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Even though it's been a rough year, don't forget to count your blessings.

In Pictures: 13 Things Entrepreneurs Can Be Thankful For

Watching thousands of people lose their jobs, stock portfolios take mortal beatings and hordes of regulators (many of whom helped get us into this mess) run around like headless chickens is enough to bring on more than a little despair.

But tough as things are out there, entrepreneurs have plenty of reasons to give thanks, too--even if it really doesn't feel that way right now.

One ray of hope: Promising start-ups are still finding funding. While foreseeable exits are few, venture capitalists have put only slightly fewer dollars at stake as they did this time last year, before the financial crisis had gained any traction.

In the three quarters ended Sept. 30, venture-capital investment was down just 4%, to $22.3 billion, versus the same period in 2007, according to VentureOne, an industry tracker. For a glimpse at 11 hot spots of activity--including energy, computing and entertainment--check out "Where Venture Capital Is Still Flowing."

In Pictures: 13 Things Entrepreneurs Can Be Thankful For

There are perhaps a trillion (and growing) reasons to thank Uncle Sam these days, thanks to all that bailout money. Part of Barack Obama's plan includes a "national infrastructure reinvestment bank." Although traditional banks are garnering most of the attention at the moment, look for the president-elect to make good on his promise to give the country's ailing infrastructure--and all the small companies that attend to it--a serious shot in the arm. Such a prescription could ring up a $60 billion tab. Who knows: Bridge-building could be the next decade's Internet boom.

As chief executive of Mercy Corps since 1994, Neal Keny-Guyer helped turn the Portland (Ore.) relief organization into a global powerhouse with 3,500 employees and a budget of nearly $300 million. But he was taken aback last year when one of his lieutenants proposed the radical step of buying a bank in Indonesia. Why would a not-for-profit disaster relief agency go the capitalist route and buy a bank?

Gradually, though, he warmed to the idea. He saw that, if Mercy Corps operated a wholesale bank that could offer capital to some 2,000 local microcredit organizations and had an ATM network, it could help turn microfinance into a powerful force in Indonesia. Keny-Guyer was in uncharted territory, however. In the last days before the acquisition closed in May, he feared the risky gambit would end in disaster. "I imagined a newspaper headline saying, `Mercy Corps' Bank in Bali Fails,' " he recalls. "I thought of the reaction of our donors to that bit of news."

Now, as the renamed Bank Andara cranks up operations, Keny-Guyer is hopeful. If the strategy works in Indonesia, he says, Mercy Corps may try it in the Philippines next.

This departure from business as usual in the nonprofit realm is part of a major shift in the way people are taking on the world's social problems. In developing nations and parts of the U.S., governments have failed to make substantial progress against poverty, disease, and illiteracy. Traditional charities and social service agencies often provide Band-Aids for problems instead of long-term solutions. Now a new breed of do-gooder—the social entrepreneur—is trying fresh approaches. While the term is used in many different ways, there's a narrow definition that gets to the heart of what makes these people stand out: Rather than depending solely on handouts from philanthropists, social entrepreneurs generate some of their own revenues and use business techniques to address social goals. "Traditional ways of doing things haven't produced the kind of progress we all hoped for, so we're trying to come up with new approaches that are truly transformational," says Keny-Guyer.

The idea of the social entrepreneur has been percolating for decades, but it has become a mass movement in the past couple of years. Thousands of people are launching ventures and trying out new business models, both for-profit and nonprofit. Now that the global financial crisis is squeezing charitable giving, socially oriented organizations are pushing even harder to reduce their dependence on donors and generate their own funds. Lehman Brothers, for instance, was a generous backer of both nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. No more. In this climate, only the most efficient and effective organizations will thrive.

Social entrepreneurs are being backed in part by a new generation of super-aggressive philanthropists and social investors, including Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates and former eBay (EBAY) executives Pierre M. Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll. These guys expect results from their social investments and grants. Says Gates in an interview with BusinessWeek: "Nonprofits are applying what we've typically thought of as business strategies for better outcomes, and businesses are beginning to apply what I call creative capitalism strategies to increase the positive social impact of their work. That's a powerful combination." He believes the most effective way to make social progress is through partnerships among nonprofits, businesses, government, and philanthropists.

In times of crisis, perspective pays. That's why we spoke with veteran entrepreneurs who truly have some.

