Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Climate Solutions All the Rage at SOCAP ’15 Social Entrepreneurship Conference

This guest post comes from Hannah Doress ’88 of Hannah Doress Events/ Word Out Consulting, who attended SOCAP with free tickets from the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship thanks to the generosity of Tim Freundlich. As a 20 year event producer and promoter, and someone who lives to advance climate solutions, you can imagine my reaction when…

He Began Shining Hope for Communities with a Soccer Ball

On Friday, November 6th, Wesleyan hosted a WESeminar: Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum. Kennedy Odede ’12, founder of SHOFCO, spoke about developing a community organization in Kibera, Nairobi, meeting his wife, Jessica Posner Odede ’09 through is work, and graduating from Wesleyan. Kennedy and Jessica shared their story through…

I Changed My Mind About Entrepreneurship

  As director of Wesleyan’s Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, I work to support students who want to tackle the world’s pressing problems with innovative, disruptive, system-changing, scalable, sustainable solutions. In other words: to support entrepreneurs. Well, I have a confession. For a long time, I believed that most mission-driven students should not, in fact,…

PCSE Seed Grants in Action: Report #2 from Assk

The Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship awards annual seed grants to fund the launch or early stage growth of a Wesleyan-connected social enterprise, project, program, or venture. Each grantee reports back with blog posts and photos. Here’s the second report from Rachel Verner ’15, founder of Assk, a company that strives to normalize sexual consent through apparel and education, thereby preventing…

Advising in the Patricelli Center

The Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship (PCSE) supports students and alumni interested in creating and sustaining programs, businesses, and organizations that advance the public good. As part of this mission, we offer advising to students and student groups working on social entrepreneurship, civic engagement, and service projects. You can schedule a session with someone on our…

Money, Money, Money

There is money and support available from a wide variety of sources for aspiring social entrepreneurs and changemakers, but it’s not always easy to find these resources. Following is a round-up of grants, prizes, and fellowships that Patricelli Center team members Luciana Contreras ’16 and Jennifer Roach‘14 have been reading about recently. Some are available only to current undergraduates,…

OCS Ice Cream Party and Fall Allbritton Luncheon

Campus is very quiet over the summer, with just the maneuverings of summer classes and the occasional burst of noise from a middle school summer camp to keep us company. I started my position as the Civic Engagement Fellow in June, at the beginning of the calmest time of year on campus. After a few months…

Introducing the 2015-2016 PCSE Peer Advisors

The Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship (PCSE) supports students and alumni interested in creating and sustaining programs, businesses, and organizations that advance the public good. We believe that Wesleyan graduates are practical idealists uniquely equipped to tackle the world’s pressing problems, and we support their work through our advising, grant, workshop, and board residency programs.…

2015 Davis Projects for Peace recap from Claudia Kahindi ’18

In March 2015, Claudia Kahindi ’18 and Olayinka Lawal ’15 were awarded a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant to implement an English language education program in Claudia’s home town of Kilifi, Kenya. The program is named Kiu for the Swahili word for “thirst,” evoking the idea of “thirst for knowledge” or “thirst for success.” The…