Tackling Inequality With an Entrepreneur’s Eye

When Andrea Chen moved to New Orleans in 2004 for a Teach for America assignment after studying social entrepreneurship at Stanford, she saw the harm caused by the city’s racial and economic inequity. Some of her high-school English students read at a third-grade level.

The experience stuck with her.

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After the Katrina-rebuilding effort unleashed a wave of can-do energy, she and several friends started Propeller, a charity that helps entrepreneurs build nonprofits and small businesses that tackle economic and social disparities in New Orleans.

Propeller works with ventures in education, food, health, and water. Since its beginning in 2011, the accelerator has helped 135 entrepreneurs whose businesses and nonprofits have created 310 jobs and earned $84 million in external financing and revenue.

Ms. Chen and her colleagues do more than help founders boost marketing or set up accounting systems. Propeller figures out how to build the business ecosystem through policy work and by selecting ventures that work in complementary areas of an industry.

Take healthy food. Propeller persuaded the New Orleans school district to require that local food be part of school lunches. This created an opportunity for a food-distribution business for which Propeller served as the incubator. Then, to increase fruit and vegetable production, the nonprofit worked with the city to turn over vacant properties to urban farmers. Another business nurtured by Propeller supplies fresh produce to neighborhood stores.

“It’s about the collective impact,” Ms. Chen says. “No one food entrepreneur can do it on their own.”