This Program Helps Aspiring Social Entrepreneurs Before They Even Have An Idea
by Anne Field

There are lots of accelerators, incubators and co-working spaces for social entrepreneurs. But what about the person who wants to use a for-profit business model to do something that matters—and doesn’t quite have the right idea yet? Not much available for those pre-idea individuals.

Maria Gibbs and Dustin Mix are trying to address that gap through a new pilot. Called the Venture Founders Program, it’s part of the Engineering, Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Excellence Program  (ESTEEM) at the University of Notre Dame.

Soon, they also hope to spin that out into a separate enterprise called Invanti.

“How do you take talented potential impact entrepreneurs and give them access to resources, as well as the opportunity to do research and work through different ideas that align profit with impact,” says Gibbs. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Launched in July 2016, the 10-month Venture Founders Program matches seven entrepreneurial-minded students with specific social and environmental challenges–think digital literacy or antibiotic resistance–using a structured process combining systems mapping, design thinking and other approaches. The goal is for students to come up with an idea for a venture that could have both impact and profit-making legs, recognizing that it may take five or six concepts before they hit on something with real potential.

One promising idea: student Madeline Zupana’s concept for addressing unemployment and the skills gap in manufacturing. That would involve working with manufacturers to pinpoint the skills they need and then finding students who, with the right training, could do those jobs.  Eva-Marie Costello has gone past the idea stage to form a company called Fintus, which has an app that instructs digitally illiterate users through the basic functions of mobile banking.

The plan is to roll the program out of the university and turn it into its own venture, to be called Invanti. That project is still in the early stages, says Gibbs. But the basic concept would be to help aspiring social entrepreneurs come up with ideas and get to the stage where they’re ready to apply for an accelerator or start talking to angel investors. The first cohort probably will be about six months long–enough time to think of and refine an idea–though that’s not set in stone. “We’d help them generate ideas and then send them off into the rest of the ecosystem for further support,” says Mix.

They figure that applicants will come from three buckets: generalists, like, say, a management consultant who enjoys problem solving; experts in such sectors as finance; and technologists.

Gibbs is finishing up a degree in civil engineering at Notre Dame, while Mix has degrees in civil engineering and entrepreneurship from that university. He also spent two years  in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. While working together at the entrepreneurship program, they came to the realization that there was a gap out there in programs for pre-idea social entrepreneurs.

As part of the current pilot, they met early on with community leaders in South Bend, where Notre Dame is located, to discuss what they saw as persistent problems facing the region. That long list included everything from transportation to the cost of daycare. Then, back at the ranch, after putting the problems on a white board, students were invited to dig into an issue. Eventually, they  pitch their ideas to a steering committee to get feedback.