social mission

Commitment to Social Entrepreneurship 

I am truly passionate about using business to bring about social change. My social entrepreneurial projects are just as important, if not more, than anything else you will see listed in my portfolio. The following is a snapshot of opportunities that have been part of my pursuit of social entrepreneurship.

Opus Prize Foundation Delegation
In May 2016 I traveled to South Africa and Malawi with the Opus Prize Foundation, a faith-based humanitarian award that gifts $1 million to a social entrepreneur whose organization creates long-term, local solutions to address poverty and injustice. As a delegate, I visited one of three finalists in a refugee camp outside of Lilongwe, Malawi to learn about Jesuit Worldwide Learning's online degree program that brings higher education to refugees, one of the most marginalized groups of peoples in society. 

This delegation included learning about the many pieces of the organization and providing the foundation's board with a personal statement and recommendation of whether this finalist should be awarded the 2016 Opus Prize recipient.

You can read my personal reflection about this experience here. 

Encuentro Dominicano
I lived in the Dominican Republic for a semester through Creighton University's  service-learning study abroad program. This program is to provide participants with a deep cultural and socioeconomic understanding of the country, the institutions in which it is formed, and intentional reflections of social justice issues impacting its development. 

In addition to taking courses, I volunteered at a government organization in the city of Santiago, and our cohort worked with a rural community to build an aqueduct system, and we additionally formed local committees and processes to ensure sustained success of the project.

Based on economic research, I wrote a thesis  paper addressing U.S. intervention in Latin American economies. This research specifically addressed labor injustices tied to the apparel industry. My research included visiting organizations in the DR that use fair trade, living wages, and microlending as tools to address these and similar problems in the country.  

Case Study - "The Grey Plume: Preserving the Soul of Farm-to-Table"
Work submitted for publication
I co-authored a case study in 2015 with Peter Gallo, Ph.D. and Lindsey Hendrickson about sustainable agriculture, the local food movement in the midwest, and growing popularity of farm-to-table dining. The case highlights the work of Chef Clayton Chapman to build a truly sustainable restaurant, The Grey Plume (located in Omaha, NE). It also provides an examination of the collaboration between other farm-to-table restaurants, nonprofits, farmers' markets, and urban farms that exist to make a local food ecosystem successful. 

The accompanying teaching guide challenges students to use select strategy tools to exercise decision-making for social enterprises in the extremely competitive restaurant industry. 

Collegiate Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs
I co-founded a student organization at Creighton University that encourages students to explore the world of social entrepreneurship, but to do so by launching entrepreneurial projects that benefit the Creighton or Greater Omaha community. 

Pixan Ixim Business Plan
I led the first project to come out of this initiative - which was assisting a nonprofit organization with the launch of a community-run store to generate revenue to supplement donor dollars. This included developing a business plan, conducting customer research surveys, and spending time with the community leaders to educate them about the opportunities and threats associated with beginning their new venture.