People Helping People

Vincenzo Landino speaks on how Can’t Stop Columbus emerged during this time of social distancing for COVID-19. He recalls how the grassroots initiative began from a tweet on Twitter. Someone asked a holding a virtual hack-a-thon to combat COVID-19, and the response was overwhelming... three days later, over 300 people were involved. Seeing the huge amount of engagement, a Slack account was created to further organize everyone. One week later, Can’t Stop Columbus would find more and more people wanted to get involved with the initiative. There are multiple pitches, projects, and collaborations happening within Can’t Stop Columbus. Most projects focus on connecting communities to life-sustaining initiatives in Columbus and Ohio. Vincenzo mentioned Columbus Eats, Columbus Helper, and Columbus Day Active to give an idea of the current ongoing projects. Columbus eats was a particular focal point of Vincenzo’s efforts. After restaurants closed down, he really began questioning how he could form a resource

* Left to right: myself, Emily of GiveBackHack, Madison of Point, Mico, and Nicole of APTE. Madison Mikhail Bush from the Point app is creating an easier way to volunteer and connect so that causes can have the necessary support. In her own words, she describes Point as “your starting point for doing good”. Regular volunteers may be familiar with the tiring task of learning about organizations and how to get involved. Discovering a nonprofit to support can also be its own task. Volunteering and donating should be much more seamless for people who want to be active. Madison discussed making the volunteering process smoother for volunteers and nonprofits. She recalls her first failed venture of an online giving site during her college days. After failing, she raised $20k on Indiegogo and hired San Francisco based help to develop the point app. Unfortunately, those developers from San Fran took most of the money without giving Madison a product, but she didn't give up and persevered to develop a solution.

Annalies Corbin, Ph.D., from PAST Foundation speaks on transforming education through the PAST Innovation Lab. Programs in the organization change how students interact with learning environments. From Annalies’ view, today’s education systems do not properly equip students as the structure of those education systems is obsolete. She brought our attention to how we’re using the same education approaches we used over 100 years ago. Back then, education prepared students for specific industry skills based on career needs of that age, like blue-collar jobs. That was a time when people spent decades doing the same job in a rapidly developing United States. After all these years, that structure was never re-engineered to fit our current times. Now, we are called to rethink a huge question: “What are we preparing kids for?” The PAST Foundation became Annalies’ way to prepare students living in this age of society. A large part of preparing students for today’s world is reestablishing “problem solving”. PAS

Craig Chavis of Cre8ive Craig is a serial entrepreneur and a coach on how you can fulfill your creative dreams. He launched his book, Burdens of a Dream, on the topic a few days ago. Craig shares his story and the lessons he learned in his creative pursuits. Craig went from his home state, Ohio, to play collegiate football in Alabama. After two years, he experienced a season-ending injury that led him to study abroad in Costa Rica instead. Fast forward all the way to Craig finishing up his MBA, he was not sure where he would see himself next.  He ended up joining the Peace Corps in January 2014 for Peru. Then, Craig goes on to explain examining the location, using a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and other ways of becoming familiar with the community structure. The first thing Craig did was to connect with youth about entrepreneurship, which turned into a huge success.  “Mesh their needs with your actual abilities.” – Craig Chavez He is realistic about committin

Kristine Snow and Chelsea Akers amplify true diversity and inclusion through Level D&I Solutions. From WITI (Women in Technology International) to a partnership with Revel IT, these two social entrepreneurs are molding a new experience for “women in tech”. Kristine and Chelsea imagine Level reaching more narratives to widen their involvement with diversity and inclusion. The duo identified a “disconnect” between the corporate environment and advocacy groups. Hosting networking or up-skilling events became a response to “disconnect”. Kristine and Chelsea spoke about seeing a great turnout of women for these events, including minorities. Strong attendance is all that’s needed to prove “no women are interested” is only a tech myth. “… at the end of the day, we try to look at diversity and inclusion as a strategic business initiative, not just something to ‘check a box’ or to ‘look good’ in the community.”--Kristine Snow For Level, ensuring impact meant narrowing how Level provides impact, and hone t

