Dr. Rasheda L. Weaver is an award-winning, global expert on social and commercial entrepreneurship. She is the Founder and CEO of the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurship, an evolution of Weaver's Social Enterprise Directory, Inc., and the Author of “Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction.” Her dissertation is the first large-scale study on the social, economic, and legal activities of social enterprises in the United States. She is sponsored by the Biden-Harris Administration’s African Descent Social Entrepreneurship Network, through which she works with 100 social entrepreneurs of African descent from 25 countries to develop social innovations and enterprises that advance economic prosperity in the United States and beyond.
BOOK
Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction
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ABOUT DR. WEAVER
Dr. Rasheda L. Weaver is an award-winning, global expert on social and commercial entrepreneurship. Her dissertation is the first large-scale empirical study on the social, economic, and legal activities of social enterprises in the United States and she is the Founder and CEO of the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurship (IISE), formerly Weaver's Social Enterprise Directory, Inc.
Dr. Weaver’s mission is to inspire, educate, and equip current and aspiring social entrepreneurs with the tools needed to create sustainable social enterprises in communities throughout the world. Her forthcoming textbook entitled “Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction” aims to be the go-to handbook for designing social enterprises with an emphasis on economic sustainability and community development.
As a Professor and Social Scientist, she has been instrumental in the creation and transformation of entrepreneurship education and research programs and has taught entrepreneurship to over 1,000 students globally. For four years, she served as the first Assistant Professor for the Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation that was established with a $15 million donation at Iona College in 2017, building its teaching, research, and service foundation. Before that, she was an Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship and the founding Faculty Co-Director for the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Community at the University of Vermont.
Dr. Weaver’s current research study is entitled “Social Enterprise, Economic Uncertainty, and the Imperative of Resilience. It examines strategies social enterprises employ to foster resilience in times of crisis, specifically the current economic recession, COVID-19 pandemic, and racial uprising. A pioneer in her field, she has recently published some of the first articles on social enterprise and crises entitled “The Impact of COVID-19 on the Social Enterprise Sector” for the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and “Winter Always Comes: Social Enterprises in Times of Crisis” for the Social Enterprise Journal.
Dr. Weaver has served as Chair for the Social Entrepreneurship/ Enterprise Section of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and as Co-Chair Elect for the Social Entrepreneurship Interest Group for the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She is a member of the EMES International Research Network where she also serves as faculty for their global social enterprise PhD summer school. She is a Federal Grant Reviewer for the United States Department of Agriculture, working with them to distribute millions of dollars in funding for innovative entrepreneurial programs. She has also served on the Board of Trustees for the Center for Environmental Transformation in Camden, New Jersey, through which she helped launch a youth-run social enterprise named South Camden Farms.
She received a PhD in Public Affairs-Community Development and a Master of Science in Public Affairs from Rutgers University. She also graduated valedictorian from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development with a Master of Arts in Applied Psychology. Dr. Weaver also graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Herbert H. Lehman College. Since 2009, she has received over 30 research grants, fellowships, awards, and honors.
A first-generation American, Dr. Weaver was born and raised in the Bronx, New York and is from a large Cuban and Jamaican family. In her spare time, you can find her relaxing on a beach, dancing salsa, or cooking Caribbean food.
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