At the Enactus world championships in Beijing in October, Jonathan King and his team came tantalizingly close to once again bringing home the trophy as the world’s top social entrepreneurship program for university students.

King is the head of Enactus Memorial, the student-run organization at Memorial University of Newfoundland that runs projects to improve the standard of living and quality of life of ordinary people. It is one of 60 Enactus teams in Canada and one of 1,800 worldwide. And it has a really, really full trophy case.

In fact, in 2014 it was judged to be better than all but seven of its international peers. It won the Canadian national competition in Calgary in April and proceeded to the global championships in the Chinese capital. 

“We came in the top eight in the world, which was good,” said King in an interview after he returned to St. John’s. “In the quarter-finals, we ended up against the Morocco team and they won and ended up coming second overall after China.”

Memorial’s program began as Launchpad in 2002 and became Enactus Memorial in 2012 – the year the name Enactus was taken by the international organization formerly known as Students in Free Enterprise, or SIFE. In that time, it has won seven national championships and one world title, which it captured in 2008 in Singapore.

The silver-medal Moroccan team in Beijing had interesting technology: it made clay pots that clean water to people can drink it. But the MUN team – which was after its second world title in seven years – had three projects that were pretty cool as well.

-  Project Bottlepreneur is a program that helps people who push carts around streets collecting cans and bottles for recycling. The project volunteers go door-to-door through neighbourhoods asking residents to make their recyclables available to these people, and then they organize routes for the collectors. It helps the individuals develop bona fide businesses. It is now working with 14 such individuals across Canada.

-  Project Stitch helps Haitians who have been injured, especially those who have lost limbs, develop a livelihood by sewing articles of clothing. The project is starting with neckties. At the outset, Enactus volunteers are acting as marketing agents to get the ties into the U.S. market, but that role will be taken over by Haitians as the project develops.

-  Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur helps members of the Canadian Armed Forces integrate into society after their military service by becoming entrepreneurs. The program, which has been recognized by Prince Charles, is offered in both official languages and has helped more than 200 soldiers transition out of the forces.

“One real goal is to create real value,” said Diana Flemming, Vice-President of Enactus Memorial. “We try to improve the quality of life of the people we work with.”

The results are seen across Newfoundland and Labrador and beyond, and have helped countless community groups. They range from international projects like Project Stitch to community endeavors like Hustle NL, which arranges specialty sports programs in rural communities that otherwise wouldn’t have such programs.

At any given time, Enactus Memorial has 10 projects on the go. After a couple of years, the more mature projects spin off to form their own businesses or not-for-profit organizations. The organizers aim to bring three projects forward each year to present at the national (and hopefully international) events.

King, a fifth year commerce student who will graduate this year, said the group is preparing to bring on a new executive and that it already has an eye on the next world championship, which will be held in Johannesburg next autumn.

“We always have three main projects going on that are strong and we’re getting ready,” he said. “And of course we always have new ideas as well.”

This article first appeared in our most recent Entrevestor Intelligence report, which appears here.

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