Tag: Hunt Institute

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Spotlight on Local Dallas Entrepreneurs: Yulise Waters

Spotlight on Local Dallas Entrepreneurs: Yulise Waters, Deputy Director at Lone Star Justice Alliance

This week, the Hunt Institute would like to spotlight another member of the Inclusive Economy Consortium (IEC) Leadership Council and Hunt Institute Fellow, Yulise Reaves Waters. Ms. Waters is the Deputy Director at Lone Star Justice Alliance (LSJA), a nonprofit legal organization that improves the lives of youth and emerging adults in the justice system. She is responsible for overseeing and developing the Transformative Justice Model operating in Dallas County (SCCIP) and Williamson County (RISE). This multi-disciplinary program for emerging adults (ages 17-24) identifies and addresses the unmet needs which contributed to their involvement in the criminal justice system in order to reduce their likelihood of recidivism. As an executive team member, Waters also helps leads LSJA’s strategy, operations, and development.

Waters states that the most rewarding part of her job is getting to be a part of systemic change in the criminal justice system and collaborating with others who are equally as passionate about this work. One challenge, she points out, is the double-sided nature of innovation and change. “The system, unfortunately, was designed to get the results we are getting. Consequently, the whole thing needs to be overhauled and reimagined. The  process of change and innovation makes this work both attractive and challenging.  Vision casting and implementation is never easy,” Waters explains.

But being an innovator is a part of Waters’ DNA. Her dad, “Smokey” John Reaves, founder of family owned and operated Smokey John’s BBQ, was an entrepreneur, and she has been involved with start-ups for the majority of her life. “There is uncertainty and chaos that comes along with being a social entrepreneur,” Waters shares. Thus, her best advice for future social entrepreneurs is to remain flexible in the pursuit of your mission and always remember your ‘why’. For Waters, the why is her unwavering belief that all human life is valuable. “The number of lives that are marginalized, discounted, and thrown away by our criminal justice system is a travesty,” she expresses, “Everybody deserves an opportunity to be successful.”

You can read more about Yulise here and about the important work of the Lone Star Justice Initiative here. Stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest for more examples and case studies of social entrepreneurs.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

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Youth Up Next!

Over the coming weeks, the Hunt Institute Digest will feature various members of the Inclusive Economy Consortium (IEC) Leadership Council, and the important work they are doing in the Dallas community. This week, we feature Candice Bledsoe, PhD., Executive Director of Action Research Center & Founder of the Collective. This Global Development Lab project focused more specifically on the Action Research Center’s Young Social Innovators & Social Entrepreneurs Program to create a young entrepreneurial toolkit called Youth Up Next. The Young Social Innovators & Social Entrepreneurs program is designed to foster creativity, innovation, and social entrepreneurship in Dallas/Ft Worth Area.  Furthermore, it is to enhance student’s leadership abilities through exposure to and practice with a broad array of leadership tools and concepts that emphasize self and group awareness, interpersonal communication and insightful analysis of resources and systems.

Youth Up Next is a toolkit designed to help student be change agents. Undergraduate Research Assistant Cambria Lewis is the project leader over the toolkit that offers turnkey solutions to the next generation. “The toolkit includes valuable information that is needed to for them to use social entrepreneurship as strategy to make change, “ says Lewis.  The Assistant Director of the Hunt Institute and Portfolio Manager of the Global Development Lab, Corrie Harris  says, “From stories of student entrepreneurs working with  SMU’s Office of Engaged Learning to funding models for social entrepreneurs, the Youth Up Next toolkit is a great resource for young people.”

“Creativity and innovation are a major component of social entrepreneurship. As I continue to support the underrepresented, I believe that students can play major role as change agents. They are very creative, innovative, and smart.  The Youth Up Next toolkit plays a major role in providing resources to help these young social innovators and social entrepreneurs make change in their communities,” says Dr. Candice Bledsoe.

As a Fellow in the Hunt Institute, Dr. Bledsoe helps shape the communication in the Institute’s various initiatives like the Social Enterprise. She teaches, “Storytelling and being a change agent go hand in hand.” As the executive director of the Action Research Center, she believes that it is essential to equip young change agents with tools to be successful.   The center promotes personal development, academic excellence, and social change.  They equip students, parents, teachers, and community leaders with the knowledge and skills to become change agents. Due to COVID-19, Dr. Bledsoe and the Action Research Center had to pivot to reach their students, teachers, and community leaders.  After a decade of having the Cutting Edge Youth Summit conference, this year the Virtual Cutting Edge Youth Summit reached their stakeholders online.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn,Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu

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The Importance of Social Enterprises

If social enterprises are on the rise, should corporations address societal issues?

