Bringing the field together

Comments (0) Posted By Rohan on October 26, 2009 in Events
Student representatives work in break out groups to develop a vision for collaboration

Student representatives work in break out groups to develop a vision for collaboration

Last weekend, the Intersect Fund hosted the first-ever gathering of student-run microenterprise programs in the nation.  Over the last two months, with the help of FIELD, we two-day agenda to share emerging best practices and experiences — and perhaps even develop a vision for collaboration.  We even got Intersect Fund clients Sam Johnson and Pearl Thompson to do the catering.  In attendance were:

What an incredible two days it was.  Having this much brainpower in the room allowed us to talk shop and get advice from others who had experienced much of the same things we have.  The number of different approaches, products, and services was fascinating — from green credit builder loans to partnerships with credit unions — especially given how young most of the programs are.

Hours before we adjourned, the consensus in the room was that we should form some sort of alliance that would allow for distributed costs for resources (i.e. Credit Builders Alliance, MicroTest) and sharing of best practices.

I left the conference energized with new ideas and great hope about the awareness we can bring to the industry and the magnitude of what we can accomplish together.

Why the Intersect Fund?

Comments (0) Posted By Rohan on June 29, 2009 in About Us

The Intersect Fund grew out of a desire to bring the campus to the community. When Rohan Mathew and Joe Shure were editors at The Daily Targum — Rutgers University’s student-run newspaper — they saw two sides of New Brunswick, N.J.

While new hotels, restaurants and high-rise apartments dot the skyline, there are also a lot of low-income residents struggling to make ends meet. These are often the busboys and dishwashers in the upscale businesses downtown, but they had little to show for the economic revitalization they helped bring about. They were immigrants working in factories through temp agencies, longtime residents left unemployed by recession, and a host of others who have the drive but lack the luck to succeed.

In thinking about how university students could help these people, Mathew and Shure found that many of them run small businesses on the side as a way to generate extra income. It became clear that although many of these low-income entrepreneurs have quality business ideas and a lot of motivation, they often lack the business knowledge and seed capital they to get the most out of their enterprises.