Powerful Social Impact Partnerships
The Ballard Center for Social Impact connects students with social problem-solving organizations worldwide. Over the years, these partnerships have benefitted both students and organizations, providing meaningful opportunities to gain experience and insight, build a valuable network, and deliver value.
SOCIAL IMPACT PROJECTS (SIP) is an on-campus internship program that empowers students to work on innovative projects worldwide for award-winning organizations that make a difference.
Organizations partner with the Ballard Center in myriad ways. The Ballard Center can raise awareness around an organization’s solution to social issues. In these host case competitions, students iterate solutions and provide capacity for student work through research, case studies, and internships. One of the most profound connections is through the Ballard Center’s Social Impact Projects (SIP). SIP is an on-campus internship program that pairs teams of four to five students with organizations. Each student combines classroom learning about social impact skills with 10 hours a week on a specific project, ultimately providing a team that offers the partner around 40 total unpaid internship hours each week. Teams work for an entire semester, creating impactful and concrete deliverables that address the needs and objectives of the organization.
Many SIP deliverables are still used by partners today. When one SIP team partnered with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, students were tasked with helping the Church better understand how to provide resources for addiction prevention. The team ultimately did extensive research and presented a comprehensive report to key stakeholders within the Church.
“To this day, we still go back to that white paper and the key principles we learned of prevention efforts,” says Ben Erwin, program manager for Family Services. “It’s been several years, and it still impacts our direction and efforts.”
Finlit founder and CEO Adam Turville attended BYU and participated in the Ballard Center. Years later, his organization partners with the Ballard Center.
Finlit offers financial literacy resources to underserved communities. Turville explains that the organization faces complexities and challenges as an early-stage startup and needs to be resource-conscious.
“We’ve had talented, driven, passionate students produce excellent work and help us move the ball forward,” Turville says. “Partnering with the Ballard Center and SIP has enabled us to create an outsized impact with relatively lean input. That's been hugely beneficial.”
Hershawna Frison is the senior program associate for Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute. Weave focuses on building social trust in communities by identifying weavers—or community leaders—and supporting them while amplifying their stories. Frison has worked with several SIP groups. “Those teams have been amazing,” Frison says.
By partnering with these top-notch organizations, students make meaningful connections, develop vital skills, and learn how to create products and outcomes that match the organization’s needs. Since 2015, SIP has worked with more than a thousand students from 168 majors and pre-majors.
BYU student Jayden Davis has gained invaluable experiences and lessons by participating in SIP and now works as an SIP student program director. Davis says, "I learned that BYU and my college experiences aren't just about getting grades. It's not just about getting a 4.0. It's actually opening up resources where I can actually solve social issues and make a difference. I'm willing to muddle through the ambiguity, be creative, and work together with other people.”
“These are to be future business leaders, so we want to expose them to our w”rk,” says Quan Huynh, Defy Ventures’ executive director for Southern California. Defy Ventures is a long-time SIP partner that tackles the issue of mass incarceration in America and helps those released from prison to find second chances and opportunities through entrepreneurship.
Through SIP, students can actively apply social impact principles to real-life situations. In offering hundreds of hours to an organization, the student teams infuse their work with youthful energy and idealism and create thoughtful, lasting deliverables.