A year ago, the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from major American companies, issued a statement redefining the purpose of a corporation as serving all stakeholders and no longer just delivering value to shareholders. Harvard Business Review argued that one reason for this shift was because a profit-maximizing focus does not incentivize businesses to tackle the many challenges facing the world today like climate change, inequality, resource scarcity, and so forth. Even prior to this statement, a 2018 Deloitte study cited a trend towards enterprises increasing their focus on social impact.

Of course, today, the world is faced with an even more pressing challenge, the coronavirus pandemic. “This crisis has only sharpened the need for the work of social enterprises by laying bare the cracks in our systems, from healthcare to employment disparities, to upended education and gutted livelihoods,” says the SKOLL Foundation. Now, in the wake of the pandemic, is the time to solidify this idea that corporations don’t exist solely to serve their shareholders. The World Economic Forum shares that, “We can now explore an entrepreneurial way of life where enterprise can help communities across the globe solve socio-economic problems while being true to market forces. Maybe it is time for individual enterprise and collective purpose to work in harmony.”

Over the course of the last 5 months, we have seen many examples of established corporations as well as smaller-scale social enterprises taking this purpose to heart and doing their part to combat the pandemic. A couple of specific examples…

  • T-Mobile was ranked by JUST Capital and Forbes as 5th out of the 100 largest U.S. corporations for their response. In addition to more paid time off and a relaxed attendance policy for their employees, the company was part of an effort to provide hospitals across the nation with 40,000 phone chargers.
  • In Colombia, Fundación Capital, a nonprofit social enterprise, updated its virtual assistant to provide reliable information about the pandemic and tips for managing personal finances during a time of crisis.

As the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated, “Now more than ever, as big decisions are made about our future, companies need to address environmental, social and governance risks holistically and move beyond business-as-usual.”

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn,Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu

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Common Challenges Faced by Social Entrepreneurs

Social entrepreneurs are key to directly addressing social needs in under-resourced communities. But early-stage social enterprises face momentous obstacles. The single largest obstacle is, of course, access to funding. As the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors points out, “For philanthropists accustomed to more traditional grantees, funding social enterprises can feel like entering uncharted territory. Donors might find themselves intrigued by the potential for change, and yet, at the same time, unsure of what to expect in a field where the unexpected is the norm.” In the 2019 Halcyon Social Enterprise Ecosystems report, almost 20% of the 624 social entrepreneurs interviewed stated that they self-financed their enterprise or relied on the support of family and friends.

Another challenge that social enterprises face is measuring their social impact. According to a 2008 report from the Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE), “Impact assessment is still a crude and inexact science.” The fact that it is difficult to quantify a social enterprise’s value creation only exacerbates the first challenge of receiving funding because potential investors are looking for evidence that their investment will indeed affect change.

The above obstacles lead to yet another common problem faced by social entrepreneurs: the ability to scale. CASE identified in its research that, “There is a huge gap between early stage, seed funder money and later stage, multi- million funding.” Many investors are interested in funding the next big idea rather than investing in the expansion of an established social enterprise. Moreover, the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship identifies that constraints in supply chain, restraining government policies, or lack of partnership opportunities can limit the ability of a social enterprise to expand.

The objective of the Hunt Institute’s (HI) Social Enterprise Program (SEP) is to support social entrepreneurs in overcoming these obstacles in order to accelerate their social value creation. HI’s SEP provides early-stage social enterprises with a program and toolbox designed to empower them to obtain funding as well as access to a multidisciplinary network of experts and business mentors.

To learn more about the Social Enterprise Program, visit smu.edu/socialenterprise. For more case studies and examples, stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

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Social Entrepreneurs: Stories of Resilience

SOCIAL ENTERPRISES INNOVATING IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19: It goes without saying that the coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted businesses and social entrepreneurs around the world. We have collected three stories of resilience about innovative social enterprises that have successfully adapted their business models during this time of crisis. The worst of times can bring out the trueness of character. For these social enterprises, that character is evidenced in finding ways to give and impact people’s lives irregardless of the obstacles in their way.

Our first example is Restorative Farms which is a part of the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program. Restorative Farms effectively transitioned the focus of their operations to selling Victory GroBoxes. With the profits from the GroBoxes, Restorative Farms is able to continue accelerating its mission – to foster a vibrant and viable community-based urban farm system in South Dallas, a community that needs better access to fresh food and employment opportunities. Restorative Farms dedicates 10% of GroBox revenue to provide boxes for community members in need. To date, Restorative Farms has supplied 52 Victory GroBoxes, full of fresh produce, to the South Dallas community.

Secondly, we focus on PichaEats, a catering company based in Malaysia whose mission is to empower refugees by training them as professional chefs so that they can earn a living and support their families with dignity. With in-person events no longer taking place, PichaEats had to figure out another way for the chefs’ meals to reach the community. Through the ZaZa Movement, PichaEats chefs were able to cook from home and deliver meals to front-line workers and those who had lost their jobs. To date, the organization has distributed almost 15,000 meals.

