Social Good Summit: Inaugural Social Good Summit will redefine entrepreneurship at The Forward Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lisa Hollenbach

Rabble and the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities,

lisa.hollenbach@gmail.com

Madison, WI – The Midwest’s flagship festival for entrepreneurship and innovation will kick off this year with a new event, the Social Good Summit, aimed at ensuring that Madison’s efforts to support entrepreneurship in the region includes investing in our communities. The Social Good Summit tackles the topic of “Redefining Entrepreneurship” at The Forward Festival on Thursday, August 20, from 9:30am to 3:30pm, at the UW-Madison Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.

The Social Good Summit is guided by the thesis that entrepreneurship at its best incorporates the business of improving the world we live in — caring, sharing, building community, and unleashing new creative economies. To foster this idea, organizers from Madison Nonprofit Day, Dane County TimeBank, the Young Gifted & Black Coalition, and the Forward Festival invite business and community organizers to reconsider the value of social good in all the work that they do through a day of panel discussion and participant engagement activities.

The event begins with a “Redefining Entrepreneurship Panel” where Amy Gannon, co-founder of the Doyenne Group and Interim Dean at the Edgewood College School of Business, will challenge a panel of entrepreneurial leaders and grassroots community builders to answer core questions about entrepreneurship and social responsibility.

The panelists are Allen Dines, Executive Partner at WISC Partners; Annette Miller, Emerging Markets and Community Development Director at Madison Gas & Electric; William White, Partner at Michael Best & Fredrich LLP; Brandi Grayson, Employment Services Director at the YWCA; Christina Libs, Senior Launch Manager at Zendesk; Greg St. Fort, Executive Director of 100state; Jessie Lerner, Executive Director of Sustain Dane; M Adams, Co-Director of Freedom, Inc.; Samba Baldeh, Madison Common Council Alder; Stephanie Rearick, Founder and Co-Director of the Dane County TimeBank; Will Green, Founder of Mentoring Positives; and Zach Brandon, President of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce.

In the afternoon, Eric Upchurch, Executive Director of ESUCEO, Inc. and Lead Organizer of the Young Gifted & Black Coalition, will lead participants in a small group workshop on “The 5 Really Big Questions” that Madison entrepreneurs must engage to value, stimulate, and create social value for all.

“Building a community culture around entrepreneurship can have dramatic ramifications on issues of racial and social justice, women’s equality, disability access, resources for local communities, and so many other issues,” states Alnisa Allgood, one of the Social Good Summit organizers and the Organizing Founder of Madison Nonprofit Day.

Learn more about the Social Good Summit at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/social-good-summit-registration-17729873529.

The Social Good Summit

The Social Good Summit is a new event at the Forward Festival organized by the founders of Madison Nonprofit Day, ESUCEO Inc., The Rabble, Horizon Coworking, Mutual Aid Network, and Dane County TimeBank, in association with the Forward Festival, the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities, Madison-area Urban Ministry (MUM), Young Gifted & Black, and other local organizers.