By Grace Oladipo, Notre Dame Television
Thursday, November 4, 2021
Grace Oladipo: I’m here outside the office of enFocus, a Notre Dame startup that is coming up to 10 years in business.
Andrew Wiand: enFocus is a unique nonprofit headquartered in South Bend, Indiana. Our mission is to empower talent to build better communities.
GO: enFocus is a nonprofit organization that pairs recent college graduates called Fellows with community sponsors in order to solve problems and create opportunities in the northern Indiana region. The company was founded nearly 10 years ago when a small group of students from Notre Dame’s ESTEEM program pitched the idea to Notre Dame faculty and community leaders.
AW: We came together and I think the idea was in April or May 2012, and when we graduated on a Saturday, we started on Monday. So there was eight original sponsors that agreed to hire original Innovation Fellows. We raised about $300,000, and we were off and running since then.
GO: The company’s ties with Notre Dame have grown even stronger over the years, enabling enFocus to receive project partnerships, funding opportunities, and high-quality talent.
Patrick McGuire: I majored in economics and sociology at Notre Dame. As I was thinking where I wanted to work and where I was going to end up after graduation, I started to have questions about where can I have the most impact—what role would be the most meaningful for me—and sometimes I felt this tension between going to a big city like D.C. and trying to be a part of something there or being a part of this community that I’ve fallen in love with and really try to have an impact here. It really was the perfect combination of impact and belonging here in the area, so I’m very grateful for this role.
GO: While enFocus’s impact began in South Bend, its influence has expanded in location and in reach far beyond what the organization did in its early years.
AW: It feels busy now because we started with seven people, and we’re almost 40 now. And each year we have over 100 student internships that we create. So the ability to manage and cycle the program is just truly exciting because we’re not just in South Bend; we’re in Elkhart; we’re in Marshall County and we’ve just kind of exploded here across the region, so it’s been very exciting.
PM: I think a huge thing Notre Dame students should do now is go to the farmer’s market, go downtown, go to a bunch of different restaurants, explore this area and this region. And I think that is what really made a difference for me was having an internship downtown and exploring the area when I was off work.
AW: You can see the results of the work. You can see things being built. You can see the smiles on people’s faces. You can see teachers, patients… You can see manufacturers receive the work and see good done. And so when you see those things, you have something to build on, and what’s amazing is what’s next.