Our Story

optiMize is a constantly evolving attempt to help students turn ideas into impact. We're a community at the University of Michigan where you can hone your entrepreneurial skills and build a network of mentors and friends—all while cultivating your passions for social impact. Together, we co-create a range of experiential co-curricular programs, courses, and community partnership initiatives—which engage over 1000 students annually.

Our flagship program is the optiMize Social Innovation Challenge (SIC). It’s a 13-week incubator program for students of all ages and majors to develop self-directed social impact projects. Students join with a project, an idea, or even just a passion for change. From there, you pick and choose skill-building workshops, we connect you with mentors, and the power of our community makes everyone better.

Some projects from the SIC get funded to join the optiMize Summer Fellowship, where they focus on developing their projects for 8 weeks. Projects get up to $10,000 each, with more than $250,000 awarded annually.

optiMize Fellows make a big impact: FoodFinder has helped more than 400,000 Americans find hunger relief programs during the pandemic. Blueprints for Pangaea has distributed more than $2 million of wasted medical supplies to hospitals in need. ReSource Fund created a financial coaching model that the United Way picked up and scaled across our county. Oshki upcycles plastic from the Great Lakes and turns it into sustainable clothing. These are just a few examples—we’ve funded more than 150 projects over nine cohorts. Read about the most recent cohorts on our blog.

In addition to co-curricular programs, we offer a minicourse series called Critical Issues in X—with "X" being topics like Climate Solutions or Education. We also support affiliated faculty in the campuswide Entrepreneurship Minor through our ALA 256: Innovator’s Toolkit course.

Our community co-leads a series of Transfer Bridge initiatives in collaboration with community colleges across the state—aiming to make high-impact education more accessible and to improve transfer student success. Our flagship program in this area is called moMentum, a social innovation program and fellowship for community college students before they transfer to a 4-year school. In addition, we have aMplify, to provide a community within the university to ease the transfer process.

All optiMize programs are co-created by students, for students, with support from professional staff. Our team is supported by an incredible group of mentors who volunteer their time each year through the optiMize Mentorship Program, and our alumni stay engaged through optiMize Infinity, our lifelong learning network in LinkedIn.

For all we’ve built in our first ten years, we’re just getting started. Who will design optiMize’s next social innovation?

Why not you?

A Brief Timeline of optiMize History

2012: Student-led from the start. optiMize is founded as a student organization, with a mission to build a community that creates hundreds of self-directed social impact projects each year—all aiming to illuminate possibilities for a just and sustainable world.

2015: optiMize becomes an official UM program. The University of Michigan creates an optiMize department in the College of LSA. Today, all optiMize programs are co-created and led by students, for students, with support from full-time professional staff—combining the dynamism and energy of a student org with the stability and structure of a department.

2023: A prototypical model for university innovation. As we completed our tenth year, UM leaders believe optiMize has become a prototypical model for how universities can partner with students to create high impact experiential learning for the 21st century. UM LSA dean Anne Curzan says that, “optiMize is a real model for us in how it’s showing ways to transform undergraduate and graduate education. It helps us see what’s possible and believe that it is possible.” UM historian Angela Dillard affirms, “The next iteration of innovation in undergraduate education will involve close and active partnerships with our students as co-creators of knowledge and practice. It will look a lot like optiMize.”

Our Community

We believe the best social innovations emerge from a diverse and dynamic community. optiMize engages students from first-year undergraduates to PhD candidates, from all 3 UM campuses, all 19 UM-Ann Arbor schools and colleges, and partner community colleges statewide. 63% of optiMize participants are people of color, 52% are women or non-binary, and 33% are community college transfers or prospective transfers. Projects address a wide range of societal challenges from a diverse set of intellectual perspectives. Everything is interdisciplinary and impact-driven.

Our student-led social innovation wouldn’t be possible without the commitment and passion of our mentors and donors. Mentors volunteer thousands of hours annually to support students, and donors give ~$500,000 each year to make our work possible. Learn more about volunteering as a mentor or making a gift to support student changemakers. We hope you’ll join us and bring your unique skills and perspectives to our community!

DEI Statement

“optiMize honors and celebrates differences and similarities with genuine support and recognizes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as an integral part of all programming within our organization. We are dedicated to supporting individuals of all identities so everyone feels a profound sense of belonging. Inclusive and accessible collaboration is instrumental to a fulfilling and authentic experience for our students and staff. We are committed to nurturing a community through which diversity, equity, and inclusion form our strong foundation.”

Our Mission

We cultivate the optiMize community

Bringing people together for transformative education

Creating projects that illuminate possibilities

In passionate pursuit of a just and sustainable future

Practicing love and care in all we do

To help everyone we meet ask themselves, “Why not me?”

Our Guiding Principles

Student-led education, youth-led change
Asking ourselves, “why not me?”
Sustainable social impact
Illuminating possibilities
Prototyping and iteration
Collaboration and mentorship
Supportive community
Free choice and self-direction
Responsible stewardship
Servant leadership
Living the future we want, today
A valued part of our local community

Thanks to Zingerman’s for providing a great example of Mission and Guiding Principles!