Vanessa Carter is executive director of Lend for America, which helps students start and grow microfinance programs on college campuses. Below, she writes about a new program in Philadelphia, which Knight Foundation supports to encourage entrepreneurship and foster community. Above: Students participate in a lively discussion at Lend for America’s 5th Annual Summit held at University of Pennsylvania this past October. Photo credit: Michael Long Fotograffic.

Meet Ann, a talented 20-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania. Ann was on the dean’s list last semester and co-founded a business to sell handmade baskets online with a group of women in Guatemala. She is the resident adviser in her dorm, lead in the on-campus a cappella group, and plays three intramural sports.

When I first met Ann, she told me something I hear from many students like her. She wanted to make an impact in the world and help people in need. Despite her full schedule of activities, she was looking for a challenging opportunity to obtain hands-on experience in social change work — something that required more than manual labor.

Colleges and universities host many talented and motivated students like Ann. In Philadelphia, tens of thousands of college students come to the city every year to live and study. These students are offered fleeting community service opportunities in the community — to spend a day in a soup kitchen or cleaning up a riverbed, for example — but are not asked to be part of a long-term revitalization strategy.

Many students will live on-campus for years and leave when they graduate without ever building relationships outside the campus bubble. Aside from their contributions to the local economy by frequenting the ubiquitous student-on-a-budget circuit of fast-food joints and coffee shops, students remain for the most part uninvolved in their campus communities.

Meanwhile Philadelphia’s communities face enduring economic challenges, especially small businesses. Philadelphia is creating fewer new businesses than the national average and Pennsylvania ranks 48th in the country in microbusiness ownership.

We created Lend for Philly to bridge the divide between campus and community. Lend for Philly will incubate at least four new campus-based microfinance institutions (Campus MFIs) to provide microloans and technical assistance to Philadelphia business owners. Through the project we will provide hands-on experience to college students, help small business owners in Philadelphia, and strengthen the culture of innovation in the city.

Here’s how it works: University teams are challenged in a contest to meet as many local small business owners as possible. Students walk to business storefronts to conduct a two-minute interview with business owners. The team that talks to the most business owners wins a grand prize of $5,000 to use towards a new Campus MFI. Teams will also have the opportunity to receive grants from Lend for America to make loans to local business owners.

With nearly 50 colleges and universities in the Delaware Valley region, Philadelphia is the perfect place for us to pilot this project. Students at the University of Pennsylvania have already started by creating Compass Capital, and students at Haverford College launched Carter Road Capital. Both groups plan to offer business owners access to loans up to $5,000.

As one Philly-based entrepreneur shared with the Sustainable Business Network, “There is a culture of entrepreneurship in Philly. College students don’t view this city as a place to start a company. Having stayed in Philly, I can tell you that they’re wrong. We have cheap rent, universities and talent.”

Clearly, there is great growth opportunity for small business in Philadelphia—and through its unique grant platform and mapping contest, Lend for Philly provides a conduit for students to create substantial, lasting change right outside their dormitory doors.

Philadelphia-based college students interested in Lend for Philly should visit lendforphilly.org to join the competition.