In Pictures: Graybeard Entrepreneurs

William Miller has clocked 200,000 airline miles so far this year. Miller is on the management squads of three start-ups, all focused on breakthroughs in nanotechnology, and teaches at Stanford University. Next spring, he will fly to Seoul, South Korea, when Konkuk University will cut the ribbon on the William F. Miller School of Management and Technology.

Still spry at age 82, Miller has seen a few economic downturns in his time. "My usual message is 'Don't panic, we've been here before,'" he says. "But I don't think we've been here before." Then again, he adds: "Some of the best companies we see now were started in the downturn. To get there, you need to make it through the bottom with enough cash on hand to invest in the future."

If, in fact, the U.S. has slipped into recession, it will be the seventh since the Great Depression of 1929-1939. To understand how nasty the latest crisis really is, and how entrepreneurs can hope to survive it, we spoke with Depression-born graybeards who have been running businesses since World War II. The short answers: Yes, things are bad, but the strong will, indeed, survive.

Memories of the '80s banking crisis can still make Sam Wyly wince. The Texas billionaire, who has dabbled in everything from restaurants to computers, found himself short on financing when 600 banks failed in his home state.

His savior: junk-bond king Michael Milken. In 1985, when Wyly wanted to expand Michaels, a home-decorations retailer he had bought, Milken's firm Drexel Burnham Lambert arranged a bond offering at a 17% interest rate--nearly 10 points above Wyly's previous financing. But the gamble paid off, and Wyly eventually earned a handsome return on his investment.

That kind of confidence helps. So does the willingness to constantly re-evaluate your business model. That's what Wyly and his brother Charles had to do after they bought Bonanza Steakhouse in 1967. Of all the companies in Wyly's portfolio, recessions hit steakhouses the hardest. "We were selling to blue-collar customers who were the first to get laid off during [tough] times," says Wyly, now 75.

During one particularly rough patch in the '70s, Wyly looked closely at his restaurants and discovered that franchised locations fared better than the ones he owned outright. He quickly moved to an all-franchise model, slashing his employee roster to 50 from 5,000.

"Now's the time to make tough decisions," says George Cloutier, chief executive at American Management Services, a small-business consulting firm in Orlando, Fla.

Cutting costs can help free up much needed cash flow during a crunch, but when the economy is expected to stay down indefinitely, more dramatic measures may be in order, he says.

Here are five tactics to help keep your dwindling business capital flowing:

Slash Expenses

Streamlining your business can help you stay in the black even when customers make fewer purchases. Be sure to call in overdue accounts receivables, sell off unsold inventory and analyze expenses such as office space, supplies and even your company's phone bills.

"Cut your costs viciously," says Cloutier. For instance, if you're long-time delivery vendor isn't fulfilling orders on time and it's costing you money, cut them loose. The same is true for employees who aren't pulling their weight. You might even need to do away with some benefits. While having to let go of a trusted staff member or business partner is never ideal, when the economy sinks, business owners need to make tough calls.

Eliminate Unprofitable Operations

Consider spinning off unprofitable business segments, suggests Victor Cheng, a small-business consultant in San Francisco. "Focusing on your core business"—especially if your other divisions are losing money—will serve you in a downturn, he says. To help you figure out what's working and what's not, schedule an appraisal of your business's operations.

Seek Alternative Funding

Some business owners take on a second job. Others use consulting to pad their wallets. One thing is for certain: If you're relying on a credit line to float your business until, say, after the holidays, now's the time to create a backup plan. "Don't assume that line of credit will be there," says Cheng. "If you are in that kind of situation, you either have to have a back up financing source or back up revenue source."

Embrace Incentives

As the nation's unemployment rate ticks up, business owners should think about restructuring their company's compensation, says Dave Waddell, president of Waddell & Associates, an investment firm in Memphis, Tenn. He suggests linking more employee pay to variable incentives such as commissions, which are payments linked to specific sales targets. For instance, if 20% of an employee's compensation stems from commissions, make it 50%.

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While commissions generally work well for sales staff, linking bonuses and other financial incentives to a company's performance is another compensation technique, which generally goes for everyone. "If employees hit goals for the firm, the firm is going to do well even in tough times," says Waddell.

Cut Production Costs

"The only way to make it through a recession is to be a low-cost producer," says Bob Prosen, a small business management consultant in Dallas. Think about it this way: Inefficient competitors can survive for a time at their current cost structures, but in the end, they'll have to either raise prices or go out of business. In contrast, a low-cost producer may try lowering prices to attract added sales, says Prosen. "You're better off taking a little less profit to keep the business going."