Brewing With Social Entrepreneurship: Thoughts From An International Student In America

When I moved from Ghana to study at Concordia College, Moorhead MN in August, 2012, I quickly found out that Becoming Responsibly Engaged in the World (BREW) was intertwined with the mission of the college. The mission of the college itself states, “The purpose of Concordia College is to influence the affairs of the world by sending into society thoughtful and informed men and women dedicated to the Christian life.” BREW is more than a slogan to me. It is the embodiment of what the college’s mission is. Besides serving at church and having done a semester-full service at a local non-profit called Churches United for the Homeless, there have been two very defining moments for me in what I call my BREWing journey.

Before I describe those two defining moments, I would like to describe how I became passionate about social entrepreneurship. I have always had compassion for other people and that grew when I served as the student leader at my high school - Okuapemman Senior High School. I studied at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana before transferring to the USA. At UCC, something happened while I was reading a national newspaper in the hall library. I came across an article in which the President of Gambia had said, “The people of Gambia must be foolish to not re-elect me.” I felt a rage brew up within me because this man was trying to show impunity to the electoral process and also to exceed his allowable terms of office. It was right there in that library that I came up with an idea after considerable deliberation about what the solution to most of Africa’s problems could be. I decided to create the Motivated and Patriotic Africans (MPA) not-for-profit organization. I believed and still do that if the youth of Africa are educated, provided with motivating leadership and inspired with patriotism, they would strive to make their countries better. What about the older folk? They need to collaborate with the young and set the right examples. They are not too old to start dreaming the dreams of our founding fathers.

This is the time for the young to collaborate with the older folk, think and rise up to the challenge of creating a new Africa. Unfortunately, after working on MPA for a couple of months, I had to leave for the USA which seemed to have placed the movement on hold. The MPA dream still lives on until the day it is realized through action. This was the beginning of my passion for social entrepreneurship. I like to call it doing anything that makes the world a better place for the sake of the world, not ourselves. “In their new book, Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works (HBRP, 2015) Roger Martin and Sally Osberg define a social entrepreneur as someone who not only advocates for social change but also creates a new social equilibrium.” (Denning, 2015) This sounds magnificent to me and I could see myself or a few other people running into our shells and saying this is too big for us. This is for that man or that woman, not us. The truth is everyone can make the world a better place in their homes or communities in every little way possible. They just have to see it through the lens of significance. The first defining moment for me at Concordia was during the 2013 Orientation for freshmen. I served as an Orientation Assistant and helped mainly with the logistics and peripheral activities of orientation. I had to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone because my biggest fear was that I would not understand or relate to the American culture well enough to help the American students. Normally, international students serve during the orientation of new internationals. But a friend of mine, Linzi Napier, helped me believe in myself and it was one of the most rewarding decisions I ever took. It was not easy and sometimes I felt that I just did not fit in.

But focusing on the bigger goal, and not myself helped me make it through. I also had a lot of fun. Most importantly, this experience took away more of my timidity and got me even more excited about helping others. My second experience with social entrepreneurship involved working with my friend, Matt Gantz, on creating my college’s first start-up incubator. That has now evolved into what we call Cobber Consulting. It is going to be an avenue for students to BREW by helping infant social enterprises (not-for-profits or for-profits with social mission) to build their organization. It will be done through doing research for the organization, offering a collaborative workspace, among other resources that these organizations may or may not pay for, determined on a case by case basis. Being a part of this changed my life. We had our first-ever BREW-U event which helped students find their passions and discover their creative minds so that they can better determine who they want to become. Obviously, social entrepreneurship may not appeal to everyone, but it can help people be who they want to be. I also had to stretch myself once again here. Once this was on the college radar, I had to start attending committee meetings about developing this into a curriculum and potentially a social institute.

This has been a great journey. Most people see the need to effect change and help others as far as they can, but the important thing to remember is that it does not matter how small or big the help is – as long as it is carried out. The other important thing is that change usually begins with one person. I have a feeling I am going to keep BREWing with social entrepreneurship no matter where I am, or wherever life takes me.