Social Innovation Collaboratory Student Teams

Design for Social Impact
The Design for Social Impact team comprises of students from different disciplines who are interested in the power of purposeful design. These students work with university staff and faculty to build strong brands, design effective communication strategies, and create engaging marketing materials that grow public awareness of Fordham’s Social Innovation Collaboratory and other Social Innovation organizations. Social Impact Storytelling Social Impact Storytelling is a team of undergraduate students advised by faculty, alumni and storytelling specialists. This team develops curriculum, offers mentorship, and organizes events that bring the Fordham community together to experience empathy, show solidarity, and embrace diversity through the art of storytelling and story-listening.

Systems Thinking
The Systems Thinking team consists of students and faculty interested in systemic change. They participate in an online Acumen course that teaches systems thinking, a non-traditional approach to problem-solving that advocates understanding of driving forces, root causes, and need for systemic change. The team uses systems thinking to help Collaboratory practica, First Year Formation courses, and other groups at Fordham better understand societal issues.

What do our students do?

Climate Impact
The Climate Impact team focuses on measuring and mapping Fordham’s energy usage and climate impact. The team looks at existing tools, such as the Sustainable Campus Index (SCI) and the Sustainability Tracking Assessment & Rating System (STARS), to help the university measure, report, and strengthen its contribution to global sustainability.

Financial Inclusion
Financial Inclusion explores, implements, and tracks innovative solutions that promote financial wellness for New York City’s unbanked and underbanked. The team partners with Spring Bank for guidance determining key levers of trust, income, and financial literacy/health that can be addressed through targeted community partnerships and communication.

Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge
The Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge is a social venture pitch competition that recognizes, funds, and rewards student-led social ventures focused on sustainable change. Participants create and pitch a viable business plan that addresses gaps in an existing approach to a social or environmental issue. Through this challenge, participants gain entrepreneurial experience, mentoring opportunities, and network connections.

Resettled Students
The Resettled Students team works closely with Professor Marciana Popescu to improve the experiences of student immigrants and asylum seekers within the Fordham community. In May 2019, the team created a video compilation of immigrant and asylum-seeking student stories and presented it to Development and University Relations (DUAR). The team continues to highlight these students’ voices and experiences through additional projects.

Solutions Journalism
Solutions journalism is an approach to news reporting that explains societal issues while also exploring potential solutions. The Solutions Journalism team publishes an annual magazine, The Innovator, that includes articles and graphics related to social, environmental, and cultural issues in the Bronx community and our broader society. The team reports on these issues through a solutions journalism lens, understanding that its stories must balance the attention it pays to complex problems with potential ways to respond to them.

Sustainable Fashion
Sustainable fashion is a movement and process of fostering change in fashion products and the fashion industry towards greater ecological integrity and social justice. The Sustainable Fashion team develops curriculum and organizes events that introduce students, faculty, and fashion executives to the basic sustainability issues and opportunities faced by the Fashion industry.

Sustainable Finance
The Sustainable Finance team helps develop curriculum that prepares students to understand the role and potential of Responsible Investing for the achievement of global, social, and environmental sustainability. The team also runs workshops about approaches to impact investment decision-making, scaling programs, public-private partnerships, and corporate engagement.