We are ready to build our foundation as a social enterprise. Are there high school students out there in the Tri-Lakes area interested in joining us on the journey? Do you want to help us with engineering and / or technology products, services or event content? There are no definitive books or surefire nonprofit business models for what we envision as our offerings, but we are okay with this. Since every student is different and the fields of technology and engineering are broad and diverse, we expect over the years our offerings will be different, broad and diverse. Our internships will provide industry experiences as we define, refine, make and deliver offerings. We look forward to helping spark interests and increase awareness of career opportunities in these fields.
Our intent as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit is to be a social enterprise[1]. We would prefer to diversify our funding options and provide opportunities for students to gain industry experience of bringing products, services and events to market as engineers and technologists. As a nonprofit, we can be entrepreneurial. We can sell products and services, but our income must go back into our mission. Our mission is to enable student interests and skills in engineering and technology. Thus we should focus our products or services to be engineering and / or technology-centered to align with our mission.
As with any business we should also set income goals that align with this social enterprise intent. This year we have set non-zero goals for any products, services or event income that we are able to achieve together.
This summer we will be building a foundation in both our development lifecycle and our offerings. The process will span a year across multiple internships for one product to complete one cycle. After working the product through the process, students will gain a deep understanding of the roles, process and types of businesses that are involved in bringing an engineering and technology-focused product to market. Exciting times for those coming on board this summer for the journey!
We are starting this summer in Stage 1 of our development lifecycle. In our first two weeks we will brainstorm and collaborate together on what products, services or event content we have an interest in designing and prototyping. What types of products will we design, prototype, sell? How do we plan to deliver? Who is our target audience of these products? Which way will we choose to manufacture them later in the year? We will also explore whether we could provide services? What can we offer with our skills?
We don’t plan to work in isolation and will look at opportunities to broaden our experience. For instance, to get a lay of the industry in Stage 1 we intend to visit with inventors and businesses that deliver products or provide services, large and small.
On November 20th, 2021, Monumental Impact intends to host a MITEE[2] Exhibition. This event will provide an opportunity for students to showcase projects they have been working on and for supported programs to share their latest creations. During our brainstorm some students may come up with a project that will focus on entertaining community members at the exhibition. To add to the fun, we may choose to host activities in which both adults and students can participate such as a DonkeyCar Rally and Colorado Combat Robotics. The Exhibition will provide an opportunity for some fun, market offerings and inspire others to love engineering and technology as we do!
If you are a high school student in the area interested in engineering and technology, we’d love to have you on our team. Monumental Impact is looking forward to seeing what we come up with together!
More information on applying to our internships can be found here.
Summer Internship Schedule
We know summer schedules can be hectic. Some may have jobs that are helping them with funds while others have family vacation obligations. We have proposed the following 2-7-2 schedule for our summer internships. The work schedule will include a 2-week focused time of 3-4 hours a day as a team at the beginning and end of the internship while we have a 7-week flex period in-between where team members are working remotely. A key to this schedule will be the first work week of June 1st where we work together to define our projects and business expectations.
[1] More about social enterprises can be found in our previous article, How is Monumental Impact a Social Enterprise?.
[2] MITEE stands for Monumental Impact for Technology, Engineering and Entrepreneurship.