Finally, we share the story of Change Please, a UK-based social enterprise that supports people out of homelessness by training them to become baristas and providing them with a job at one of the organization’s coffee shops. In addition to paying for the baristas’ wages, the profits from the coffee shops also go towards paying for housing and counseling. In the wake of the lockdown, Change Please, with the support of corporate partners, moved their operations to hospitals, serving free coffee to front-line workers. Although the organization is unable to operate as usual, this innovative change allowed the baristas to continue working and receiving a living wage.

To learn more about the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program, visit smu.edu/socialenterprise. For more case studies and examples, stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

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Moments that Matter

The Veteran Women’s Enterprise Center is working toward improving engagement with veteran women entrepreneurs through a series of national focus groups in 2020. The data from the focus groups will help business development and support providers across our nation improve how they engage women veteran entrepreneurs. The purpose is to gather data to advocate for additional services and adequate funding across our nation for women veteran entrepreneurs.

VR Small is the VWEC’s CEO and an Associate in the Hunt Institute. VR’s project was accepted into the 2020 Cohort for the Global Development Lab in January. Phase I of Moments that Matter was comprised of a survey to women veteran entrepreneurs in the DFW metroplex in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. A report of the survey outcomes is expected to be released summer 2020. Phase II is the design and implementation of the focus groups for a deeper dive into key survey questions.

VR’s undergraduate analyst Scott Zuo, undergraduate project manager Shelby Lauren Griffith, and GDL Portfolio Manager Corrie Harris have navigated uncharted waters due to the global pandemic managing to push this project forward amid closures, delays, and ever-changing redirects. As a result, they have created an online alternative for the focus groups. Collaboration with faculty members has helped the team to design an online formulate qualitative questions for the focus group sessions. VR is also a Navy veteran and social entrepreneur. She brings an added layer of relevance to the process with her many years of experience in the small business arena.

Ultimately, this process will result in an online platform that provides a national, regional, and local overview of women veteran entrepreneurs, outlining demographics, industries, average revenues, contracts, capital secured, and more. This platform will offer metrics that clearly identify how women veteran entrepreneurs are helping to drive our nation’s economy. In addition, this data will highlight potential areas of support, such as enhanced technical assistance, access to varied financial products, and expanded contracting opportunities. Both veteran women entrepreneurs and those that partner with them will have access to this platform.

Gaining feedback from women veteran business owners about the moments that matter most during their entrepreneurial  journey will provide key decision makers and funders with a vivid illustration of the real economic impact. It will also inform them of  the ongoing challenges faced by women veteran entrepreneurs. The data from their feedback will help drive the timely allocation of funding resources to areas  that will have the greatest impact toward advancing women veteran owned businesses in our nation. In addition, this is an opportunity to highlight those who have proudly served in the military and  to share their unique experiences. Now more than ever, we need to amplify the voices of our women entrepreneurs and ensure they have the resources needed to succeed.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

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Filling the Gap for Seismic Protection

Image from Volcano Discovery

Peru is located in a seismic zone where the South American Plate moves toward the sea over the Nazca Plate causing earthquakes as a result of the thrust faulting on the interface of the two plates.  According to Volcano Discovery, Peru endured 81 quakes in May of 2020. With the exception of an occasional break in seismic energy, Peruvians live with earthquakes as a daily condition. Dr. Nicos Makris, Hunt Institute Fellow, has been leading a research team of collaborators and students at SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering as well as internationally, to address this pressing issue. Their project in the Global Development Lab (GDL) focuses on seismic protection solutions for confined masonry urban housing. The in-country partner is Dr. Marcial Blondet who has dedicated over thirty years to researching the effects of seismic activity on masonry and adobe construction in Peru.

All projects in the GDL address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This effort directly targets SDG #11 which seeks to ensure that growth in housing and urban development is safe, equitable, and environmentally conscious. UN Target 11.5 highlights the importance of this effort as it sets the target to “significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters…with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations” (1). 

Kostas Kalfas (Ph.D. student and researcher), Corrie A. Harris (Portfolio Manager), JuliaGrace Walker (Undergraduate Project Manager), Sam Borton (Undergraduate Research Analysis), and Dr. Nicos Makris.

Even middle-class urban residents in Peru’s urban environment often reside in poorly constructed confined masonry houses which, in the case of a severe earthquakes, are at the risk of suffering serious damage. Professional construction is expensive and beyond reach for the majority of Peruvians. For this reason, the seismic protection market is increasingly narrowing its focus to low-cost solutions. One of the goals of this project has been to evaluate existing low-cost solutions accessible for most Peruvians (2). Finding that even “low-cost” solutions are out of reach for most Peruvians, Dr. Makris makes an alternate proposition. Rocking isolation offers great potential as an innovative and economical alternative for seismic protection, but it has yet to be implemented as low-cost housing reinforcement. Makris’ emerging system of seismic protection could address the pressing need for affordable seismic protection of existing masonry structures.

