Miller Center for Global Impact

10/30/2026

What actually makes a social entrepreneur ready to scale? 🤔

A Santa Clara University professor is digging into exactly that. Chan Thai’s research tracks how entrepreneurs build business planning skills through our accelerator, from a pilot of 10 social enterprise partners to a full study of 100, comparing real business plans before and after the program.

She’s now exploring how AI could help take that research even further.

Read the whole story in our 2026 Annual Report, link in bio.

10/28/2026

Congratulations to Linda Keegan, one of Miller Center’s executive coaches, and Fefe Silva, a Miller Center consultant, who have joined forces to launch a new book, How Smart Leaders Can Avoid Dumb Mistakes. 📚

Drawing on decades of coaching leaders around the world, the book offers ten short, practical chapters on the habits that turn good intentions into consistent results. Most costly leadership failures come from a lack of discipline and self-awareness, not a lack of intelligence, and the book is built around that idea.

If you’re in Mexico City on December 1, you’re invited to celebrate the book launch with food, drinks, and a book signing. Details and RSVP: https://luma.com/3609205r

Join Linda Keegan and Fefe Silva to celebrate the launch of How Smart Leaders Can Avoid Dumb Mistakes, with an evening of Singaporean food, drinks and a book…

10/22/2026

Miller Center intern Paloma Helms spent a month in Bangladesh with BRAC’s Climate and Environment Innovation Programme, meeting communities on the front lines of rising seas, salt water, and shifting seasons.

In “From California to Mongla: Witnessing Climate Adaptation Firsthand,” she goes beyond the policy discussions to describe what adaptation looks like in the daily lives of the children and women living it. We’re proud of Paloma and grateful she brought these stories back to share.

Read her article: https://millercenterglobal.org/from-california-to-mongla-witnessing-climate-adaptation-firsthand/

10/22/2026

It’s that time of year again, when we start thinking about how we’ll gift and celebrate the people we love. How we spend our money says something about what we value, and this season, that spending can do more.

Our 2026 Holiday Gift Guide features over 35 social enterprise partners from around the world, businesses creating fair wages and dignified work with every purchase. 🎁

Take a look and find a gift worth giving: https://millercenterforglobalimpact.createsend1.com/t/j-e-yhwpkk-l-it/

10/21/2026

Our Development Officer, Anthony Sampson, traveled to Mexico City with Santa Clara University students and the SCU Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education to meet social enterprise partners working in sustainability and environmental education.

In his new reflection, “A Sustainable Future Has Ancestral Roots,” Anthony writes about ancestral wisdom, collective responsibility, and what building a sustainable future asks of all of us. We’re grateful to him for sharing what he saw and learned, and for the way he connects those lessons back to our work with social entrepreneurs.

Read the full reflection: https://millercenterglobal.org/a-sustainable-future-has-ancestral-roots/

10/15/2026

The winners of Miller Center’s first Impact Behind the Lens photo competition have been selected.

We invited photographers from around the world to capture social entrepreneurship in action through visual stories of resilience, compassion, collaboration, and innovation.

From a global pool of submissions, a jury of experts in photography, community development, and the arts chose five images for their emotional impact, technical excellence, and the stories of change they tell. Congratulations to our winners:

🥇 First place - Lindsay Kelly, “Casa Flor Ixcaco”
🥈 Second place - Vaishali Bhatia, “Unsung Heroes of the Dawn Run”
🥉 Third place - Felix Mutasa, “Empowering Women to Take Care of Their Community”
Honorable mention - Brooke Peters, “On the Day We Saw the Dead Whale”
Honorable mention - Andrea Giacomini, “And I’ll Rise Up”

Thank you to everyone who submitted, and to the social entrepreneurs and changemakers whose work these photographers captured. See the full gallery: https://millercenterglobal.org/impact-behind-the-lens-photo-competition/

10/13/2026

Applications for Miller Center’s January 2027 Accelerator close this Friday, October 16.

Our six-month program is free and designed for social enterprise leaders working on ending poverty, advancing women’s economic power, and building climate resilience. Participants work with executive mentors for 180 hours to build a long-range impact strategy, a business plan, and a funding pitch.

Rajat Vardhan, Founder and CEO of ScaNxt and a recent graduate of the program, told us: “Miller Center does more than add value. It reshapes how we think, helping entrepreneurs grow as changemakers while building successful businesses.”

The program was also recently named to and@statista ’s America’s Best Incubators & Accelerators 2026 list. If you lead a social enterprise and are ready to scale, we’d love to see your application. Check the eligibility requirements and apply by Friday: https://millercenterglobal.org/accelerator/

10/01/2026

The world drinks over 2 billion cups of coffee every day, but few people know the hands and stories behind every bag. This International Coffee Day, we're highlighting four social enterprise partners using coffee to build opportunity, restore ecosystems, and strengthen communities from farm to cup.

☕ 1951 Coffee Company — training refugees as baristas and building new beginnings, one cup at a time
☕ Buena Vida Specialty Coffee — a women-owned, regenerative farm network restoring soil health across Costa Rica
☕Capeltic-Nuestro Café — an organic coffee company led by Tseltal Indigenous families in Chiapas, working for social justice and the defense of their territory
☕ Urbania — paying Colombian coffee growers above market rate while protecting local ecosystems. Urbania is part of our growing portfolio with Fundación Bancolombia

Swipe through to meet them, and raise a cup to the people making it possible.

09/30/2026

Applications are open for our next Accelerator, recently recognized by TIME and Statista as one of America's Best Incubators and Accelerators for 2026.

If you're a senior leader ready to scale your social enterprise, this six-month program pairs you with executive mentors to strengthen your business model, impact strategy, and funding pitch. It's virtual, and there's no cost to participate.

Rio Fish, a women-led aquaculture company in Kenya, went through the Accelerator before continuing on to our In-Residence program. Angela Odero's experience echoes what we hear from program participants again and again: the program doesn't just sharpen your business, it connects you to a global community of social entrepreneurs and mentors who stay engaged long after the six months end.

The application deadline is October 16, with the program beginning in January 2027.

See if you qualify and apply today: https://millercenterglobal.org/accelerator/