IMPACT ENTREPRENEURS 2017-18 REPORT

Impact Entrepreneurs works with local and global partners to deliver initiatives that strengthen organizations, build entrepreneurial leaders, and catalyze social innovation. At Portland State, we equip diverse students with business tools and human skills, support them in drawing on their lived experience, and enable them to live their passion for social and environmental benefit.

This report charts our progress over the 2017-18 academic year and points towards a future of integrated initiatives and shared partnerships that support PSU's mission to "Let Knowledge Serve the City." This year saw the launch of our new Elevating Impact Lab startup event; the creation of PSU’s first campus-wide social innovation report; a partnership with the PSU Business Outreach Program to deliver the Social Innovation Incubator; and the continuation of successful programs such as the Social Innovation Certificate, Elevating Impact Summit, and B Impact PSU.

In the last academic year, Impact Entrepreneurs secured $207,000 in successful sponsorships, grants, and contracts. Without this support and in-kind sponsorships from community partners, our work would not be possible. Thank you!

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Select 2017-18 Partners and Donors

Elevating Impact Summit

The Elevating Impact Summit brings together hundreds of people from diverse backgrounds and sectors to learn about and celebrate social innovation. In 2018, the fifth annual Elevating Impact Summit attracted 525 social entrepreneurs, corporate and nonprofit professionals, impact investors, students and faculty for a day of inspiring presentations by globally recognized innovators, a Social Innovation Pitch Fest, and social innovation awards.

The 2018 theme, Thinking in Opposites, examined how we can discover surprising approaches and unlikely partnerships which lead to unforeseen breakthroughs. The Pitch Fest was won by Proud Pour, which pairs wines with solutions to environmental problems by planting bee habitat or restoring wild oysters with every bottle sold. The Impact Invention Award went to Diatomix, which utilizes green chemistry to improve indoor air quality. Corey Pressman shared the Alchemy of Wasted time, and John Warner gave an inspiring talk on his role leading the creation of the green chemistry movement. Watch these sessions and more at http://bit.ly/ImpactSummit18.

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5

2018 Summit

Since 2013

525 attendees

32 communitypartners 21 sponsorships

2225 registrants

117 86 sponsorshipsspeakers

Since 2016

B Impact PSU

B Impact PSU is a student-led consulting program which helps local companies achieve B Corp certification or recertificaton, a rigorous assurance of triple-bottom-line practices. According to B Lab, the certifying body, only 5% of businesses which take the assessment pass the threshold for certification — but more than 50% of B Impact PSU clients pass. The program has helped expand Portland’s B Corp community to more than 110 certified companies, one of the highest concentrations of any city in the world.

Support for the programs comes from Miller, Nash, Graham & Dunn LLP; Wanderwell; and FMYI.

23 businessclients 66 student

consultants 13 clients achieved certificationor recertification

B CORP

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Select B Impact PSU Clients

Talks and Events

By leading talks, writing articles, and publishing cases, Impact Entrepreneurs supports the spread of innovative concepts and the development of future leaders. In 2017-18, Impact Entrepreneurs staff led the first research session at the Ashoka U Exchange and presented in two other panels at the conference, led two webinars for the Ashoka U Commons, and spoke to high school students participating in Project Breaker and College Possible. Academic cases written as part the student case writing program have now been used by more than 2300 students and faculty at universities around the world.

In 2017, Impact Entrepreneurs launched the Elevating Impact Lab, a weekend intensive for local college students to examine a social issue, form teams, and brainstorm approaches with support from expert mentors. At the end of the weekend, student teams presented to local leaders and were encouraged to continue exploring their concept in one of PSU’s entrepreneurship or social innovation programs. The event was supported by Moovel and Cambia Health Solutions.

