Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

GirlTrek is the largest public health nonprofit for African-American women and girls in the United States. Morgan Dixon was a school teacher. As she learned about the statistical probability of chronic disease and early death among her students, she wanted to take action. Morgan knew that walking was a powerful antidote to many of the health challenges faced by those in her community. She began by walking with her students. As satisfying as those walks were, she knew that the solution needed to scale. With her friend, Vanessa Garrison, they used Facebook to organize a 10-week walking challenge. The next year, women came back and asked Morgan and Vanessa to run the challenge again. That’s when they knew they were on to something. As important as walking is, Morgan and Vanessa sensed that they were on to something even bigger. Morgan told me, “We started to look to our history for what happened when black women walked for change?” They connected the movement with the history of black women and civil rights. T