Wedding Pictures & EWOB

So, in the spirit of finally getting around to ordering our wedding pictures (yes, it has been 5 months since our wedding), I was watching the slideshow that our photographer put together. It practically brings me to tears, it's so spot on for capturing how the whole day felt. So much happiness! Having all of my family and best girl friends all around me in one place HAD to be one of the best parts. Seeing all of their faces is also one of my favorite parts of the slideshow.

Being united to Michael for 5 months and 2 days has truly been nothing short of an honor. I won't bore you with my confessions of love, but I hope that you do enjoy following the link to the wedding slideshow.

On another note, I presented at the 2008 USASBE Conference on Friday about the formation of Entrepreneurs Without Borders, EWOB, a social entrepreneurship project that I worked/am working on with the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It's definitely coming together and the conference enabled us to further rally excitement and support from other universities and professionals interested in bringing their campus initiatives under the blanket of EWOB and its vision.

The vision is to become a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to advancing both entrepreneurial and business competencies to a wide variety of people in both local and global communities. It is a "social entrepreneurship" mission to put many diverse resources and projects together to unite in alleviating poverty through sustainable social, economic, and intellectual value-creation in communities of need through entrepreneurial practices. According to one of the experts in the research on S.E., J. Gregory Dees from Duke University, "[social entrepreneurship] combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley". I appreciate this description as it also describes our intention and foreseeable future in EWOB. And now that I am living in Silicon Valley, I am beginning to better understand and feel what that determination looks like... and I love it, think that it's a very smart use of resources, and can't wait to see how it further impacts the nonprofit sector.

We recognize that this phenomenon is not new of course as we have always had "social entrepreneurs" even if we did not call them that. I think that the new name, however, is important because it connects the business and social realms in a way that we might otherwise traditionally tend to keep separate. Examples of the types of organizations that have resulted from social entrepreneurship and the blending together of the business and social sectors are many a) innovative not-for-profit ventures (i.e. the organization I currently work for: BUILD), b) social purpose business ventures (i.e. Ben & Jerry's, or for-profit community development banks), and c) hybrid organizations mixing not-for-profit and for-profit elements and tax partnerships. There are also a growing number of what people often refer to as social ventures. Big examples include the Delancy Street Foundation, The Enterprising Kitchen, Juma Ventures, and The Greyston Bakery. Each one runs their own business, while using the revenue strictly for hiring and providing an array of services to its employees who are otherwise too often disregarded by society. I basically think any area within the blanket of social entrepreneurship is a wonderful and fascinating field of study as well as a place to find a professional career!


We, EWOB, realize that entrepreneurs already currently exist and thrive all over the world, and we simply want to create an avenue or vehicle through which the university community can get more formally involved and in communication with each other about all that students and faculty are already doing around the world. Based on the proven model of student chapters with elected faculty advisors who have the support of a national headquarters, we hope to create a way for easier networking and sharing of ideas and resources among entrepreneurial minded people world-wide. The students will be recruited by faculty who are already involved in the creation of EWOB from across campus to bring diverse perspectives and disciplines together with a common goal of furthering social missions. It will also impact cross-campus entrepreneurship curriculum and global service-learning opportunities for students.


That's a quick overview of what I presented this weekend that I thought I'd throw out to you all. I mean I have to keep up with Michael's intellectual blog posts at least a little, right?

Have a wonderful week!