February marks Black History Month, an opportunity to pay tribute to generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society. In this spirit, today we hear from Net Impact’s Dwight Smith about how Net Impact is organizing to bring the concept of “impact careers” to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Net Impact started on business school campuses more than 22 years ago. Back then, the concept that business should not only aim to create economic gains, but also embrace business models and strategies which generate social and environmental benefits, was still considered fringe. Early Net Impacters worked in chapters on their campuses and were made up of MBA students hungry to explore what an impact job could and should look like – a job that allowed them to use their future careers to drive transformational change in the workplace and the world.
Over the past two decades, due in large part to the efforts of Net Impact and other like-minded organizations, the concepts of sustainability, corporate responsibility, and social entrepreneurship have become more mainstream in the business world. Likewise, Net Impact has grown into a robust network of over 60,000 students and professionals in over 300 chapters around the world.
More diverse backgrounds, viewpoints, and life experiences in the workplace lead to better innovation, improved decision-making, and products and services that better meet the diverse needs of a global marketplace. Knowing this, many businesses, and business schools, have sought to diversify their ranks. And now, Net Impact has started to address the lack of diversity in the impact business world. Net Impact aims to ensure that future leaders from diverse backgrounds are inspired to incorporate social and environmental impact into their careers.
In order to accomplish this, we have set a goal to increase the diversity of Net Impact’s network, and partnered with Symantec to establish undergraduate chapters at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and women’s colleges. Historically, interested groups of students or professionals would take the initiative to start a chapter. To be successful in this new endeavor, we had to adopt an active approach to cultivating campus relationships with these new audiences.
Establishing chapters at HBCUs presents some unique challenges. HBCU’s were born in an era where young black boys and girls were denied even the most basic right to higher learning. They are small and beautifully tight-knit communities where the adage ‘It takes a village...” is exemplified in excellent fashion. As a result, faculty and staff can be wary of outside organizations and vet them to confirm that their intentions are in the student's best interest. It’s up to us to build trust. It is also up to us to learn, to listen and acknowledge the histories and injustices that contribute to that very valid vetting approach. We focus on the value Net Impact could bring to their students. We approach this work with a mindset that respects the legacy of HBCUs, and we work within the existing constructs and hierarchies to explore how Net Impact can fit on campus.
We make the case for the crucial role that the HBCU community can play in addressing the racial inequities and barriers that still exist in the business world today by bringing the voices of their institutions and most importantly, their students, to the table via the Net Impact network. Not only addressing issues stemming from past oppression but looking ahead, we submit that the impact sector and more broadly, the business sector, can play a pivotal role in helping to eradicate the systemic and structural race inequity that exists in many of our institutions today; inequities that in the past gave initial cause for the existence of HBCU’s.
All of our challenges have led us to amazing opportunities. When we sit down with administrators, we are having great conversations. More importantly, when we sit down with students, they are showing a lot of interest. The timing is right for these campuses – they’re eager to find ways to support students in both their academic lives as well as their future professional lives, and the students are eager for personal and professional development and the opportunity to turn their passions into action.
Last year, we launched 5 chapters, and had 10 more in the pipeline for launch. This year, with the continuation of Symantec’s grant, we plan to launch these 10 chapters, plus an additional 10. We’re starting to see some great success stories. The chapter at Spelman College showed enormous resiliency in getting their chapter off the ground despite the departure of their faculty advisor, and now has some really great collaborations planned with the Atlanta University Center. At Jackson State University, they’ve decided to focus on health and housing issues, and are working with Habitat for Humanity to build affordable housing in the communities around their school. It’s exciting to see these chapters’ efforts begin to bear fruit.
This is just our first step towards our goal to significantly diversify Net Impact’s network, and we’re learning as we go. For example, last year’s efforts taught us that the timeline of the chapter launch process from first contact to chapter launch is closer to a two year process than the one year we had initially estimated. We are working with Symantec support to iterate our process in light of that discovery. We want to continue our growth not only in depth but in breadth as well. We would like to continue building partnerships with other minority-serving institutions, as well as explore what Net Impact chapters for non-business majors could look like. For instance, think of the tremendous opportunity that STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) majors have for driving sustainable transformation within a company, or industry.
And finally, we are determined to find ways to further integrate a commitment to diversity into Net Impact’s culture and strategy. We’re not looking at this as a “project” – this is just the starting point for us and there is much work left to be done. We’ll be looking at ways to ingrain a pledge to diversity and racial equity across our existing chapters, and continue to highlight and encourage new chapters in new communities. All of our chapters are truly inspirational.
Together, we can pave the way for some really important work. Together, we can have an impact.
Dwight Smith is Net Impact’s Senior Associate, Undergraduate Programs.