Social Venture Think Tank

Social Venture Think Tank (SVTT) is an 8 week long program where students, staff, faculty, and community partners learn the landscape and various models that exist to launch a social enterprise through frameworks including human-centered design and the social enterprise canvas model to go from idea to prototype with an emphasis on the triple bottom line.

Social Venture Think Tank

Learn More about the Program

00:00
-03:09

Participant Application

If you have other team members, we unfortunately only have the capacity for one representative from your the team to participate. Please decide the one person who will apply on everyone’s behalf.

Applications for Spring 2025 have closed.

Social Changemakers meeting

Program Information

  • Who may apply?

    Social Venture Think Tank is open to all participants, including Vanderbilt students, faculty, staff, local college students, community partners, etc.

  • Dates and times

    SVTT meets every Tuesday, 4:30pm–6pm, in the 3rd Floor Lounge of the Wond’ry (Room 300).

    2025 Schedule:

    Tues Feb 18 - Wk 1 (4:30-6pm)

    Tues Feb 25 - wk 2 (4:30-6pm)

    Tues Mar 4 - wk 3 (4:30-6pm)

    Tues Mar 11 - No Class

    Tues Mar 18 - wk 4 (4:30-6pm)

    Tues Mar 25 - wk 5 (4:30-6pm)

    Tues April 1 - wk 6 (4:30-6pm)

    Tues April 8 - wk 7 (4:30-6pm)

    Tues April 15 - wk 8 (4:30-6pm)

    Session Structure:

    4:30 – 5:00 pm    Program Content

    5:00 – 5:45 pm    Co-Creation (SC Teams Time)

    5:45 – 6:00 pm    Group Reflection and Next Steps

    Additionally, SVTT teams schedule regular contact with community partners and each other outside of session time and complete project-supporting work. The total time commitment averages 5 hours per week.

  • Learn more

    For all questions, contact Dan Drogosh at dan.drogosh@vanderbilt.edu.

  • One of the groups who presented at Social Changemakers
  • Pointing during a presentation
  • Smiling client with social changemakers

Past Partners and Projects

  • Image for Adaptive Fashion

    Adaptive Fashion

    In partnership with the Curb Center’s Art of Healing Exposition, Alex Sargent Capps, & The Wond’ry at Vanderbilt, students collaborated to generate innovative solutions for individuals with disabilities.

  • Image for Community Gardens

    Community Gardens

    In partnership with VU Community Gardens, students considered how to tackle the issue of garden surplus in a way that addressed food inequity in Nashville.

  • Image for Fiber Arts Build Lab: Sustainable Fashion

    Fiber Arts Build Lab: Sustainable Fashion

    The Sustainable Fashion team aimed to collaborate with the Wond’ry’s Fiber Arts Build Lab in creating a website that educates and increases awareness of sustainable fashion, helping legitimize the issue on college campuses.

  • Image for Hands On Nashville: Disaster Resilience

    Hands On Nashville: Disaster Resilience

    Hands On Nashville Disaster Resilience Project addressed the problem of spontaneous volunteers from all over the city and surrounded states acting in unorganized, uncoordinated ways, as seen in events like flash floods. The project located 12 volunteer reception centers in the city of Nashville to create a Go-Kit/process for establishing future volunteer reception centers.

  • Image for Mayor’s Office: Nashville Climate Challenge

    Mayor’s Office: Nashville Climate Challenge

    The Social Changemaker’s team collaborated with the Mayor’s Office to support the sustainability challenge for Nashville’s private sector. The final deliverable was a design framework for the Nashville Climate Change website, which converts the information they have compiled into an easily communicable format that participating businesses can reference.

  • Image for Title IX

    Title IX

    The Social Changemaker’s team partnered with Title IX to increase the accessibility of the Title IX Office’s Sexual Misconduct Resources through an app.

  • Image for Waste Diversion

    Waste Diversion

    In alignment with the Zero Waste Master Plan approved by the Mayor’s office, students considered how city officials, debris recyclers, and prospective services might address the processing capacity, creating demand, policies, and a profitable business model or process for mixed building material diversion.