White House Challenge Gets SEG’ers Noticed
SEG’s recognition from the White House has caught the attention of many including those in the media. Besides the positive press from Grinnell College’s website and student newspaper, home town newspapers and social media blogs have joined the coverage of SEG!
Check out these great stories about SEG’s current and former members working to “Send Microfinance to the White House!”
Home Town Paper Features Grace Philipp
SEG member and former co-facilatator, Grace Philipp, was featured in The Daily Rye in Rye, New York for her work with SEG on the group’s submission to the White House Campus Champions of Change Challenge.
SEG was selected as a finalist for its Emergency Loans Project, which offers modest loans to financially strapped individuals within the community. According to Philipp, the program, which offered its inaugural loan in the fall of 2010, also pairs the loan recipients with a community liaison that helps them stay on the right track.
“It’s usually a member of the church, the chamber of commerce, involved town members or even Grinnell alumni and professors, and they meet on a monthly basis,” Philipp said. “We want to make sure the recipient has an advocate on their behalf and we are able to provide them the best loan experience so they can become bankable.”
Full Article: “Rye High Alumni Enters White House Competition”
Former Member Blogs, Blogged
Mark Root-Wiley, a former co-facilitator and now technical adviser for SEG, helped build the new version of this website and wrote about the experience of participating in such a lightning-quick project on his blog:
This project was a sprint from start to finish. Luckily, the group put in the necessary time to write good content, carefully consider the structure of the site, and even get new photography…If there hadn’t been so many person-hours spent in this condensed time, the website would be typo-riddled and poor-quality overall. It takes a long time to write good web copy, and I’m impressed with what the group did.
Full Article “I Just Helped Build a Website In Four Days,” MRW Web Design Blog
Mark was also interviewed by Grinnell social media expert Dan McCue about the social media campaign SEG has run to currently site in 2nd place of the Campus Champions of Change Challenge.
Dan: How did you initially get the word out about voting?
Mark: Individually, everyone in the group is emailing or Facebook messaging (or both) their friends, family, and coworkers asking them not only to vote for SEG but to share it with others. In one case, I asked my father who asked a group of friends and one of those friends even emailed 10 people he thought might be interested. It’s amazing to see how far we can reach out of our networks.
Full Article: “Interview: Mark Root-Wiley, Social Entrepreneurs of Grinnell”