Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR) held its annual Spring Conference last week and as usual it was inspirational and educational. The attendees and presenters are full of energy and creative ideas - exactly what one expects from a vibrant organization bringing together businesses seeking to be socially responsible, and VBSR delivers.  VBSR has two one-day conferences each year, a Fall Conference in Brattleboro, VT and a Spring Conference in Burlington, VT.  At this year's Spring Conference VBSR introduced the VBSR Venture, which was very exciting for me because I was one of a small group of VBSR members who developed the VBSR Venture.  The Venture is a self-assessment tool for businesses and organizations to evaluate their own baseline level of social responsibility, identify areas for improvement, learn ways they may be able to improve their level of social responsibility, and measure their improvement.  I formed and led a Circle Group of VBSR members who first looked for such a tool to educate ourselves about how our businesses could be more socially responsible - and upon finding no such tool, we set out to develop one.  The project took the group 2 years from start to finish.  We are proud of the results, and proud that VBSR adopted this project by its members as an official VBSR initiative.  You can check it out at the VBSR web site.