IBE Capstone Project: Crowdfunding to Fight Domestic Violence

 

(UPDATE: IBE students featured on WFMZ-TV. Watch now.)

As members of the 2022 Integrated Business and Engineering Program, we choose to focus our IBE capstone project on Finability, a nonprofit organization that aims to financially empower survivors of domestic abuse, founded by Lehigh graduate Stacy Sawin, an IBE student from the class of '14.

Sawin was a stalking victim. She left the country and attended the London School of Business where she received an MBA. While there, she started the nonprofit Finability.   

For our team, this experience was unique. First we researched domestic violence and the way the nonprofit world helps survivors. We met with caregivers and survivors. We learned that survivors have to make the hard decision of either staying with their harm doer or become homeless.

We decided to focus on creating a crowdfunding video to help raise money so Finability would have the resources to provide financial education and resources to victims. To accomplish this we reached out to a student in the Intro to Entrepreneurship class to do the editing, expanding on the already interdisciplinary approach we were taking.

Please watch the video, created by Saad Aftabs, which features the story of a survivor, caregivers and Stacy Sawin, and consider making a donation. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sarah Smith - Marketing
Maytal Balaish - Finance, minor in Economics and Applied Mathematics
Michael Jeney - Financial Engineering and Industrial Engineering
Nicole ElChaar - Computer Science & Engineering and Finance
Ralph Haddad - Computer Science Engineering and IBE Finance
Ryan Heaton - Finance and Industrial & Systems Engineering
Gabrielle Effendi - Industrial & Systems Engineering and IBE Finance, minor in Computer Science