Open to all of the Penn community, inclusive of undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni. Financial award opportunities are open to all students who are enrolled full time in a University of Pennsylvania academic program.
Social enterprises are businesses that seek to achieve financial sustainability while addressing pressing societal challenges. They are found in every industry and often blend funding sources, including traditional venture capital, impact investors, and occasionally charitable foundations.
Supporting Programming
The Venture Initiation Program (VIP) is where Penn’s boldest founders turn ideas into impact. Whether you're just starting out or scaling fast, VIP is your launchpad—a high-energy, founder-first ecosystem designed to help you build, test, and grow.
The Penn Wharton Innovation Fund exists to fund creative and meaningfully innovative ventures from the Penn student community while giving students on the investment team the opportunity to develop skills that will benefit them when pursuing a career in early-stage investing.
The Startup Challenge is Venture Lab at The University of Pennsylvania’s flagship event, which brings together successful entrepreneurial alumni and Penn student entrepreneurs to showcase the best student-founded ventures from across Penn’s campus. This comprehensive platform helps Penn student entrepreneurs and their teams progress their businesses, and competing teams have the opportunity to pitch to a live audience at the Startup Showcase to win cash and in-kind prizes from an award pool of over $150,000.
Upcoming Social Entrepreneurship Events
08
May
Join us for an engaging virtual session with Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick in which you’ll explore how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can transform the way businesses scale
Social #entrePENNeur Highlight
Penn students who are making an impact via social entrepreneurship and their mission-driven ventures.
Beginning on September 18th, students participated in the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative’s week-long Climate Change and the Future of Food Salon Sprint, culminating in a pitch competition.
3 Min Read
Jonathan Muruako, CAS'17 SPP'24
Founder of Fitalyst: Empowering First-Gen Students with Self-Regulation Tools for Success
Founder of Fitalyst: Empowering First-Gen Students with Self-Regulation Tools for Success
3 Min Read
Meet The Community Grocer, a scalable non-profit community market, resource, and education center advancing food justice and health equity through EBT accessible meal solutions.
5 Min Read
Alumni Companies
Additional Resources
See below for Social Entrepreneurship Initiative events and related resources for the Penn community.
Learn about social entrepreneurship pathways from experienced industry leaders.
Workshops designed to support members of the Penn Community interested in Social Entrepreneurship
Fund your mission-driven venture using the opportunities available for the Penn community.
This program delivers experiential learning that complements Wharton's existing social impact curriculum, providing hands-on opportunities for budding social entrepreneurs to build new ventures that change the world.
Lori Rosenkopf, Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship
The fundamental purpose of the social enterprise is to address a social problem and generate revenue in doing so.
The Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook; Ian C. MacMillan & James D. Thompson
Our new social entrepreneurship program puts Wharton and Penn’s institutional power into educating the next generation of leaders to solve the world’s most pressing social problems.
Trang Pham, Executive Director, Venture Lab
Startup Stories
Find out what's happening across the #entrePENNeur community! Want to tell your story? Contact us at venturelab@upenn.edu.
