Our first guest speaker the last Thursday before just-ended spring break was Alicia Pence; a December 2010—but officially a 2011—graduate of Monmouth College with a Major in Psychology. She is founder and director of the Family Outreach Community Center in nearby Stronghurst, IL. See her company’s webpage at: http://www.familyoutreachcommunitycenter.org/.

I have said elsewhere of Alicia’s visit that I have come to feel that she is the most inspirational speaker that we have had to date (over the course of my three and a half years of teaching the class). And while all of our speakers are in some way inspirational, Alicia inspires in a very special and different way. She exemplifies, above all else, that the reward for an entrepreneur need not have anything to do with profits or selling anything other than love and hope.

Class member Tooba Ahmed echoes these sentiments—and more—below.

But first a note of clarification… In her telling of the heroic entrepreneurial story of Alicia Pence, Tooba refers to “scaling challenges.” The terminology may not be familiar to many. It comes from a “Global Perspectives” class Tooba took last semester on the topic of economic development and its relationship to human development in which social entrepreneurship is a key topic addressed. In short: (1) social entrepreneurs are persons running organizations focused on non-profit, social goals (e.g., alleviation of poverty and food insecurity), and (2) “scaling challenges” are challenges commonly faced by social entrepreneurs as they try to “scale up” their achievements from—say—one village or city to entire nations or regions of the world. Many may not think of this type of business activity as being needed in the United States. It is needed and, unfortunately, there is need for far more of it.

Enjoy (and be inspired)!

Prof. Gabel

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What is a hero?

Someone may answer Superman, because he rescues people and saves the day, or maybe an idol that a child looks up to and thinks he or she may one day be.

Sometimes we think of peaceful leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, the Dalai Lama, or Gandhi but we usually stop short and don’t look around us. There are some people nearby that sacrifice their time and spend their lives focused on others rather than themselves and these people are nothing less than heroes.

We were lucky to have a hero in our class on Thursday (March 3).

Her name is Alicia Pence and she is a Social Entrepreneur, the first social entrepreneur to visit our class. Alicia had graduated in December of 2010 in Psychology, earlier than most so she could focus and kick start her business. Early on, Alicia worked hard, working 2 to 3 jobs to get through college, as well as being youth leader at her church. There, in Henderson Country, she saw families struggling to get by. Kids came to their programs with tattered up clothing and after talking to a little girl who ate rapidly at the programs, she learned that some parents were not eating to feed their kids the little that they had.

This angered Alicia Pence as well as the other youth leaders. Alicia started to call other community leaders to start something and with this she was able to make a nonprofit board. Alicia Pence had founded her non-profit organization, Family Outreach Community Center, in Stronghurst, IL. This was all while Alicia was still at Monmouth College, however, so she didn’t really know how to go about starting a business like this but she was motivated so she learned. She called the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) almost daily. Also, she needed to establish a mission statement. According to her company’s webpage, that mission is: “The Family Outreach Community Center exists to improve the quality of life for residents of Henderson County, Illinois by providing assistance for families in need, implementing programs targeted towards strengthening the community, and assisting other existing outreach programs in the county.”

When you start something as a social entrepreneur, you have to take risks and do other work that for-profit businesses do. This is what makes a social entrepreneur just as much an entrepreneur as anyone else starting their own business. In addition, social entrepreneurs routinely face a number of special challenges that more traditional entrepreneurs do not. These are known as “scaling challenges” and are faced as the social entrepreneur tries to expand achievement of their social objectives. These challenges include: Staffing, Communication, Alliance Building, Lobbying, Earnings generation, Replicating, and Stimulating market forces. Alicia Pence faces and overcomes these challenges in inspirational, heroic fashion.

Staffing: FOCC is fully volunteer run. There are many older church members around the age of 55. She has 70 volunteers. Staffing is interesting for a social entrepreneur, not only are you trying to get people to believe in your cause, you are wanting them to believe in your cause to the extent where they are willing to work for you. For free. You need some great communication skills and it is impressive that Alicia is able to have so many volunteers.

Communication: This is a crucial one. You not only have to communicate in order to get volunteers for the staffing challenge, as a social entrepreneur you are also trying to get people to fund you by believing in your cause by how you present it. You are asking for time from people as well as money. You also need to communicate to the actual people in need to come to you for help.

Alliance building: This refers to the partnerships, and other means of linkage to help in bringing the desired social change. Alicia does this by contacting other community leaders to start FOCC and help support its ongoing operations.

Lobbying: For a social entrepreneur, this is getting governmental support but this doesn’t affect Alicia too much since she is not heavily funded by the government to do the work she does.

Earnings Generation: This is where the money is coming from. This is also crucial for a social entrepreneur because unlike other businesses, you are not making money to put back into the business. This is money that has to be coming constantly from different funders to keep the program running. This is an extra challenge for an organization that is not funded by the government but Alicia didn’t show that there was a problem with this aspect. She gets no state funds but gets non-governmental grants and gets money from churches and other private organizations.

Replicating: This is the idea of being able to do one thing in another place effectively. There is not one way in creating economic or human development; if this was the case, world poverty and other things that can be changed would have been by now. Every area is unique with its own culture and its own unique group of people. Since Alicia is focused on one local area, she doesn’t have to worry much about replicating but the ideas she may have gotten from other social service organizations can be instrumental in her effectively replicating them for those in need in Henderson County.

Stimulating Market Forces: This is how well an organization can create incentives which make people want to utilize it while still helping the community. This could be micro credits which Alicia does not do or inexpensive health remedies. Alicia has a community garden which feed people, support community programs, and sell to farmers markets.

As we can see, Alicia jumps over the hurdles that come at her quite well and she is able to overcome the struggles many social entrepreneurs have. FOCC is intended to be a supplement according to Alicia. The people who come to her are not just supposed to receive free things but to actually work. When they work, they learn their skills, volunteers help with cover letters, how to dress for interviews, and how to make resumes. This way they find their goals for life and learn the skills to get them started. Alicia helps others help themselves; which, as social entrepreneurs know, is much better than just giving them things for free.

There are many different programs: a nutrition program, a parenting assistance program which gives diapers and such, and an employment and career development program. One really awesome thing Alicia does is Operation Backpack. Volunteers give some food to kids on Friday to help them get through the weekend. This not only makes the kids full when they could be hungry; it helps in their education because then the kids come back to school on Monday, they are not just waiting for lunch time to eat but are actually more focused. This indirect encouragement to learning is what can slowly help pry open the cycle of poverty where most of the kids are coming from.

There are also programs to help the parents and adults as well. There is a financial peace class which helps people get out of debt and gives them guidance on ways they can save more money for when they really need it. Alicia has volunteers that even have the power, of course with the permission of the person needing help, to take their debit card and force them to save. Volunteers teach people how to shop as well. This gives the family which is at rock bottom education to get out of the cycle of poverty, it gives them hope that someone is there each step of the way, and it gives them a lens in seeing a better future for themselves and for their children and this is what really makes Alicia Pence a hero.

Thank you for visiting our class and showing us a new way of entrepreneurship!

Tooba Ahmed