USC Marshall Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship

USC Marshall students & alumni: tonight you get a front-row seat.

Real food, real community, real careers in impact.
Sweetgreen Co-Founder & Chief Concept Officer, Nicolas Jammet, is on campus for the, Jacobson Family Sustainable Impact Symposium.

If you care about:
✌️ Building mission-driven ventures
✌️ Sustainable food systems
✌️ Turning values into a real business

…this room is for YOU.

📌 Real Food & Community with Sweetgreen
📅 Nov 19, 2025
⏰ 5:30–8:00 PMreception, fireside chat + Q&A, networking)
📍 HOH Edison | USC Marshall School of Business

Grab a friend from your cohort, text an alum, and get there early.
Your next idea, mentor, or teammate could come from this one night. 🌱

Rethinking Capital Structures

If your capital structure can’t support your values, it will eventually erase them.

That’s what’s shifting in social finance right now. In the UK, a new legal instrument shows how purpose-driven enterprises can raise funds without giving up control.

The Community Share Offer Convertible, launched by the UK government, helps community-owned businesses attract investment while keeping ownership locked to mission. Unlike traditional equity, it avoids investor takeover and protects community control over the long term.

At USC Marshall’s MSSE program, we teach that finance is never neutral—it distributes power, shapes access, and drives outcomes. If you want inclusive systems, you need inclusive financial tools.

This matters because it sets a precedent: social entrepreneurs don’t need to choose between values and viability.

📚 Credit: Pioneers Post, reporting by Sophie Hobson

Let’s build capital models that serve communities instead of eroding them.

When Daniel Almanza, MSSE, Cohort 2, applied to USC Marshall’s Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship program, he wasn’t chasing a diploma.
He was chasing impact.

Running a youth-focused arts program in Southern California, Daniel saw the transformative power of access to the arts, especially in culturally rich communities. But he also saw the operational and financial challenges that threatened these programs’ survival.

He needed:
✌🏼 Education he could apply immediately to real-world challenges.
✌🏼 Stronger business skills from financial sustainability to strategic growth.
✌🏼 A network of leaders who understood social impact.

MSSE delivered on all counts.

During the program, Daniel:
✌🏼 Expanded his focus from a single program to influencing the broader nonprofit sector.
✌🏼 Built skills in strategy, accounting, and marketing that he still uses daily.
✌🏼 Participated in cross-sector collaborations, including a pitch competition with the USC School of Engineering.
✌🏼 Learned the leadership traits that guide his work today: lead with focus, develop others, deliver on your promises.

Today, as founder of Impact Focus Advisors, Daniel helps school districts and nonprofits across California work smarter, faster, and with greater results.

For Daniel, MSSE wasn’t just about professional growth, it was about redefining what was possible.

Your turn: If you could design your career to make the biggest impact possible, what would it look like?

Some lessons fade after graduation. Others become part of how you think, decide, and lead.

For Daniel Almanza, MSSE Cohort 2, the Strategy, Accounting, and Marketing courses at USC Marshall MSSE weren’t just academic requirements they became everyday tools.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t draw on what I learned in those courses. They gave me the tools to make better decisions, communicate value, and build financially sustainable programs.”

Today, as founder of Impact Focus Advisors, Daniel uses those same frameworks to help school districts and nonprofits deliver results... smarter and faster.
They’ve guided him in:
✌🏽 Designing revenue models that keep programs alive and thriving
✌🏼 Communicating value to stakeholders with clarity and confidence
✌🏻 Making tough decisions with data and strategy, not guesswork

When your education sticks with you long after the final exam, that’s the real return on investment.

FT Fine Jewelry didn’t start with a market map. It started with honest reflection.

Founder Fatimah Tabba translated personal healing into brand DNA: clarity of purpose, respect for craft, and a commitment to women’s empowerment tied to every sale.

That clarity shows up in the work:
✌️ Aesthetics that signal calm, grace, and restraint.
✌️ Materials chosen for meaning and durability, not fads.
✌️ A giveback model that scales with growth.

Why this matters to MSSE students: values aren’t a tagline; they’re an operating system. When your principles drive product, pricing, suppliers, and partnerships, the brand feels coherent and customers feel it.

MSSE takeaways
• Write a 1-sentence creed you can stand behind for 10 years. Put it on your site, packaging, and pitch.
• Define 3 “non-negotiables” that guide product and partnerships (e.g., material standards, ethical sourcing, % of revenue to programs).
• Turn lived experience into a testable thesis: “Because X, we will build Y for Z.”
• Codify your impact mechanism (fixed % or per-unit contribution) and report outcomes quarterly.
• Make your first 3 hires against your creed (craft, community, compliance).

What’s one non-negotiable you’ll build into your venture this semester?

