The CommonBond Social Impact Award gives $10,000 to a student entrepreneur whose business idea drives social impact.

Social entrepreneurship unites the passion of a social mission with business-like innovation and determination. Emerging social entrepreneurs across the world are actively dreaming up new solutions and using business ventures to bring their impact to life. 

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One competition is giving undergraduate students the chance to receive $10,000 to develop their business plan to make their impact venture a reality, the CommonBond Social Impact Award. CommonBond, an online lending platform and community that is targeting the student loan space, in partnership with Pencils of Promise, is supporting the next generation of change agents through this award. 

Past winners of the CommonBond Social Impact Award include Pasture Map, which enables sustainable cattle ranchers in the U.S. to maintain responsible grazing practices; Sanlaap North America, which rescues, shelters, and empowers victims of human trafficking; and Kheyti, which builds low-cost greenhouses for small farms in India.  

Meet the top three finalists for this year’s CommonBond Social Impact Award and hear their inspiring ideas to lead change.

Piero Accessibility

Founded by Sam Lew, Piero Accessibility hopes to revolutionize how accessible college campuses are to wheelchair users with one simple device:

Dough4Degrees

Danielle Jeffers founded Dough4Degrees, LLC to teach students how to earn scholarships and graduate debt-free:

StreetMate

StreetMate is an app created by Michael Pusik that allows anyone to find and access a shelter guaranteed to accept them after they answer four simple questions:

Judges for this year’s award include the co-founders of CommonBond, Pencils of Promise, and Birchbox, as well as Grammy award-winning artist, producer, and tech enthusiast Lil Jon. The winner will be announced July 10th at CommonBond's NYC headquarters, click here to register. If you can’t make it to the event in person the event will be streamed on Facebook Live. Stay tuned to find out which of these revolutionary ventures will take home the top prize.

Are you interested in the growing field of social entrepreneurship? Visit our Social Entrepreneurship Career Portal to find resources and events, hear from practicing experts, and chart your own career path.

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