The +Impact Studio Welcomes New Ventures and Mentors
The Michigan Ross +Impact Studio is excited to be growing! The Impact Studio Founders Program is a community where impact-driven student innovators can nurture and launch their early-stage ideas to make significant, positive change in the world. This Winter 2022 semester, the studio is welcoming three new founders, as well as an +Impact Studio Program Manager to help lead the studio and support its growth.
finding joi:
The first venture we are welcoming is led by Founder Joi James, an Applebaum Impact Design Racial Equity Fellow in the studio, who is pursuing her vision of “doing good through social entrepreneurship” as a founder. finding joi is an enterprise by and for Black womxn across a range of industries and professions. Its aim is to provide access to physical and digital mental health resources in order to guide and center well-being in Black womxn’s professional and academic lives.
Black womxn face significant health-related stress disparities and James’ goal is to scale finding joi nationally. The “Superwoman” role has created an often overlooked but also hidden consequence in professional spaces: Black womxn are expected to and feel responsible to prioritize caregiving over self-care, and this can be found no matter the age or educational background. Whether it’s not wanting to be perceived as “low on the totem pole” if they have lower socioeconomic status, their role in the Black community, or the long lasting effects of systemic race and gender biases in school, there are many factors that contribute to the need for a platform that prioritizes Black womxn’s well-being in order to thrive. James is looking forward to “engaging with Black womxn across industries, professions, and socioeconomic backgrounds to get an understanding of what it means to support their well-being through the exploration of what joy means to them,” with finding joi.
Founder:
Founder, co-founded by Ariel Cruz and Pablo Hernandez, is another venture that the +Impact Studio is ready to support in its growth. Born out of a passion for entrepreneurship in the community, Founder is a platform that uses data research to support womxn and underrepresented minority founders in growing their businesses. Cruz and Hernandez hope to support pre-seed, seed, and early stage crowdfunding opportunities with investors while supporting founders to mature, much like how the +Impact Studio’s goal is to help fledgling ventures such as Founder thrive.
Cruz’s motivation for this is driven by his desire to help solve his friends’ and family’s needs, stating “we wanted to support those who were looked over and not given a fair shake, which is something my partner [Hernandez] and I are all too familiar with.” Minority founders historically have struggled with the lack of access to and cost of capital. It is easy to see the need in the existence of a platform like Founder: according to a study conducted in 2019, 77.1 percent of founders they found were white and only nine percent of investments went to womxn-funded startups. Though it is an “unleveraged market”, which Cruz and Hernandez are more than ready to take on, they are most looking forward to being able to provide these entrepreneurs a platform to “be excited and pursue their ideas.”
+Impact Studio Program Manager, Loren Townes Jr.:
Loren Townes Jr. is also joining the team as the +Impact Studio Program Manager. Having received both his Bachelor’s in Business Administration (Cum Laude) and MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing from Wayne State University, he is a veteran in the field. In the last six years, Townes Jr. has served as a higher education practitioner in academics as well as workforce and community development. He most recently served as the Manager of Corporate and Community Engagement and Director of Ironworkers at Washtenaw Community College, focusing on developing an engagement strategy with community-based organizations and businesses. He also provided hands-on leadership to support ironworkers, which generated an economic impact of $3 million to the local community.
On what drew him to the +Impact Studio, he stated that “I’ve always had an interest in entrepreneurship and a love for improving living standards for others. My heartstrings tugged at the opportunity to help build an ecosystem of social entrepreneurs and innovators who will positively shape the world we live in today and for years to come.”
His insight and guidance will be invaluable to our student entrepreneurs as they navigate growing and maturing their business ventures, hopefully to eventually outsize the studio that fostered them.
Under the counsel of Townes Jr. who aims to “build community and support for manifesting purpose-driven concepts” and the rest of the team at the +Impact Studio, 2022 is sure to be filled with big impact from our founders.
