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Tuesday, May 12, 2009
SIFE encourages business students to solve community challenges

The phrase “free enterprise” is very much out of fashion since the credit crisis triggered the massive federal bailouts of various sectors.

But there are still believers in the transformative power of free enterprise: the academics and businesspeople involved in a nonprofit called SIFE.

The group, whose initials stand for “Students in Free Enterprise,” has been holding its national competition at the Convention Center since Sunday. Teams from 137 colleges and universities have been presenting how they tackled problems in various communities and how successful those efforts were.

These aren’t simulations or business plans, but real-world efforts. Since 1975, SIFE participants have been applying business concepts to have a positive impact on people’s lives, said Mat Burton, its senior vice president of marketing.

One project that SIFE spotlights to spread its message comes from Quinnipiac University in New Haven, Conn. Students there have been trying to help a village in Cameroon build and staff a health clinic. To do that, they need to raise $300,000.

In November 2007, the students formed the nonprofit Cafe Cameroon to help the 400-person village distribute and sell the Arabica coffee beans grown there. They created packaging and developed a marketing plan to sell the crop in gourmet coffee shops in the U.S.

All profits are donated to the Bawa Health Initiative, a separate charity, to fund the health clinic’s construction.

Sounds like a textbook example of “doing well by doing good.” As fashionable as it is for companies to tout their good works, that fashion can’t explain why more than 34,000 students in 41 nations participate in SIFE.

Potential jobs just might. Big business backs the Springfield, Mo.-based SIFE in a big way. The career fair in Exhibit Hall B yesterday was filled with representatives from Pepsico, Wal-mart, and 50 other corporations. Campbell Soup Co. had a big presence. No surprise since the Camden company’s CEO, Douglas R. Conant, is chairman of SIFE’s board of directors.

Recruiters were conducting job interviews with students, according to Burton.

This afternoon, SIFE’s U.S. winner will be picked by a group of CEOs from among the final four teams.

Posted by Mike Armstrong @ 2:30 AM  Permalink | File Under: People | 2 comments
Comments   
Posted 06:57 AM, 05/13/2009
kennvenit
Mike, Who won the SIFE competition?
Posted 12:44 PM, 05/13/2009
MikeArmstrong
Mike Armstrong responds: The winner from the 4-year division was Flagler College, of St. Augustine, Fla. The 2-year division winner was Central Texas College, of Killeen, Texas. I have a new posting on the results.
2 comments
About Mike Armstrong
Mike Armstrong, a business editor and writer for nearly two decades, is the Inquirer's business columnist and PhillyInc blog editor.
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