Nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina, one of New Orleans’ most impacted and impoverished neighborhoods, the Upper Ninth Ward, has seen its first glimmer of rebirth: Reflections of Beauty hair salon opened in July in a 1,000-square-foot refurbished dental office, thanks to 14 Stanford Graduate School of Business students.
The students were part of IDEAcorps, a five-day program wherein graduate students from prestigious universities offer their wisdom to local entrepreneurs. In exchange, students get the sobering experience of turning theory into practice.
The program was launched in 2007 after Tulane University entrepreneurship professor John Elstrott contacted the Idea Village, a nonprofit that focuses on igniting economic development in New Orleans, hoping to match students in his Rebuild New Orleans class with Idea Village clients. The experiment was a success, and the nonprofit next assigned three Tulane MBA students, one University of Pennsylvania graduate, and one Vanderbilt University undergraduate to give $100,000 (raised by the Idea Village) and technical help to 20 entrepreneurs trying to revitalize the city’s gutted tourism industry.
In the next series of IDEAcorps programs, 18 University of Pennsylvania engineering students donated 40 refurbished computers to 35 New Orleans entrepreneurs and taught them computer skills; 15 Stanford business students offered 25 entrepreneurs situated in prime commercial corridors strategic planning and portions of $50,000; and entrepreneurs involved in a retail project in blighted Central City and a new green industrial center received fully developed business plans from nine Harvard Business School students and 19 MIT Sloan School of Management students, respectively.
In the latest program, Stanford business students evaluated a hair salon proposed by 33-year-old aspiring entrepreneur Phillina Carradine as well as three other businesses—a men’s formal wear store, a bill pay/cell phone store, and a health-care workforce development firm—to determine which would be awarded space in the former dental office. Their criteria, created by social entrepreneur Rick Aubry, a Stanford business school faculty member and president of Rubicon Programs, included personal characteristics (passion, role model, experience), business proposition (fit with building, clarity of business model, market potential, capital requirements), and community benefit (how much employment and traffic the business would generate).
Carradine soon became the clear favorite, reports Stanford student Chari Ratwatte. “We liked that she would rent out booths to other stylists—eight other people would be employed and generating their own business. Also, a salon is a safe place for people to go, and has a positive energy.” Carradine also deeply impressed the students with her business sense: Although she fled New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina with her three children, she worked nightly as a hairstylist in three states and saved $10,000, hoping to open a salon.
The Stanford students also created financial models for the four finalists and awarded them grants from a $100,000 “Pay It Forward” fund; half of the money (matched by the Idea Village) was raised by trip leaders Jack Lynch and Erik Bengtsson with just one e-mail to a donor who had given generously during Stanford’s first trip.
Such connections, and the students’ expertise, are a big part of why IDEAcorps has the students judge the candidates and pick the winners, says Miji Park, the Idea Village’s director of innovative spaces. “They bring in a scope of knowledge we don’t have.” Park also hopes the students will one day submit their résumés, as did Stanford’s Daryn Dodson, now IDEAcorps’s director. “If we give the students ownership—then they’ll buy into it and want to move here,” Park says.
And that would help the nonprofit’s chance for success as well, she adds. “There’s a growing movement in the university community to have experiential learning, and if we can attract those university students, we can keep it sustainable.”
Read more stories by Jennifer Roberts.