Purpose-driven. People-centered. Entrepreneurial at heart.

At USC Marshall’s Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship (MSSE) program, students don’t just learn how to build businesses, they learn how to build better ones.

📍Rooted in the heart of Los Angeles
🌍 Focused on solving global challenges
🤝 Powered by a diverse, mission-driven community

From impact finance to ethical tech, our students apply business tools to create scalable solutions that matter.

The photo says it all: community, confidence, and commitment to change.

Ready to turn your purpose into action?

During his time in the MSSE program, Daniel Almanza stepped into unfamiliar territory, partnering with students from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering for a cross-sector pitch competition.

The challenge was to develop an idea that could secure seed funding.

The experience pushed Daniel to think beyond the nonprofit lens, bridging business, engineering, and social impact.

“It pushed me to think more creatively, collaborate across sectors, and operate toward measurable outcomes,” Daniel recalls.

For him, this was more than a competition. It was a real-world lesson in how innovation happens, when diverse expertise comes together to solve complex problems.

That mindset now shapes his work at Impact Focus Advisors, where he partners with leaders in education and nonprofit sectors to deliver results smarter and faster.

MSSE started at the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab in 2008 and launched as a degree in 2014.

This year marks 12 years of MSSE graduates creating positive global impact.
✌️ Share your favorite MSSE memory in the comments.
✌️ Tag the classmates who were there with you.
✌️ Bonus points for early photos.

One of the most valuable aspects of Daniel Almanza’s MSSE experience wasn’t in a textbook.

It was in the rooms he entered.

Through the program, Daniel connected with leaders from across Los Angeles, government officials shaping policy, philanthropists funding innovation, tech executives driving change, and education leaders building the future.

These conversations opened doors to new ideas, collaborations, and ways of thinking. They challenged him to think beyond his own organization and see the bigger picture of social impact.

“Those experiences pushed me to think more creatively, collaborate across sectors, and operate toward outcomes,” Daniel says.

For students and alumni alike, the MSSE network isn’t just a contact list, it’s a living ecosystem of changemakers.

“This MSSE alumna shows how Trojans tackle society’s toughest problems, one tiny home at a time.”

Affordable housing is one of the toughest challenges facing cities today.

Rebecca Borough ’16, USC Marshall MSSE alumna, decided not to wait for someone else to solve it. After graduating, she launched Tiny Topanga in 2021, a social venture that builds custom, quality tiny homes for families who need affordable, sustainable housing.

Her idea started small, building a tiny home for herself and her husband. But when buyers kept asking to purchase them, Rebecca realized she had stumbled into something bigger: a scalable solution to one of society’s most pressing needs.

Instead of chasing “growth at all costs,” she took a deliberate approach: learning every aspect of the business, creating a repeatable process, and making sure each home was built with dignity, comfort, and safety. Now, she’s positioned to scale her impact and help more families secure housing.

This is what the USC MSSE program is all about: giving alumni the structure, tools, and network to turn passion into purpose-driven enterprises.

If you had the tools to launch a venture, what community challenge would you focus on solving?

Make the cause part of the cart.

Tie revenue to impact. Make the cause part of the cart.

Luxury can fund real outcomes. FT Fine Jewelry builds women’s empowerment into the business model—so every purchase supports programs in education, entrepreneurship, and community building. That’s not a side project; it’s how the brand operates.

Why this works
✌️ Simple mechanism: A fixed giveback tied to every transaction. No fine print.
✌️ Clear beneficiary: Women’s empowerment programs with measurable outcomes.
✌️ Brand alignment: Beauty + dignity + opportunity—one customer action, two wins.
✌️ Trust drivers: State the % or unit metric, show partners, publish results.

MSSE Insights
1. Map revenue → impact: Pick a concrete trigger (e.g., “for every X sold, we fund Y hours of training”).
2. Choose a primary metric: Scholarships awarded, hours of mentoring, small business grants seeded—one metric your audience can remember.
3. Make it transparent: Name the partner(s). Post quarterly results.
4. Design for scale: Start with one program, codify the mechanism, then expand.
5. Build the story into the product page: Price, materials, impact—side by side.
6. Invite the customer in: “Your purchase funds ___.” Put it in packaging and post-purchase emails.

If your venture could fund one initiative this semester, what would it be and how would you measure progress?

USC Marshall's Master of Science in Social Entrepreneurship program just celebrated its 10th anniversary as the first of its kind housed within a business school!

Swipe to learn more about how this program creates real impact! ➡️

The MSSE program combines concrete business skills with social impact focus, creating a unique learning environment for changemakers

Alumni success stories including Gifts for Good, Beamlink, FlexTogether, Rebundle, and YellowBrick

This is just one way USC Marshall helps students create sustainable solutions to global challenges.

Learn more unique facts about our program