Miller Center & Chevron Announce a Three-year, $900,000 Climate Resilience Initiative

May 10, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Advancing climate resilience solutions through social entrepreneurship is the primary goal of a three-year initiative announced today by Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Chevron. The project aims to further climate-smart agriculture, safe water, and reliable low-carbon energy to vulnerable communities in Asia Pacific through customized support to high potential social enterprises.

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Chevron is supporting the initiative through a $900,000 gift, which will also enable research and the creation of training methods for overcoming biases that women and minorities face in raising capital.

'As a company of problem solvers, Chevron looks to the future of energy with optimism,' said Kurt Glaubitz, General Manager Corporate Affairs, Chevron Asia Pacific. 'The Miller Center – Chevron climate resilience initiative strives to help reduce poverty, drive economic and social opportunity, and develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region.'

Global climate resilience a main focus for both organizations

The 2021 and 2022 reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscore the urgent need to address the detrimental effects of climate disruption, especially on the world's underserved population.

'Social entrepreneurs are gamechangers when it comes to climate resilience and the impacts of climate poverty,' said Brigit Helms executive director, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. 'Miller Center has accelerated more than 1,300 social enterprises globally and we know firsthand that providing social entrepreneurs the tools and support they need to scale have a direct correlation to lifting people out of poverty.'

As part of the Chevron-funded project, Miller Center will build a portfolio of 30-45 social enterprises selected for their potential to grow and scale their social and economic impact. The initiative will provide a suite of customized services ranging from capacity and leadership development to mentoring and investment readiness and facilitation. This focused support will help position social enterprises to break through the obstacles to scale, improve financial sustainability, and secure the capital necessary to grow their impact.

The project is launched in conjunction with the release of a Miller Center paper entitled, 'Amplifying Impact: How Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship Boosts Climate Resilience.' The paper makes the case that social entrepreneurship can help prevent more people being pushed into poverty by climate-fueled events such as droughts, floods, and increasingly frequent and strong storms.

Overcoming entrenched biases in the startup ecosystem

Promoting diversity and inclusion is a key priority for Chevron both internally across its own global operations, and externally as well. Some of the Chevron funding will be devoted to 'Breaking the Bias' research and training methodologies aimed at helping support women and people of color in overcoming entrenched biases in the startup ecosystem.

According to Maya Ackerman, assistant professor at Santa Clara University and the researcher heading the 'Breaking the Bias' work, "Gender diversity contributes to an organization's success, with mixed-gender teams raising more capital on average per team, than all other founding team gender compositions. However, this only holds for startups led by male CEOs. Female CEOs continue to be systemically underfunded, for both all-female and mixed-gender teams."

Miller Center and Chevron began their relationship in 2019, when they launched the Mini-Grid Accelerator Program in Myanmar, providing business and investment readiness training to energy service companies in rural areas. In 2021, the Asia Pacific Climate Resilience Accelerator supported entrepreneurs across six target countries with a focus on scaling innovation solutions in energy, water, and climate-smart agriculture.

About Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship is the foremost university-based social enterprise accelerator in the world. With an emphasis on climate resilience and women's economic empowerment, Miller Center accelerates social entrepreneurship to eliminate global poverty. Located at Santa Clara University (SCU), Miller Center has served more than 1,300 social entrepreneurs, engaged 162 SCU students in field research, and currently work with more than 300 business leaders from around the world who participate as mentors in the center's programs.

About Chevron

Chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies. As a company of problem solvers, we look to the future of energy with optimism. We provide affordable, reliable, and ever-cleaner energy to people in the Asia-Pacific region that is essential to achieving a more prosperous and sustainable world. We invest in community programs that help advance the UN's sustainable development goals and strive to empower people to meet their full potential.