More than 80 people attended “Ubuntu: Helping People as Business” — a panel about social entrepreneurship hosted by the student-run nonprofit organization A Spring of Hope.
The panel, which took place Wednesday evening in Houston Hall, featured Jacob Lief, a 1999 College graduate and Founder of Ubuntu Education Fund, Branson Skinner, co-founder of Of Rags and Camilla Hermann, director of the New York office of Shelter, Clothing, Healthcare, Education and Food.
The panel aimed “to debunk the myth that nonprofits can only work in limited ways,” said College sophomore Brittany Young, organizer of the event and founder of A Spring of Hope. Following this mission, the panelists represented three different business models in the field.
Lief proposed a charity-based approach, which he claimed is “absolutely sustainable, because there are just so many rich people out there. If you create a good program, there are always people who want to invest in it.”
Lief has focused his efforts on a specific area in South Africa for the past 13 years. During that time, he has helped 24,000 children to graduate from high school.
Hermann presented a model in which an initial capital is invested to provide vocational skills training to women who rely on commercial sex for survival at a refugee camp in Ghana. As Hermann said, “The only way for women to exit commercial sex work is access to food.” Their paid training puts them to work making clothing which is then sold in the United States, or helping with the refugee camp’s kitchen, where they can eat for free. The model finally expands by “providing the trained women with a start-up capital, which they eventually have to repay in mini-installments.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Skinner introduced his innovative approach through Of Rags — a fashion company based on private equity. Forty percent of the company’s profit goes into community initiatives in Ghana, where the clothes are manufactured.
Although Hermann does “not consider SCHEF sustainable,” Skinner thinks that social entrepreneurship can expand dramatically if approached from “a perspective where everyone benefits.”
As for advice, “You have to learn to say ‘no.’ Stick with your principles,” Skinner said.
“You have to build a cocoon around you and just deal with what you see,” Lief added.
For Young, the response to the panel was very encouraging. “So many people asked questions!” she said.
“I’ve been thinking of nonprofit as a career path, and this panel showed so many different approaches to it,” College senior Alex Shahery said.
“The discussion on sustainability was intriguing,” College freshman Jake Gutman added.
So how does one start? “With a raffle on Locust Walk. That’s how I did it,” Lief said.
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