We train the leaders of tomorrow, today.
Social Impact 360 (SI360) is the first and largest mentorship-based training organization for young social entrepreneurs on college campuses nationwide. We train young people how to identify and build solutions to social problems using business and entrepreneurship skills to maximize social impact.
In only one year, SI360 students build their own social enterprise to solve a social issue under the guidance of peer mentors. Our new curriculum will include modules on how to maximize impact using systems, partnerships, and entrepreneurial problem solving.
We Are the Future of Business.
We’re a movement for a new status quo. Social enterprise is the future of business, and it is our hope that we can set forth a movement in the business community to spark a new status quo –where all businesses operate with social good at the heart and forefront of all they do.
We believe we need solutions-focused, multi-disciplinary, entrepreneurial thinking to tackle the problems of tomorrow. We believe the new knowledge economy, technology, and a changing job landscape requires a new education paradigm to prepare leaders for a future workforce. That paradigm is SI360. Training students in one college major or way of thinking simply won’t cut it — we’re combining them.
By training the leaders of tomorrow to find solutions through social entrepreneurship, we believe we can build a world where values-based business leaders are the norm — and doing the right thing for society is expected.
We are a youth-led, youth-designed, non-traditional education model for a future non-traditional workforce.
Curriculum.
WE TEACH PRACTICAL SKILLS AND HAVE STUDENTS LEARN BY DOING.
SI360’s core curriculum teaches the best and the brightest budding college-aged social entrepreneurs to build businesses for good in one year by putting their entrepreneurial skills to the test. Under the direction of an experienced, nationwide N+ 1 peer-mentor network, our students work through the full development and testing of their own ventures created for social impact.
Our module-based, experiential learning curriculum trains them with skills necessary to become social entrepreneurs and build their own social enterprises. Our core curriculum features modules on topics such as incorporating your venture, developing operations, recruiting a team, securing funding, and branding for success.
Students return to their communities equipped with the most unique combination of capabilities: to both identify and solve the social problems of their own time via sustainable entrepreneurial ventures.
Sneak peek of some modules
- INCORPORATING YOUR VENTURE
Students are asked to research the incorporation process and different business structures using resources provided and are led through exercises with their mentor to discover which is best to incorporate their venture. - BRANDING FOR SUCCESS
This module asks students to review case studies and resources on venture branding, reviewing customers’ reactions, while simultaneously allowing them to exercise these same skills as applied to their venture.
Our Model.
WE TEACH PASSIONATE STUDENTS TO EMBRACE AN ENTREPRENEURIAL AND VALUES-ORIENTED MINDSET, WHICH HELPS THEM TACKLE ANY PROBLEM HEADFIRST.
Throughout the curriculum, we weave together self-expression and storytelling, empathy, collaboration, adaptation, and problem solving. We help the fellows cultivate this mindset through four teaching methods:
The N+1 Model.
SI360’s proven N+1 mentoring model is unique in social entrepreneurship training and effective — motivation to learn comes from students who are only one step ahead of you.
Students are guided through the program by former SI360 students who have become mentors. Students who have excelled in the SI360 program can choose to go through a rigorous application process led by current mentors who have been through the program themselves and taught the courses. Current mentors then choose the youth leaders who will become the next class of mentors and lead the next class in instruction as upperclassmen.
Individuals naturally compare their opinions and abilities most closely to those whom they can easily identify. Unlike other social entrepreneurship programs, we have infused N+1 mentorship at each level of leadership in our community.
Grassroots, National Network.
SI360 is a grassroots, national network. In contrast to university-based social innovation and entrepreneurship departments, SI360 is a national network of young social entrepreneurs dedicated to social enterprise, creating solutions to social problems throughout their careers and changing the status quo. SI360 has than 1,000 alumni across the country dedicated to business for good.
Experiential Learning.
Experience alone does not drive learning; it comes from subsequent observation, reflection, and testing. Our fellows are put through intensive entrepreneurial training around a venture in line with their values. This venture could be a socially conscious for-profit company, a nonprofit, a branch of another organization, a social movement, or more. Through weekly modules, small groups, and one-on-one meetings between the fellows and mentors, there is ample opportunity for reflection, observation, and support throughout the venture creation process.
100% Youth-Lead.
At every level of SI360, our young leaders are creating strategy as well as implementing and executing on their ideas, similar to our programming. We empower young social entrepreneurs to create SI360, in addition to their own social ventures. We focus on creating peer communities that encourage collaboration and the work ethic necessary for the entrepreneurial process. We urge the fellows to identify knowledge gaps and proactively work on them together.
