Career Coaching Case Study
January 2022
Razan H. had worked with SICC team members for two years during high school, helping her build her resume with impactful activities, involving her in social entrepreneurship projects including NonProphetMedia, and preparing her for a rigorous set of college choices and college applications, from essays to feedback on letters of recommendation.
“I got lots of help from SICC. We couldn’t afford expensive college counselors. Also, the counselors at my high school mainly help kids with general issues. They don’t know much about college stuff. The most they might do is write a rec letter, and even for that I have to put together all the material they need to write it.”
With the team’s help, she won admission to a selective liberal arts college, and the scholarship and financial aid package made college accessible to her. However, the college - like most all institutions - saw its revenues and financial aid resources diminished due to the pandemic.
This affected her, as it has students across the country. More than 600,000 students dropped out of college during the first year of the pandemic due to financial reasons, according to the Pew Research Center. Worse, one in five people who held federal student loans - more than 8,600,000 Americans - were in default on their loans in 2021, with amounts averaging $36,510.
Razan faced a difficult dilemma. Her college required her family to take out a prohibitively high loan package so she could stay in school, but her parents lacked the established credit history to do so. Co-signers were not an option.
“They told me that I would not be able to enroll in Spring courses unless we made up the gap between their scholarship and aid offer and the total cost. When David found out about the impossible situation for me and my family, he spoke directly with two of the administrators of the financial aid office. He advocated for me. Later the same day, they offered me a package that allowed me to continue my studies. I only had to pay a few hundred dollars out of pocket. I can’t exaggerate how relieved and grateful my parents and I are for all the support we’ve gotten from SICC.”
2021 Highlights
NonProfitMedia - a spin-off of a SICC project in 2020 incorporated as an independent non-profit organization. NonProfitMedia is entirely run by SICC team members, and it has employed four university students and six part-time high school students. In their first three months of operation, NonProphetMedia won a top prize in a business plan competition, after coaching from SICC senior advisors, and earned a national contract to produce a film and educational materials with the USDA in Washington D.C.
Seven families advised at no cost for social entrepreneurship project-based learning, college preparation, and career coaching
Feedback given at no cost to individual students or families in need on nineteen college applications, including preparing profiles and resumes to prep referees for recommendation letters, college choice and college counseling, essay review, scholarship applications
Coaching and advocacy provided to families and students weighing admissions and financial aid offers.
Socrit.io proof-of-concept development as a whole-classroom or small-group card game for use in a wide range of classroom activities from primary, secondary, and post-secondary classrooms. Socrit.io’s mission is to make individual motivation, emotional intelligence, tolerance, teamwork, conflict resolution, and social entrepreneurship project-based learning accessible to anyone anywhere, independent of technology
Socrit.io adds experts in psychology, therapy, and family counseling to the dev team
The project collaboration on NonProphet Media and the USDA was based on years of work by SICC team members, dating back to 2011 and the founding of PlanetRecapture, an environmental and educational initiative that worked the Iowa DNR to provide kids in dozens of area schools with hands-on educational opportunities to learn about water quality, P and N loading, and other environmental issues. Many of the core founders of PlanetRecapture went on to study at institutions such as Columbia, Georgia Tech College of Engineering, Dartmouth, MIT, Princeton, Cal Tech, and Yale.
NonProphet Media is incorporated as an Iowa nonprofit organization
May 2021
NonProphet Media also began a long-term education and advocacy project on Miscanthus biofuel grass working with researchers at the University of Iowa, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Iowa State University, and ENGIE Inc./UI Power Plant.
SICC involved high school students in the green energy social entrepreneurship initiative, and area high school STEM educators are advising the team on ways to incorporate some of the genetic, agricultural, and environmental issues into their lesson plans.
NonProphet Media promotes and protects the region’s greatest resources by producing impactful short films, social media content, and educational materials for university labs and social entrepreneurship organizations, connecting discovery with social impact, creating jobs for talented high school and university students, including disadvantaged populations, and increasing STEM engagement and social entrepreneurship project-based learning for K-12 teachers, students and families.
NonProphet Media wins funding through JPEC
March 2021
NonProphetMedia, co-founded by three SICC coaches, and advised by David, wins the top prize in the Social Business category in the John Pappajohn New Venture Competition.
“We came into the competition already having earned revenue for most of a year, and we already had an impressive portfolio of film projects launched,” said Nick Pryor, NPM co-founder. “The $3,500 prize helped us purchase more film production equipment.”