Sam Borton, Hunt Institute Undergraduate Research Analyst, made a significant contribution to this post with his market analysis of low-cost seismic protection. The complete analysis will be released in a future post. Stay tuned to read more!

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

  1. About the Sustainable Development Goals – United Nations Sustainable Development. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
  2. Blondet, M., & Loaiza, C. (2020). Vulnerabilidad Sísmica de las Construcciones en el Perú: Informe Preliminar. Lecture presented in Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú: Departamento de Ingeniería.
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Sustainable Food Systems

The Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program is a social enterprise incubator focused on developing and improving food systems in Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex and across the globe. According to Harvard School of Public Health, food system is defined as “all the elements and activities that relate to production, processing, distribution, preparation, and consumption of food.” So what does it mean to create a sustainable food system? The Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines a sustainable food system as one that “delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social, and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised.”

In the article linked below from the International Monetary Fund, the authors share why now, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it is even more crucial that we work as a society to rebuild our food systems in a sustainable way. More importantly, they argue, that now is the perfect time to do so as we simultaneously work to rebuild our economies. The article outlines four key components that must be in place for a sustainable food system to function: resilient food supply chains, healthy diets, regenerative farming, and conservation. Read the article to discover more about sustainable food systems.

To learn more about the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program, visit smu.edu/socialenterprise. For more case studies and examples, stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

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What is Social Entrepreneurship?

Hunt Institute's Social Enterprise Program

In his article “The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship”, Greg Dees, co-founder of Duke Fuqua’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE), defines social entrepreneurs as “change agents in the social sector”.

Furthermore, he outlines 5 characteristics that social entrepreneurs exhibit:

  • “Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value), 
  • Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission, 
  • Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning, 
  • Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and 
  • Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created.”
Graphic from SocialImpactArchitects.com

The above elements often take the shape of a social enterprise, an organization that is pursuing a social or environmental mission using business methods. Social enterprises are catalytic innovators who produce disruptive innovations. These organizations are key to directly addressing social needs in under-resourced communities using entrepreneurial strategies. The objective of the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program (SEP) is to support innovative, early-stage social entrepreneurs in overcoming common obstacles and accelerating the societal impact of their social enterprises.

Social entrepreneurs can also act as change agents within large organizations, corporations, government or nonprofits. These social intrapreneurs pursue innovation, change, and impact within their ecosystem. As an example, Kazi Huque and Narayan Sundararajan, colleagues at Intel, partnered with Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank to create Grameen Intel Social Business LTD. Now branded as Technology for Social Impact, the organization exists to find affordable technological solutions to improve the lives of people in developing parts of the world.

The graphic featured in this post, from Suzanne Smith of Social Impact Architects, is helpful in distinguishing between the common terms used within the social impact space. Click here to read Suzanne’s blog to learn more. Stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest to learn more about our Social Enterprise, case studies of social entrepreneurs, and other examples.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

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Owen Lynch, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Restorative Farms

Dallas has one of the largest food deserts in the country and is also one of the most-at-risk cities for food supply disruption. This makes Dallas the perfect location to launch a coalition like Restorative Farms which was co-founded by Dr. Owen Lynch, a Hunt Institute Senior Fellow and SMU professor. Restorative Farms was started in 2017, but it is based on a cumulation of ten years of research on food deserts, food swamps, and urban Agri-Systems—some of which was done in partnership with the Hunt Institute, which focuses on Sustainable Food Systems as one of its three key areas.

Hatcher Station Training Farm and Community Garden (HSTFCG)

Since its founding in 2017, Restorative Farms has launched a seedling farm at the MLK Community Center in South Dallas and the Hatcher Station Training Farm and Community Garden (HSTFCG) in Spring of 2020. At the heart of both the MLK Seedling Farm and Hatcher Station Training Farm is Master Gardener Tyrone Day, who is from the community and manages the farm.

The objective of Restorative Farms is to be a self- sustaining nonprofit farm that will not only grow local food, but train and grow local urban farming professionals. The MLK Seedling Farm produced 20,000 seedlings per year as of Spring 2019 and that number is projected to reach Produce from Restorative Farms40,000 by 2020. These seedlings, combined with the training that will be offered at Hatcher Farms, will ultimately provide the resources and training needed for people in South Dallas to start community gardens and keep them up and running. Hatcher Farms and the MLK Seedling Farm are just Restorative Farms first steps in bringing Dallas closer to having a sustainable local food system.

To read more about Owen and Restorative Farms, visit the website at restorativefarms.com . To learn more about the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program, visit smu.edu/socialenterprise. Check the Hunt Institute Digest next week to meet another amazing entrepreneur.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.