SI360 is convened by our National Council, an active, working student and alumni body that acts as a decision-maker and liaison between university chapters and headquarters. The National Council is tasked with making sure the SI360 network reflects the youth voice, and it is entirely staffed with youth, including current SI360 students, mentors, and alumni of the program. SI360’s Board of Directors has alumni representatives and a seat for the Chair of the National Council. Working alongside our Board of Directors at SI360, the young people SI360 serves are truly at the top of our leadership structure.
Differentiated, Values-based Instruction.
No two people are motivated by the same set of experiences. Personal growth, a crucial part of the SI360 experience, can only be achieved by a differentiated approach to instruction. Intimate, long-term conversations and relationships help fellows recognize their values, along with their personal strengths and weaknesses, so they can develop a plan for their future.
On a larger scale, SI360 pulls from the structures of a traditional university to create a unique education experience for the fellows. SI360 students sign up for values-based teaching, including a focus on the importance of ethics, and agree to live up to the SI360 values, including participate proactively, commit unreasonably, live consciously, and think adventurously.
Our Impact.
We’re tracking the successes of our early classes. Our first class graduated an accomplished group of social enterprise professionals that went on to develop their ventures into full-fledged businesses, including Riide, Encore, and Speech4Good. We’re also working to continue to build the network between these successful alumni and our current fellows and mentors.
We’re gearing up for a bright future. In partnership with Deloitte, we’re re-tooling our curriculum to empower students to use their experience in the program to maximize their social impact in all sectors. This portion of the curriculum will teach students how to interact as social entrepreneurs with and within large corporations to create social change. We’re working on new learning tools specifically designed for fellows and alumni as well as a certification model that would certify students in our Social Impact 360 Model.
We’re developing the voice of the next generation in business. We have a national network of the country’s leading young people in business and social entrepreneurship, and we want to know what their vision for the future will be. We hope to work with companies to begin preparing for the workforce of a new generation.
“We wanted to major in entrepreneurship for a social purpose. At the time, there were no classes in it. So we decided to design our own.”
How we got started…
After finding that the formal education system had no practical, hands-on learning experience for students who wanted to build businesses for a social purpose, Neil Shah, and Arthur Woods founded Social Impact 360. They teamed up with Marissa Siefkes, Mike Durante, and Aaron Hollub to launch the inaugural fellowship for the the program.
SI360 (formerly Compass Partners) started from humble beginnings. Out of a rowhouse in Washington, DC, with hundred-hour weeks, the founders built the first and largest mentoring organization in the country for young social entrepreneurs.
To build the first iteration of the curriculum in 2009, they created a pilot at Georgetown University. SI360’s practical, skill-based social enterprise curriculum was born with a small grant, one slide deck, and 15 college freshmen.
The program caught on like wildfire.
A massive grassroots following of the best, brightest, and most enterprising students at major universities across the country formed — all focused on changing the world.
In fall of 2010, SI360 brought the Compass Fellowship to five schools nationwide, doubling that reach the following year. Moved by SI360’s rapid growth and unique mission, the Kenneth Cole Foundation funded the national expansion of the program in its third year and Thomas Raffa and Raffa Financial Services, Inc. provided critical space and support to the program to help it evolve. By the fall of 2014, SI360 graduated 1,000 alumni (including fellows and student mentors). The SI360 program now operates out of 12 major universities across the country annually and has more than 1,000 world-changing alumni across the country.
SI360 Family.
Our staff is based in Washington, DC. Headquarters is responsible for expanding our programming to new campuses and regions, building regional and national partnerships with leaders and key organizations, organizing national events including our annual national conference, and regularly assessing and improving our programs.
Our National Council consists of alumni and mentors who have shown exemplary leadership throughout their SI360 experience. The council is our “brain trust” on all things SI360, including developing programmatic best practices and creating a mentor orientation for all incoming mentors prior to the start of the school year.
Learn more about our leadership team, including our board members.
14 Campuses
Allison Alt
Executive Director
Allison is a strong believer in this generation’s ability to change the world. She created her first youth leadership project at age 16.
After founding the first Big Brothers Big Sisters at the University of Florida, she took her law degree and policy knowledge to Generations United in Washington, D.C., where she advocated for children and older adults with Children’s Defense Fund and AARP on Capitol Hill, at the White House, and the Department of Education. Recruited to Year Up National Capital Region, she helped create the largest youth-serving nonprofit in recent history. She’s been helping nonprofits achieve social impact ever since.
Allison leads more than 1,000 Social Impact 360 alums and students at 12 chapters operating out of major universities across the nation, including Duke, Emory, Fordham, and Georgetown.
