Sustainable Student Impact

The Sustainable Student Impact portfolio trains students for social impact leadership while collaborating with higher education partners to accelerate holistic social impact learning models.

Our Vision

Accelerating holistic social impact training in higher education.

Projects in the Sustainable Student Impact portfolio aim to accelerate change within the institution of higher education towards more holistic training of students for social impact leadership.

We envision a further integration between the curricular and co-curricular model for education, equipping students with the mindsets and skills to drive impact at scale , tackling problems that matter with organizations who care.

Sustainable Student Impact centers on experiential learning while teaching and emphasizing the importance of reflection and discernment in helping students better understand themselves, their communities, and the role that they can play in furthering the common good. We also take an expansive and inclusive view of social impact, one that requires extensive collaboration, to effectively meet complex challenges head-on.

Our Impact

Experiential learning, reflection, and diverse collaborations serve as key ingredients.

We’ve seen firsthand the power of hands-on experiences in transforming how students think and act for social impact. Students talk about the value of applying theoretical concepts outside the classroom, learning by doing, and taking a step back from implementation for contemplation, practicing discernment through individual and group reflections that wrap around our programs.

Leveraging our unique position at Georgetown University, we’ve seen the magic that happens when you bring together students from different schools, disciplines, backgrounds, and interests for collaborative work. There is a path in social impact for everybody and in fact, we need our collective knowledge and expertise to take on the thorniest and most complex challenges of our time.

We work closely with different schools, centers, and initiatives at Georgetown, learning from their efforts while sharing our own, all towards the goal of impact at scale. We’re currently collaborating through our two portfolio projects, GU Impacts and the Social Impact Navigator, which you can learn more about through our projects page.

Our Approach

Build models and tools for holistic training.

We’re constantly assessing and refining our programs, learning from our student participants as well as our peers in the social impact space. We seek best practices, resources, and ideas, drawing insights and synthesizing our findings in order to provide the most effective and relevant training. Working closely with partners in social impact and higher education informs our work and takes it to scale.

Associated Projects

Incubation

Social Impact Navigator

The Social Impact Navigator defines social impact leadership skills, provides students with a self-diagnostic to identify strengths and areas for development, and maps social impact opportunities to specific skills for development, enabling students to create an action plan for growth.

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Scale

GU Impacts Fellowship

GU Impacts is a 7-month fellowship program guiding students through an immersive and transformational experience. While the fellowship is centered around a 10-week independent summer project with one of our social impact partners, the Beeck Center wraps fellows’ summer experience with robust on- and off-boarding.

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