Member Profile: Fred DeWorken
Our September Member Spotlight features brand-spanking new NI Seattle board member Fred DeWorken. He founded the Net Impact Santa Clara Chapter and is passionate about marketing. Send an email to fdeworken@gmail.com.
Why did you join Net Impact? I decided to join Net Impact after hearing of the Net Impact National Conference at Stanford in late 2005. A good friend and I decided to attend the conference, and we were flabbergasted by the amount of creative energy we ran head into. We met some of the Net Impact Central executives and decided right then to start a chapter at Santa Clara University, especially since we had just finished a class titled “Social Benefit Entrepreneurship.”
It felt almost natural to start the group, as the zeitgeist at Santa Clara’s business school seemed to be changing to incorporate more CSR and ‘green’ concepts. We started with about seven members and were able to pull off three solid events before we both graduated in May of 2006. We had a kickoff and networking mixer with the Net Impact group from the Monterrey Institute of International Studies. Then we hosted the founder of Kiva.org, Matt Flannery, along with the founders of two other organizations involved in micro-lending for a panel discussion. Finally, we had a great urban orchard pruning day at a plot donated to a local food bank. The trees were very neglected and we spent a whole Saturday working to get them in productive shape.
I guess I joined Net Impact because it fits my way of life and my values. It is inspiring to be part of a group of professionals that search for creative outlets for their desires to impact the world in a positive way.
What have you caused to change or participated in changing at work? I joined the Peace Corps in 2006. At the beginning of my service, I was assigned to a bakery that had been given by a government aid organization to a group of matriarchs in a rural community of ranchers and fisherman on the Pacific Coast of Panama. By the time I arrived, the bakery had entered a state of decline and the matriarchs participating in the bakery had dwindled down to a bitter few. In all of my American gusto, I worked side by side with the six of them, trying as I might to inspire, ignite and even incite them to realize their full potential through that bakery they were given. I would rise at 3:00 am most days and make bread, pizza, cookies and cakes and load up trays, drag one of them along and sell door to door if we had to.
I’d like to be able to say that I lit their fire and that they all rode off into the sunset with little bundles of hard earned cash, but they didn’t and it was very hard for me to not feel like a failure. Weeks later, I began to realize that I had made an impact on the youth who were now interested in entrepreneurial endeavors and coming to me for help. Soon people from all over the region were tracking me down for help in starting their businesses. In the end, I helped dozens of people start their businesses, and I did make an impact, just not in the exact way that I had imagined. And in the end my six ladies came around, just not as I had expected them to.
What did you learn in the process that you would like to share? I learned to work with a purpose in a specific direction and take the frustration in stride. Sometimes restraints are good – we need time to reflect, reassess and recharge, and restraints may unwittingly provide that for us.
What’s next for you? I just arrived back in the US in January, and Seattle is new to me. I decided to move here because I respect the frame of mind that is prevalent here. This new environment is providing a great opportunity for me to reflect, reassess and recharge. It’s been an intense couple of years. I know that I have a great deal to contribute and I figure that I am oriented in the proper direction, so that gives me the faith that something great will soon come.
What do you feel you need to learn or be supported in to do that? Right now, I feel that I need to be the best professional I can be and to prepare myself to be a knowledgeable advocate for green and sustainable ways of doing business and living life. My passions lie in marketing. I’d ideally like to have a mentor and learn the ropes of corporate and organizational life so that I can magnify my impact by motivating others with influential messaging, ultimately helping to address global imperatives (or “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” if you will). I also have a past in radio so I see myself doing a weekly radio show featuring some of those great people out there with big ideas so that I can help and learn from them, while laying down a funky soundtrack of course.