SIFE Makes Dollars and Sense
Students reach out to community with financial knowledge
By Brenna Fisher, editorial assistant

Although painting fences, collecting cans for food drives, and recycling are noble efforts, they don’t always appeal to students looking for a more challenging community service activity. What about organizing a project start to finish, using practical business applications, traveling to implement that project, and getting more leadership experience in college than most professionals get starting out in the business world? And most importantly, communities worldwide benefit from these efforts. Is it possible to have one organization do all this? It is. Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) is a worldwide organization dedicated to teaching and helping people benefit from free market economics.

One major difference between SIFE and other leadership organizations is that SIFE members brainstorm, plan, organize, and implement a project from start to finish. “SIFE will require a large commitment from any of its members, but everything you put into the organization comes back to you 100 fold,” says Stephanie Hyde, a Drury University SIFE member.

SIFE members work in teams to guide each other on the best ideas and methods instead of being told what project they’ll be working on. Their faculty advisers, also named Sam Walton Fellows in honor of Wal-Mart’s founder, are often SIFE alumni. “SIFE allows students to be hands on from the inception of an idea,” says Melinda Burke, a Sam Walton Fellow from the University of Arizona. “It’s an entirely different experience.” Don’t let the words “free enterprise” fool you; SIFE students are not limited to business majors.

Students from all different majors implement projects, often fulfilling a need in the community that wasn’t addressed before. In addition, the wide range of projects completed every year show how SIFE strives to target every demographic. For the elderly, students at Drury did presentations on fraud to warn about how con artists manipulate senior citizens. For students at their own college and members of the community, the team prepared seminars about proper credit use and how to stay out of debt. Drury SIFE members are now working with local farmers in an effort to educate them on better methods of finance and marketing so that they can operate more successful businesses. “There isn’t a better reward than helping someone better their life,” Hyde says.

To meet the youth demographic, SIFE members at California State University operate The Chico Youth Entrepreneurship Camp, a place where college mentors teach children grades 5-8 how to identify and meet market needs by using technology, ethics, organization, and communication. More than 100 college mentors have taught more than 400 children throughout northern California.

In Springfield, Mo., members of the Drury SIFE team run the Young Entrepreneurs Association, which provides educators worldwide with the tools necessary to effectively teach sixth and seventh grade students about free enterprise and how to participate successfully in a global economy. Their web site, www.yea1.org, provides teachers with lesson plans and activities they can download for their own use quickly and conveniently. Since Drury’s expansion of YEA, there is now more than 1300 chapters worldwide made possible because the web site can be viewed in several different languages. The lessons coming from SIFE are not just about the economics. “[SIFE members] are planting the seed that these children can be a success,” says Robert Wyatt, a Sam Walton Fellow from Drury.

SIFE’s worldwide involvement does not stop at the internet. Projects conducted by many SIFE teams include travelling to foreign countries to build up small businesses and increase commerce. La Sierra University in California did several international micro-loan projects; for example, they created a cow bank in the village of Karandi, India. With the cows, families can use some of the produced milk themselves and then sell the rest to generate income. The family’s loan is repaid in full with the birth of the cow’s first female calf. SIFE members at the University of Ghana taught villagers in Kpomkpo how to make soap from available natural resources and how to make a business out of it. Since then, the participants’ wages have increased from about $1.67 per month to $22 per month.

SIFE projects have many success stories, but the organization is not only about teaching free market economics and success—it’s also about providing those who are already successful with the opportunity to give back. Not only do corporate sponsors supply almost all the funding for SIFE’s projects, but SIFE alumni also consistently look to hire SIFE students when they graduate. Why are SIFE members in demand? “[SIFE] basically gives you every competency a workplace could want,” Hyde says. As they work on projects, SIFE members learn how to work as a team, communicate with executives, lead groups, think strategically, and make killer presentations for both those they teach and the judges at competition. Many members of the SIFE Board of Directors are also corporate executives. As a result, SIFE members have the opportunity to network at every regional competition where teams from each region give presentations about their projects. The judges focus on how well they taught others a working knowledge of free enterprise. President and trustee of the KPMG Foundation and member of the SIFE Board of Directors Bernie Milano says that SIFE competitions are a natural place to look for future employees. “Corporations are looking for evidence of leadership and evidence of involvement,” he says.

In addition to supporting SIFE financially and giving students jobs opportunities, corporate sponsors also support a mission. With more than 220 sponsors, companies everywhere are helping the expansion of free enterprise. SIFE brings companies, students, and communities together by offering solutions and teaching lessons that stay with those educated for a lifetime. “In my view, almost everything about SIFE has not only immediate but life long benefits,” Milano says.

Contact Milano at bmilano@kpmg.com, Hyde at shyde@drury.edu, Burke at mburke@ag.arizona.edu, and Wyatt at rwyatt@lib.drury.edu.

Copyright © 2005 Oxendine Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved