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University of South Florida Students Get the "Scoop" from Ben & Jerry's Founder at Hillel
September 26, 2005Comments (0) | Add | E-mail this to a friend  By Laura Klawsky and Jonathan Solomon
"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream." Hillel at the University of South Florida welcomed Jerry Greenfield, one of the founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, to campus earlier this month with a special dinner prior to his lecture on campus.
To our surprise, Greenfield wasn't what we expected. In walked a man in his mid-50s, complete with jeans, Reebok sneakers and an oversized Ben & Jerry's polo. From the moment he entered he became intrigued with a screwdriver that was lying around the Hillel building. When asked questions about different aspects of Ben & Jerry's, such as how much is spent on the company's annual free cone day, he shrugged and replied, "How am I supposed to know?" He really just wanted to talk about personal matters within his life and ours, in addition to explaining to us where the flavors and their catchy names came from.
During the lecture, while enjoying free ice cream, we saw the Greenfield we came to expect. His ideas and methods transcend the average business ideology, which is more than just dollars and cents. A true believer in karma, Greenfield believes that there should be a spiritual aspect to business and that if you give, you receive. He compared his ice cream and business by saying "Many are cold, few are frozen," meaning that it takes many tries to get where you want, but only a few ideas actually succeed.
Ben & Jerry's, he explained, stands for helping the community by having PartnerShops, which are Ben & Jerry's scoop shops that are independently owned and operated by community-based nonprofit organizations. At these PartnerShops they waive the standard franchise fees and provide additional support to help nonprofits operate strong businesses. This provides a form of social enterprise, a growing movement in which nonprofit organizations leverage the power of business for community benefit. In addition to providing shops for nonprofit organizations, Ben & Jerry's purchases the brownies used in the double fudge brownie flavor from a bakery that works with the homeless and at-risk youths, providing $2 million in sales a year for the bakery. In addition it donates 7.5 percent of the company's pre-tax profits to the Ben & Jerry's Foundation.
Greenfield shared three pieces of business advice with the students: start small and try to connect with customers; do something you are passionate about; and bring values to your business.
Greenfield opened our eyes to a new way to do business. It is not about making the dollars but about doing something you really love to do. Even if he and co-founder Ben Cohen were still only scooping ice cream in the small town of Burlington, Vt., he said would still be happy because it is what he loves to do and he would not change it for anything.
Laura Klawsky is the president of USF Hillel and Jonathan Solomon is the president of the Zeta Beta Tau chapter at USF.
Cornell Hillel also hosted Jerry Greenfield this week.
Read the Cornell Daily Sun's coverage >>>
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