The winning NPM value proposition is as follows:
Affordable and impactful educational video and social media content for scientists and social entrepreneurs
Making the entire video production process an educational and value-added enterprise
Connecting high school students with more experienced filmmakers in college and beyond
Work with teacher advisors to create free curricula and lesson plans for K-12 schools
Empower professors and research scientists to connect virtually with K-12 schools to supplement free curriculum, greatly increasing impact and scope of outreach and education
Projects create valuable work experience and educational opportunities for students interested in video production, storytelling, and marketing
2020-2021 projects involve environmental sustainability in agriculture, community service, and conservation efforts at a local and national scale
P-TRAP App Launched With Help from SICC and NonProphet Media
January 2021
SICC team members and NonProphet Media worked over the second half of 2020 with the USDA-ARS National Soil Erosion Laboratory at Purdue University to test and improve the free computer application P-TRAP, as well as to promote its launch with a video and related educational materials.
P-TRAP is the product of two decades of research by Prof. Chad Penn at the National Soil Erosion Laboratory, identifying and testing filtration media to remove phosphorus and nitrogen from fertilizer application before it pollutes waterways and threatens wildlife and drinking water, as well as developing edge-of-field filtration systems.
Team members as well as high school students gained experience testing P-TRAP, identifying bugs, and even helping to develop code to improve the UI-UX to make the app easier to use.
Farmers can use P-TRAP to optimize fertilizer application, saving them money while reducing runoff. P-TRAP also helps them design their own filtration systems and calculates how well certain filtration media will work in their system.
NonProphetMedia’s video featuring P-TRAP helps educate farmers about best practices, the value of P-TRAP, and promises to make a significant impact on the environment as the technology becomes more widely adopted.
SICC Promotes Recreation and Sustainability by growing an Iowa Community Organization
October 2020
Three SICC team members worked with a community-based organization in Eastern Iowa promoting water quality and recreation, called the Iowa Coalition for Open Water Swimming. iCOWS unites professionals and young people, and includes among its members several world-class swimmers as well as newcomers to the sport.
iCOWS faced a recruitment dilemma though. The Army Corps of Engineers, which manages Lake McBride State Park, required kayakers to accompany swimmers at whatever pace they swim.
“We were always short of kayakers,” said Prof. Tom Casavant, one of the iCOWS organizers. “We needed help with recruitment, and a professional video was perfect for that. What they made for us is beautiful. We’ve seen more kayakers and swimmers coming out with us than ever.”
SICC and HS Students in Ohio, Illinois and Iowa Promote Sustainable and Equitable Urban Development
August 2020
SICC provides opportunities for high school students to work with the Roberto Clemente Block Club and the Clark-Fulton Neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio in documenting the first gathering of the Roberto Clemente Block Club. The Block Club is an effort to bring together Latino, Black, White, and other native and immigrant communities in this underdeveloped area of Cleveland around an ambitious redevelopment project called Clark-Fulton Together.
Though team members shot video on site in Cleveland, since the pandemic has shut down schools and typical internship and college prep programs across the country, high school students from Ohio to Iowa collaborated virtually on the project, providing help on graphic design, transcriptions from Spanish,
“Even though I was only a sophomore, being involved in a project like this was really exciting for me,” said Caroline M. from Iowa City. “Since I’m a native Spanish speaker, it was easy for me to help, and I learned a ton about urban issues that I didn’t have experience with growing up in a smaller city.”
SICC and HS Students Develop Educational Materials for USDA-ARS National Soil Erosion Laboratory, Purdue, and Ohio State
June 2020
SICC team members collaborated with Prof. Chad Penn from the USDA-Agricultural Research Service at Purdue University, and Prof. Kevin King and his research team from The Ohio State University, on documenting an innovative phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizer edge-of-field filtration system in Ohio.
Dr. Penn is the most-cited scholar in the world in P and N mitigation systems. Our water quality globally depends on his work, since agricultural runoff threatens our waterways by causing algal blooms that kill fish and wildlife, as well as contaminate drinking water, such as in 2014 when the 600,000 residents of Toledo went weeks without municipal drinking water due to a toxic algal bloom.
The project collaboration was based on years of work by SICC team members, dating back to 2011 and the founding of PlanetRecapture, an environmental and educational initiative that worked the Iowa DNR to provide kids in dozens of area schools with hands-on educational opportunities to learn about water quality, P and N loading, and other environmental issues. Many of the core founders of PlanetRecapture went on to study at institutions such as Columbia, Georgia Tech College of Engineering, Dartmouth, MIT, Princeton, Cal Tech, and Yale.
MusiCommunity in the Media
May 2020
Caroline Mascardo’s story in the West Side Story paper is an excellent summary of how MusiCommunity got started in the Iowa City Community.
Thank you also to team members Liam Edberg, Andrew Burgess, Matti Brandenburg, and Elizabeth Wan for the effort in MusiCommunity’s transition to virtual lessons and social media!
MusiCommunity expands from Iowa to Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio
May 2020
MusiCommunity team members organized and started lessons in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and in Naperville, Illinois. Work was facilitated by the first regional MusiCommunity meeting, including members from four states.
