelers, wherever they go.

In 1993, Darren and Faith were badly injured in a vehicle rollover accident that seriously damaged Darren’s spinal cord, resulting in quadriplegia. Afterward, they found it difficult to plan trips, because accessibility information for transportation, hotels, and activities at a destination was difficult to find or nonexistent. The inspiration for AbilityTrip grew out of their determination not to let Darren’s injury define his life or limit their ability to travel.

Since launching AbilityTrip two years ago, Darren has bootstrapped the venture while working as a consultant for McKinsey & Company. Faith currently serves as the site’s content manager. Last year, sectionmate Melissa Hayes, with MillerCoors, joined as a partner. Darren’s dream is to profitably grow AbilityTrip into a major online community serving travelers with all types of physical challenges.

Elliot is the founder of Friendfactor (www.friendfactor.org), an enterprise that aims to mobilize a national grassroots movement to accelerate the achievement of full legal equality for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) Americans. Last December, Elliot left Endeavor, where he was director of entrepreneur services, to launch the venture, which by summer had grown to a staff of four with ten interns.

“Friends often don’t know the problems LGBT people face,” says Elliot. For example, gay people can be legally fired in 29 states and evicted from apartments in over 30 states, he adds. “Every time I’ve told my straight friends about problems like this, they express surprise and ask what they can do to help.”

That’s where Friendfactor comes in. The enterprise is developing a social networking platform that will launch this fall to encourage LGBT people to create personal online campaigns and invite their friends to join and support them in pursuit of legal rights. “This is the equal rights struggle of our generation,” says Elliot.

Now in its second year, the Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship program, sponsored by the HBS Social Enter-prise Initiative, is designed to support recent HBS graduates who are launching social enterprises — nonprofit, profit, or hybrid organizations — with a central focus on the creation of social value. To learn more, visit www.hbs.edu/socialenterprise/careers/socialentrepreneurship/.

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