Impact Fellows
Service Design and Content Creation
Timeline: May 2021 - Present
Team: Tanya Chen, Katherine Zhang, and Laya Madulapally
Role: Co-Founder and Executive Director
A special thanks to: Everyone for all of the unwavering support for Impact Fellows.
Note: My team and I are currently working on some new initiatives for Impact Fellows, so I’m keeping some of our content for this case study under wraps for now. Check back here later for updates, or email us at impactfellowshq@gmail.com if you want to learn more.
Social entrepreneurship has always been at the root of my ambitions, and I hope to create a world that is driven by purpose, meaning, and innovation. However, like many young professionals who hope to make social entrepreneurship their career, information about the social innovation ecosystem is decentralized and scattered, making it difficult to see the bigger picture of how the space is evolving.
Simultaneously, I personally tracked and built numerous databases on issue areas that interest me, ranging from climate technologies to civic participation tools. I managed to develop my own way of navigating the impact space, but what if I could help others do the same?
In fact, how might we make social innovation content more accessible and relevant?
Research & Problem Validation
This fascinated me. Our world would be radically different if we could funnel top-tier talent into the social impact space. I gathered some peers from across the university ecosystem to investigate this—namely, my friends Tanya Chen, Katherine Zhang, and Laya Madulapally.
We talked with numerous impact-driven college students about their experience finding opportunities related to social innovation, and we saw three common trends:
Most students have an interest or passion for social impact, but don't take the initiative to do more research on how they can transform it into a career.
For those who do take the initiative, there is no centralized platform that collects and curates impact resources that can streamline the research process.
There are thousands of social impact startups and founders out there, but these entities don’t get as much recognition as brand-name firms such as big tech or corporate consulting.
Our Platform Offering
From the research we gathered, we decided to put our design, marketing, and community skills to the test to launch Impact Fellows, a community for social innovation.
Impact Fellows is a community collection of social innovation resources. We believe that social change can be fostered through accessible creativity and entrepreneurship, and we’re highlighting incredible changemakers who are redefining what it means to create impact. This includes:
Our newsletter, which publicizes social entrepreneurship job opportunities, events, and resources. Our newsletter currently has 500+ subscribers and counting.
Our resource hub, which contains specially curated documents, directories, and educational tools recommended by our team. Discover new organizations solving pressing global issues and entrepreneurs building their next social ventures.
Our podcast and video series (coming soon!), where we interview incredible founders, creatives, investors, and operators who are building new systems of change.
Our Impact
Since our initial introduction, we’ve reached some pretty incredible milestones, including...
500+ subscribers worldwide for our social entrepreneurship newsletter
Over 1,000 followers across all of our social media channels
Shoutouts from numerous entrepreneurs, executives, and investors in the social innovation ecosystem
But it doesn’t stop here. This project is still a work in progress with many new developments coming soon, so be sure to check back here for the full-length case study once we fully launch all of our offerings!
The biggest shoutout to my co-founders Tanya, Katherine, and Laya for making the magic happen to create this vehicle for social change. Stay tuned for more updates on the future of Impact Fellows!