School districts have found that using existing peer mentoring programs is a great way to encourage educators to reach out to students in need of supplemental instruction, as well as to accomplished older musicians and vocalists who can serve as student teachers in their MusiCommunity teams. Iowa City’s “Orchestra Buddies” program and Worthington’s “Cards 4 Kids” mentorship programs are ideal programs in which MusiCommunity can thrive.
MusiCommunity Presentation at Iowa String Teacher Conference
April 2020
Credit: ISTA
MusiCommunity’s model was presented to the Annual Conference of the Iowa String Teachers’ Association by its President-elect and MusiCommunity Advisor, Jon Welch. Like MusiCommunity, the ISTA was forced to hold its conference virtually. Many educators expressed strong interest in the MusiCommunity model. Districts across the state are exploring ways to incorporate MusiCommunity as a supplement to their curriculum as they plan for the fall.
MusiCommunity and SICC Partner with the Iowa City Community School District
April 2020
With 26 schools, over 15,000 students and 3,000 faculty and staff, the Iowa City Community School District is among the most economically and racially diverse in the state of Iowa. The 2014-2015 school year was the first without music for any of the fourth graders. The gaps in opportunities for those students have been noted by music educators in the district each year since. MusiCommunity has stepped in to fill those gaps and meet those needs.
The ICCSD Superintendent’s Office approved MusiCommunity and SICC as partner organizations, allowing administrators, educators, parents, and students to work with SICC and MusiCommunity to refine and replicate the model district-wide.
MusiCommunity Expands in Eastern Iowa, Moves Online
March 2020
In the winter of 2018, two SICC team members began to reach out to a handful of fifth and sixth graders whose families could not afford music lessons. They taught piano, guitar, and voice, focusing on the immigrant communities, mainly from Central America and North Sudan.
Seeking to broaden impact, SICC reached out to afterschool programs and partnered with the Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County. A team of high school students from Iowa City West, Liberty High in North Liberty, and City High School in Iowa City, received training and authorization from social worker and volunteer supervisor Chastity Dillard.
Instead of independent, individual lessons, more gradeschoolers can now participate in group lessons, expanding impact. Afterschool programs are also sites for MusiCommunity, a model that is planned to be used for a network of area schools during popular summer programs.
Several of the top musicians in the area are involved, including the concertmasters of the West High and City High orchestras.
With support and advice from Jon Welch, Director of Orchestra Programs at West High School, and who was involved in a similar program while teaching at Princeton Schools in Cincinnati, MusiCommunity continues to grow.
Younger student leaders have also been recruited so that once the core group of co-founders graduates in May 2020, others will take the helm.
SICC Partners with Worthington Schools
December 2019
Worthington Schools, a well-resourced, economically and ethnically diverse, and high-performing school district in a large northern suburb of Columbus, Ohio, was seeking new opportunities for a wide range of students to learn by doing, improve career prospects, and make college more affordable and accessible.
SICC’s unique approach to social entrepreneurship education, and its record of outstanding success with schools and school districts in Iowa, made it a perfect partner for Worthington.
With the leadership and encouragement of Pete Scully, Principal of Thomas Worthington High School, who made a series of presentations to recruit a core group of student leaders, the Social Entrepreneurship Incubator began to take shape. Thomas Worthington is the largest school in the district, with an enrollment of 1,700 and a tremendous need for sustainable project-based learning opportunities that enable its students to compete for selective colleges, while gaining valuable career-focused experience.
Faculty are already challenged with existing demands, so involving Worthington parents and the wider community in mentoring students as well as developing and implementing social entrepreneurship projects is crucial.
Sean Flynn, Principal of Phoenix Middle School, is also working closely with SICC to involve students in interdisciplinary, project-based learning opportunities that make a social impact. Phoenix is especially interested in a Zero Waste Initiative, based in large part on the food waste diversion and composting model that SICC team members developed from 2011-2013, and similar to the initiative at Tolles Tech.
Rather than taking a top-down approach, SICC’s experiential learning model based on the Seven Impact Questions is allowing students to take ownership and help lead the initiative.
David Gives Keynote Address on Social Entrepreneurship Education, College and Career Prep
October 2019
After working with leading faculty and administrators at Tolles Career and Technical Center in Plain City, serving the Western suburbs of Columbus. Tolles administration invited David to address their annual meeting of Advisory Boards. Nearly 800 Advisory Board members provide significant community engagement and support to Tolles and its 1,500 junior and senior high school students. David was joined by SICC Advisor, School Liaison, and Vocational and Special Ed Coordinator Annette Badamy. The SICC team also met with individual Advisory Boards during their work and planning sessions.
