Profit with a Purpose

The past 15 years have seen a fundamental shift in the business landscape. Young adults ages 18 to 24 now show the highest entrepreneurial activity in the U.S.¹ At the same time, many of today’s young founders are driven by more than profit: They want their work to make a difference.

This rising generation of entrepreneurs is balancing two bottom lines: financial success and impact. Increasingly, research shows those goals reinforce one another rather than compete. Studies of purpose-driven companies have found that they grow at more than three times the rate of their peers and report notably higher levels of innovation²—evidence that purpose is not a trade-off but a competitive advantage.

For Alison Gilbert, director of Monmouth University’s Center for Entrepreneurship, this convergence of purpose and performance defines the future of entrepreneurship. It’s what she calls “impact-driven entrepreneurship.”

“At the center, we start by asking, ‘What impact are you uniquely positioned to create? What authentically drives you?’” explains Gilbert. “When entrepreneurs answer those questions, they uncover two essential ingredients: their intrinsic motivation and their deeper sense of purpose—their ‘why.’ These become the fuel that sustains the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey. Ventures evolve, ideas pivot, and strategies shift, but when founders are grounded in purpose, they have what they need to adapt, persevere, and build something both impactful and sustainable.”

For those who work with the center, the journey often begins with the E-Lab, a hands-on venture-development program that helps aspiring founders transform ideas into viable business opportunities. The program starts with the Leadership Compass, a guided process of learning and reflection that Gilbert developed to help entrepreneurs identify their personal mission, vision, and strengths.

“From this foundation of self-knowledge, the center helps founders translate their purpose into a viable business,” she says.

Over time, that compass has guided many Monmouth entrepreneurs as they begin translating their ideas into action. For some, that means discovering where their passions meet real needs; for others, it’s learning how purpose can strengthen a business idea. In every case, the process begins with reflection and a willingness to start.

A Pivot Reveals Purpose

For Alexandria Young ’26, work in the E-Lab helped transform a vague interest into a clear calling.

Young, whose father owns a laundromat business, arrived at Monmouth with only a passing interest in entrepreneurship. But after her father encouraged her to listen to Rich Dad, Poor Dad—a book that challenges conventional ideas about work, wealth, and independence—she was inspired to create something of her own.

During the spring semester of her freshman year, she came up with the idea for a body care business and turned to Monmouth’s Center for Entrepreneurship for guidance. After completing the foundational Leadership Compass work in the E-Lab, Young realized her concept didn’t align with what really inspired her.

That self-discovery sparked a new idea: Dialeco, a virtual language-immersion platform that connects learners with native speakers to improve conversational skills through authentic practice. The inspiration was deeply personal. Although her mother is from Panama, Young and her sisters had never learned Spanish. “I wanted to connect with my family, to be able to speak to my grandparents,” she says. “I’ve always been surrounded by the language, but I never actually knew what they were saying.”

With the center’s help, Young refined her concept while also collaborating with one of Associate Professor Amanda Stojanov’s communications classes on the platform’s user interface and experience design. Young later pitched Dialeco at HawkTank, the center’s annual business pitch competition, where she was a finalist, and from there she was accepted into the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, which provides mentorship and funding for early-stage ventures to do customer discovery. Most recently, she completed a New York City accelerator program and is pursuing seed funding to bring her idea to market.

Now in her senior year, Young is preparing to launch Dialeco upon graduation, the result of three years of sustained development and support since her freshman year.

“Alexandria’s story is a great example of impact-driven entrepreneurship,” says Gilbert. “Through reflection, she discovered what truly drives her. Dialeco isn’t just about language learning—it’s also preserving cultures and connecting generations. She’s starting with Spanish, and the platform can eventually expand to other languages and dialects. It has a scalable model, addresses a market opportunity, and creates impact.”

A Detour Leads to Discovery

Alexander Kalina ’25, who graduated last May with a bachelor’s degree in biology and molecular cell physiology, took a less direct route to entrepreneurship. He entered Monmouth planning to pursue a Ph.D. and a research career in pharmaceuticals, but midway through college, he began to rethink that path.

