National Office Blog

Nourish was able to launch thanks to a university which embraced and encouraged student social entrepreneurs in engage with the cause they cared so much about.

In particular, two university initiatives prompted our success.  They are:

1)  The Campus Y, which gave us our first home (the Y building) and mentor (Virginia Carson)

2)  The Carolina Entrepreneurship Initiative (CEI), housed in Kenan-Flagler Business School (KFBS):  which pushed us to think big through the Carolina Challenge, gave us a structured program to develop our business plan through Launch the Venture, and provided a network to build our first board and team.

CEI is housed within Kenan-Flagler Business School (KFBS).  In short, KFBS was the birthground for expanding Nourish, and we would not be a national movement without them.  Every success we earn is a teaching success for them.  This past Saturday, we had the opportunity to thank them by bragging a bit about Nourish - the global leadership model they helped develop.

The result?  Overwhelming enthusiasm for our work.

After sharing Nourish's model, I was able to speak with the majority of the members of the council one on one for a few minutes.  Each was enthusiastic about the work we were doing, and could not believe the work that so many students were taking on all around the world.  They offered more than just kind words too:  each was excited to dig deep into our model and offer potential ways to help.  I realized a few things:

• Age does not matter as much as unique experiences:  we have a lot to teach the world about leadership
• The UNC network is an extended family which wants to help others in the network.  Nourish's long term success will depend on its ability to build the the same sense of family across the nation.
• People want to see us succeed.  We just need to figure out where they can best plug in

With so much momentum, we have the opportunity to show the world what can happen when a university engages its students in the social causes they care so much about.  Jim Dean, the new dean of KFBS has made leadership a top priority for the school.  We are one product of their leadership development programs, and we hope we can continue to make KFBS proud as we scale to ten new campuses this year.