David’s presentation focused on social entrepreneurship opportunities that can engage students, faculty, and Advisory Board members across all their programs, from STEM, business, and communication, to agriculture and automotive technology, and from health and medical professions, to cosmetology and pre-veterinary programs.
Tolles students are from a number of school districts in the western suburbs of Columbus, so programs developed at Tolles are being developed to be replicated at their partner schools, impacting over 30,000 high school students in the Columbus area alone. Goals for the summer of 2020 include presentations to state, regional, and national meetings of career and technical centers to replicate the program much farther.
SICC Partners with one of U.S.’s Largest Agritourism Farms
August 2019
Young’s Jersey Dairy, located near Dayton, Ohio, serves over 1.3 million customers per year, and are regional leaders for engagement with schools and young people. They feature award-winning home-made ice cream, cheeses, two restaurants, putt putt golf, batting cages, a petting zoo, 40 dairy cows, 20 goats, and thousands of smiles every day.
SICC began consulting with Young’s on social entrepreneurship, focusing first on food waste diversion, composting, and education. Feasibility is a challenge due to the thousands of daily customers. The initiative is beginning with kitchen prep food waste. As Young’s works to expand and upgrade its facilities and grow its business sustainably, SICC is helping to ensure that the floor plan and layout are conducive to sustainable post-consumer handling of food, compostables, and minimal waste streams. Signage and educational materials to help customers - especially young people - understand the process and learn about sustainability are also helpful.
Young’s has been a leader in other areas of sustainability for over 20 years as they began treating 100% of the water from their operation, including from cheese making, ice cream production, food prep, and bathrooms. They reapply treated water to fields, plus chlorinate some of the water to make it potable. Their water management practices are so effective, teams from nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base regularly visit to learn how a small but comprehensive water treatment facility works, helping to train military teams as they train to develop infrastructure around the world.
SICC also has forged a new partnership between Young’s and Tolles Career and Technical Center, connecting Tolles’ respected Future Farmers of America program and STEM initiatives with Young’s, and helping to open up internship opportunities for Young’s culinary arts students.
Social Entrepreneurship Partnership with a 30,000 Student Impact
July 2019
Seeing the huge potential and capacity for social entrepreneurship innovation at Tolles Career and Technical Center in the Columbus, Ohio metro area, Social Impact College Coaching partnered with administration and leading faculty on what promises to be among the nation’s most comprehensive and unique sustainability and social entrepreneurship initiatives taken on at the K-12 level.
Tolles had yet to begin recycling aluminum, glass, cardboard, or plastic, and was seeking opportunities to expand social entrepreneurship and project-based learning opportunities for students. Their innovative approach to re-invigorate pedagogy has been spearheaded by Superintendent Emmy Beeson and Director Connie Strebe.
Using the expertise and technical capacity across Tolles’ programs - especially in the technical, business, STEM, agricultural, and environmental areas - SICC has built a team inside and outside the school using an Open Innovation approach to project management.
Goals include developing the first comprehensive food and compostable diversion program in the Columbus metro area. But even more exciting: Tolles aims to become the first schools of its size to conduct windrow composting on campus. (Windrows are long piles of compost that can be maintained with a tractor or riding lawnmower.) How? Students and faculty - with the support of the SICC team - are designing and developing a compost turner to aerate the compost.
This is on top of implementing a recycling program for metal, glass, and cardboard. Also, following models developed elsewhere, food recovery and food waste reduction programs are being explored.
To the team’s knowledge, nothing of this kind or at this scale has yet been attempted at the secondary level, or even at a university or college. Following the proven practices of social entrepreneurship, the aim is to make the program sustainable financially as well as environmentally and socially by seeking marketable products and services, from fabricated implements to compost to recyclables.
Because Tolles is partnered with nearly two-dozen middle and high schools from seven districts in the Columbus metro area, programs developed at Tolles can involve and impact tens of thousands of students. The initiative is already giving students opportunities to discover their interests through real-world problem solving and community building, both at the heart of social entrepreneurship.
Developing the World’s First Required Ethics and Social Entrepreneurship Curriculum for University of Iowa Engineering Students
April 2019
The University of Iowa’s College of Engineering engaged David to work with leading faculty and administrators to develop and implement the nation’s first ethics and social entrepreneurship curriculum required of all its 3,000 students.
Modules were developed working with faculty across the College’s departments and have been incorporated into classes this fall semester. The modules are case-study based, allowing students to face real-world scenarios, learn possible consequences of different courses of action, develop core principles for their work based on ethical guidelines, as well as a social entrepreneurship approach that identifies the practical value of transparency, accountability, sustainability, and adding value to customers.
Writing and self-evaluation are being incorporated into the learning process to allow students the space for reflection and maximize outcomes.
Faculty are also developing app-based learning modules to allow for wider implementation as soon as possible across the College, and can also allow for other institutions to adopt the program over its planned five years of development.