More than 85% of social enterprises shut down within the first three years of operation. A major reason for this is limited access to specialized technical expertise and talent, which is essential in the initial, crucial stages of developing a solution. Emerging and early stage social enterprises either lack the required resources or direct them to other pressing needs to stay afloat. These services are costly largely due to the need for highly skilled and technically trained people. This results in institutional and operational hurdles, and limited growth for these impact organizations. Simultaneously, there is a rapidly growing pool of students and industry professionals looking for social sector learning opportunities. The Impact Collective harnesses this opportunity and embodies the value of building a network and ecosystem for collective action – the collective mobilizes and matches students and industry professionals with social enterprises who have technical needs. It brings together industry professionals, domain experts, and students from various disciplines and technical areas to form interdisciplinary technical consulting teams to serve impact organizations for social change.
