Derene Allen

Since childhood, I’ve been interested in helping others and giving back. I was raised in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the socioeconomic disparity was stark. Even as a 5-year-old, I noticed other children didn’t have shoes, they were begging in parking lots and on the street.

I began my career at American Express and, after 10 years, shifted to entrepreneurship, launching a database marketing enterprise with a partner that expanded to four countries in 5 years. My husband and I moved to Mexico, where I taught at the Tecnologico de Monterrey. I worked very diligently with student entrepreneurs and always included a community and social component in whatever marketing or business class I was teaching. After returning to the US, I worked at a consultancy that helped Fortune 500 companies identify growth opportunities in multicultural populations in the US. But as I was making a presentation to a large confectionery company, I realized that these populations already over-index in diabetes and obesity. I did not want to be responsible for convincing them to consume more confectionery products. I realized that I needed to make a career shift.

On day 1 of my sabbatical, I told my college-age daughter, “I’m having a midlife crisis. I need to figure out what I want to be when I grew up.” That night she called me back, “Hey Mom”, she said, “I think I found the perfect job for you.” The job at WAGES (Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security; now Prospera) was to develop new business models for low-income Latina immigrants, to provide a healthy, dignified living that could provide for them and their families. I emailed at midnight. I started two weeks later.

I soon realized that throughout my career, I had been amassing the necessary skill set to tackle challenging business problems for different communities. After three years, I returned to consulting, where I managed and lead the social practice for multicultural markets, to develop and implement social strategies that drove business growth for corporate clients as well as earned income strategies for nonprofits.

I eventually learned about the Encore Fellowships Network. I was not looking to transition out of my consultancy. My primary motivation, then and now, is looking at the multiplier effect and social impact that I can have with the skills I bring. The idea of working at the intersection of social innovation and spirituality at the Ignite Institute of the Pacific School of Religion intrigued me. The built-in distribution networks of communities of faith allowed for greater impact. Even though formal faith communities have been declining over the past several years, the need for what a faith community can bring, in terms of caring for your fellow human beings, compassion, empathy and helping others — those needs are ever more present. This fellowship represented the opportunity to have a greater impact.

My fellowship role is to shift the Ignite Institute from a focus on grants, to identify earned-income growth strategies by providing training and consulting. We seek out opportunities to collaborate with communities like the Social Enterprise Alliance, Ashoka and the Impact Hub in San Francisco and Berkeley and provide training in areas such as having Difficult Discussions on Race, Mental Health, Addiction and the Advantages and Limitation of Empathy in Social Innovation. We provide a program for late career professionals interested in being change-makers, ReIGNITE, helping them identify what they want to do with their life with social change and giving back to the community. We also work with faith leaders to identify new business models. The traditional business model of the Sunday offering is not sufficient to do all the work that congregations would like to do in communities, so we are helping to create new models. We work to address social challenges like income disparity, homelessness, job opportunities for people with disabilities. The work I’m doing as an Encore Fellow is what I love.

I bring specific strengths to my fellowship role. The first is my understanding of business models, for-profit to nonprofit/social entrepreneurship. Then, the fact that I’ve worked in multiple countries has given me the awareness to adapt business models to different conditions – and the ability to work with individuals who have very different backgrounds. Social innovation is a very collaborative space. There’s work to go around for us all.

My fellowship is 20 hours a week, but when one is doing what one loves, and one sees the change that one can affect, it’s ok to put more effort behind it. I only need 6 hours sleep a night! I actually will be transitioning from my fellowship role as the interim Executive Director of Ignite to Executive Director and a Visiting Instructor of Social Entrepreneurship.

One of the key differences of the Ignite Institute is our focus on combining ancient wisdom with innovation and management skills. That actually incorporates a much broader population than the traditional populations who attend a seminary – it’s really anyone who has an inner faith. A lot of our participants characterize themselves as spiritual, not religious. A lot of people are in-search-of meaning and purpose now, and are looking for some grounding component. We focus on the core values of integrity and ethics, compassion and empathy, qualities that are key to advancing careers in social change, and providing the leadership and hard skills needed to lead in today’s unpredictable and challenging environment

I’m very grateful for this opportunity. Every day, I’m excited to come to work. This might not have been a destination for me on my own. It’s been challenging, because it’s a new culture for me. Theologians speak a different language, and I speak in business language. We have to explain to each other what we mean. I have found that this fellowship has really reconfirmed the core values that exist in humankind, in terms of being a kind and caring human being. I see these values carried out on campus every day and it adds to one’s faith in humankind as I see more people going out and wanting to make a change in the world. It’s very rewarding.