Alumni and Friends Making an Impact

In Maria Vivero’s Finance for the Common Good course, business students learn about finance's role in supporting social causes. One day, they explore theory; the next, they meet business and community leaders who put it into practice.

Vivero, associate professor of economics and finance, created the class to bridge the technical aspects of finance with the social and community issues that nonprofits and businesses address. Inspired by her own shift in research areas during the pandemic to include income inequality, Vivero hopes to inspire students to use their financial knowledge more broadly to impact the world for the better.

It also doesn’t hurt that she uses field trips and guest speakers to get that point across.

“I want my students to see that finance isn’t just numbers; it’s about the real-world impact those numbers create,” Vivero said. “By connecting their knowledge and skills to community needs, they can become leaders who drive positive change.”

In one class, students pulled weeds at Mission of Mary Cooperative, an urban garden run by lay Marianists working to address food insecurity. The garden is organic, which means they don’t use pesticides and depend on volunteers for the task.

“At first, students wondered what a finance class has to do with pulling weeds,” Vivero said. “So we calculated the value of the volunteer hours they put in and demonstrated the effect that can have on the organization in applying for grants.

“It was a practical way to show the significance of volunteering from a business perspective.”

Her students have interacted with a variety of organizations and guest speakers, including:

• Gem City Market, a cooperative grocery store in West Dayton that includes community resources such as a teaching kitchen, a community room and a mental health clinic.
• Reza’s, a locally-owned roasterie and cafe focused on sustainable and ethical coffee production in addition to high-quality employee benefits such as childcare.
• The CEO of Pacari Chocolate, an ethically-sourced chocolate company in Ecuador.

Students also work in groups over the course of the semester to develop a business canvas model for local nonprofits.

By showing the ways businesses and financial markets can impact the local or global community through hands-on experience, Vivero hopes to get students excited about finance and learning.

Dewey Van Buren, a UD senior, took the course as a sophomore as did many of his peers. It was their introduction to finance classes at UD. “It fulfilled an elective requirement for business, but I had no idea what to expect going into the class,” he said.

Pretty soon, Van Buren and his classmates were out of the classroom and in the city.

“It was refreshing to do something new,” Van Buren said. “In most of my other classes, we talk about how businesses run and study their operations, but being able to go and see it firsthand and hear about it from the business owner is something different and valuable.”