During a sophomore-year internship in global drug development with Novartis, Kalina gained firsthand insight into how new medicines move through clinical trials, discovering a major obstacle: patient recruitment. Roughly 80% of trials fail to meet their enrollment goals on time, costing companies millions and slowing the delivery of new treatments.

Kalina had identified a significant problem but lacked the entrepreneurial framework to address it. So, when he returned to campus for his junior year, he reached out to Gilbert to learn what resources the center could offer someone with an idea still in its early stages. Together, they mapped out a plan for exploring the issue further. That process led to LINK, a digital platform designed to match patients with clinical trials that align with their medical histories and needs.

What followed was progression through the center’s development pipeline. Participating in HawkTank gave Kalina the opportunity to test his concept with mentors and judges who pushed him to build on his research thinking with entrepreneurial strategy. Winning first place solidified his confidence to keep building. He then applied to and was accepted into the NSF I-Corps program, where he spent a month interviewing more than 20 pharmaceutical professionals. Those conversations deepened his understanding of industry needs and helped him refine LINK’s potential.

Beyond Monmouth, Kalina’s venture earned statewide recognition when he won first place at UPitchNJ, a competition judged by a panel of executives from Nokia Bell Labs, besting student teams from 13 New Jersey universities. The experience, he says, provided invaluable validation.

Now working in a leadership development program in global clinical trials at Johnson & Johnson, Kalina has temporarily stepped back from LINK to build industry experience. He says the long-term goal is still to relaunch the venture, potentially after completing an MBA, when he is better positioned to scale it. In the meantime, Gilbert remains a sounding board as he continues shaping the idea’s future direction.

“Alex identified a real industry opportunity, validated the solution through competitions and customer discovery, and now he’s setting the foundation for LINK, gaining expertise and experience for building this platform,” says Gilbert.

Designing for the Front Lines

While Kalina is building industry experience before relaunching his startup, Naja Morgan ’24M has been managing both worlds simultaneously. A nurse practitioner with more than a decade of experience, Morgan juggles multiple roles—telehealth provider, crisis nurse, and clinician at both inpatient and outpatient facilities—while developing her health care apparel company, Dark Matter.

Her idea was born from long days on the job. After years of 12-hour shifts and countless wardrobe frustrations, she realized how limited most scrubs were: either functional or flattering, but never both. She wanted to change that by designing apparel that’s comfortable, breathable, and moves with the wearer, yet still “looks cute,” as she puts it. Nursing is hard work, she says, and even a small confidence boost can make a big difference.

Morgan connected with the center during her final year of earning her master’s degree in nursing after discussing her idea with one of her professors, Cheryl Leiningen. Through the E-Lab program and later as a HawkTank finalist, Morgan refined her business plan and pitch deck and began shaping a strategy for going to market.

These days, she’s working with a New York designer on a second round of prototypes and, with Gilbert’s continued guidance, preparing to fundraise for a 2026 launch. Gilbert meets regularly with her for coaching and accountability sessions—support that Morgan says has been crucial as she balances a demanding clinical career with business development.

Morgan’s story illustrates how impact grows from front-line experience, turning daily frustrations in health care into product innovation.

“Naja is applying her domain expertise to create a business that supports the people who spend their days supporting everyone else,” says Gilbert. “That’s building for impact.”

The Bigger Picture

What unites Young, Kalina, and Morgan is how they each used Monmouth’s Center for Entrepreneurship to turn personal insight into purposeful innovation, and through the center’s mentorship, found a way to turn that spark into something bigger: ventures that create both value and impact.

That balance is what the center strives to cultivate, says Gilbert. “What I’m seeing now is that most are already thinking about impact,” she notes. “The center’s role is helping entrepreneurs channel that intention into action to create the businesses they envision.”

That approach works because it meets entrepreneurs where they are, whether they’re still exploring an idea or actively building toward launch, and supports them through each stage of development. With entrepreneurs from across disciplines participating, the center is helping aspiring founders pair their purpose with entrepreneurial skills—and, in the process, positioning Monmouth as an emerging hub for impact-driven entrepreneurship.

¹ Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, U.S. Report.
² Deloitte Global Marketing Trends Report, 2020.