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TALKS &

EVENTS

Talks, Workshops, and Panels

• Ashoka U Exchange• The Breaker Project• College Possible• Ashoka U Commons• Multiple PSU courses and workshops

Elevating Impact Lab

100 students

15 7 speakersmentors

Training and Incubation Partnerships

In 2017, Impact Entrepreneurs redesigned and relaunched the Social Innovation Incubator. Delivered in partnership with PSU's Business Outreach Program, the incubator offered expert technical assistance to local social entrepreneurs, with priority admission for women, minority, and low-income clients. Eight firms enrolled in the 2017-18 cohort, representing business concepts across a range of sectors. Six of the firms were owned by PSU alumni, four were owned by women, and three were LGBTQ+ owned. PSU's Invention Bootcamp, funded by The Lemelson Foundation and delivered in partnership with PSU's Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, is an intensive summer program for high school students to learn about innovation and entrepreneurship by creating their own inventions. Impact Entrepreneurs supported delivery of this program in its second year, and helped with a plan to successfully fund scaling and growth of the bootcamp in future years.

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PARTN

ERSHIPS

Courses in the Certificate in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship

This primarily-online program enrolls undergraduate students, graduate students, and community members in the same courses as they each create and refine their own idea for a new social venture, whether a business, nonprofit, or internal program. From the Dave’s Killer Bread Foundation, which teaches corporations to employ individuals with criminal convictions, to Lanyi Fan International NGO, which delivers development projects in Senegal, the certificate has helped launch and scale social ventures around the world.

2017-18 Academic Year

56 graduatestudents 91 undergrads 5 community

members 152 students 14 programgraduates

Since 2014

147 graduatestudents 246 undergrads 60 community

members 453 students 39 programgraduates

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Graduate Spotlight Hugh NeriCo-founderNexGarden

NexgardenNexgarden used the Social Innovation Certificate to develop a modular agricultural technology for growing produce in dense urban environments or indoors. They build, own, and operate uniquely designed vertical farms for fresh and local wholesale crop production at a commercial scale. They hope to use this approach to address “food deserts,” where residents lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables, through reduced production and distribution costs. NexGarden won the InventOR competition in 2017.

“Entrepreneurship does not come naturally to most people. And for an engineering-minded person like myself, the thought of turning my idea into a business was daunting. With an amazing team of professors and an intensive curriculum, the Social Innovation Certificate program gave me the structure and guidance to turn Nexgarden into a viable business in just a year’s time. It’s safe to say we would not have found the success we did without this phenomenal program.” – Hugh Neri

Mercy Corps Emerging Leaders Program (ELP)

In partnership with Mercy Corps, the ELP builds leadership capacity and accelerates the impact of global and domestic mission-driven organizations. Clients have included Mercy Corps, World Vision, Save the Children, Digital Divide Data, Ipas, Care, Kompanion Bank, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2017-18, Impact Entrepreneurs hired a consultant to interview participants in the first seven years of the ELP program, evaluate their career trajectories, and analyze the impact of their programs. 96% of participants were more confident in their professional life, and 87% said the ELP training had positively impacted their career. Nearly half of female participants have a higher job title than when they participated, compared to roughly a quarter of male participants. Almost 80% of participants said a project they had started as a result of the ELP had a positive impact on their community. These data will be explored more deeply in a forthcoming journal article.

“Since ELP, I have more skills to have honest and direct conversations with people on my team, and a dramatically improved approach to listening. My team has definitely noticed the difference and want to learn about my new leadership approach, so they can replicate some of the strategies they have appreciated in me.” — ELP participant

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MERC

Y CORPS2018 ELP Participants

33 total

18 women (55%)

Since 2009

300 total

50% women

9 organizations

48 nationalities

Portland State UniversitySchool of Business Impact Entrepreneursc/o Jacen GreeneP.O. Box 751Portland, Oregon 97207

Learn how you can unleash the promise of business:

impactentrepreneurs@pdx.eduD pdx.edu/impactentrepreneursF PSUImpactEntrepreneursT @PSUImpactI Impact Entrepreneurs at Portland State University