Asking the right questions is essential for accessing insightful information. Abel Koury from Compelling Analytics helps refine questions that drive your social enterprise forward. After multiple interactions with nonprofits, Abel was inspired to combine his experience in research design and data analytics with social justice. Non-profits and smaller organizations don’t always have the capacity to create great surveys that will collect and analyze the proper data to further develop the organization’s services. Abel says organizations might be doing a wonderful job, but their data does not reflect the scope of their work. Growing up in an “underprivileged town” with “economically disadvantaged immigrant parents” also shaped Abel’s perspective. “I know firsthand how it is to grow up in poverty. I take that with me where I go, and I try to use that as a lens in my work.”--Abel Koury Abel explained his thoughts on a rule of thumb for organizations. He started by creating an example of an organization

Today we’re going to talk about measuring social impact. We’re going to start by diving into the Sustainable Development Goals, and then wrap it up looking at some ways to measure social impact. In 2015, the United Nations came up with 17 Sustainable Development Goals as part of their 2030 Agenda. At one level, the sustainable development goals are designed to be measured against these metrics set for 2030, but to do this, they created a set of goals which are broad and easy to understand. What I’ve found is that they’re a great tool for thinking about social impact, and useful framework for discussing the impact that you’re making. Actually, a lot of have people have found this, and they’ve become the gold standard for categorizing the impact you’re making. The SDG’s are something I take into consideration when finding interesting stories for this podcast… partly because social entrepreneurship on its own has no governing definition. And by that, I mean, any company can call itself a social ente

Raj Raghunathan of Happy Smarts teaches others to nurture well being and happiness. His recent courses, A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment and HEROIC (Happier Employees and Return-On-Investment Course), guide people in measuring happiness levels in the determinants of happiness. His story first began in 2007. In his seventh year as a marketing professor at the University of Texas, Raj had a chance to go to India, where he is from, and meet with old friends from way back. Questions about life and purpose came to his attention. “I noticed that career success does not translate into life success. So, you could be really doing well in your career, earning a lot of money, you may be famous, you may be powerful, you may be at the top of the ladder, but that doesn't mean that you're going to have a great life.”--Raj Raghunathan One question Raj asked himself: “What is the purpose of education?” He suggests that education is meant to give students the skill sets and tools to “enhance the well being” of them

Continuing our discussion from episode 55, Suzy of GiveBackHack hosted an episode exploring my experience building Wild Tiger Tees, and what it’s like to engage with the social enterprise community. Reflecting on the journey so far, Suzy and I agree two major parts are finding what impact to make and discovering how to sustain what you are creating. I find myself navigating how to efficiently grow and sustain the projects I’m currently focused on. Honestly, there are barriers to get over. Our discussion transformed into conversations that need to happen to help grow passion projects. Along with growth, alterations may occur. For Wild Tiger Tees, we became more involved with giving youth exposure to technology and training to help explore their talents, such as art. Suzy and I expressed the value of having conversations to make sure what we do is helpful and useful. Identifying the population you work with and their specialities are crucial. Being the innovative thinker she is, Suzy gathered questions

Today’s special, special guest is Suzy Bureau of GiveBackHack. If you listened to episode 50, you knew this would happen. I was encouraged to share a little more about my story, especially Wild Tiger Tees, and Suzy jumped in to share my experience starting a social enterprise. Wild Tiger Tees came together during a weekend at GiveBackHack in 2018. I, Adam Morris, am the co-founder of this social enterprise where we “empower youth experiencing homelessness with the skills necessary to gain employment through the art of screen printing.” We partner with Star House under their workforce development program called Star Works. Our talk began at a point where I did not have an idea for Wild Tiger Tees or the People Helping People Podcast. In 2006, I was out in London working at a bank after my MBA and was not connecting with my role. If anything, the most meaningful thing to me at that time was my volunteer work with Samaritans for suicide prevention. Once I acknowledged that passion I began trying to build a