Creative Entrepreneurship: Building with Intention
“I am very aware that what I am doing is creating things and bringing them into existence. It’s not just doing good in the world. I’m building the world I imagine and the places I want to inhabit.”
— Stefanie Vruwink Reiser ’85
Major: Political Science
Student activities: A Cappella Choir, London Study Abroad, Mu Gamma Pi, Spanish Club
Career: Public Policy/Government; Small Business Owner; Real Estate Developer; Entrepreneur; Founder of: Align Development, LLC; Acknowledge.co; and The Nicholson Project. She also is a member of Pipeline Angels and an angel investor herself.
Stefanie Vruwink Reiser ’85 grew up immersed in Central College’s culture. Her parents, Carol Dulmes Vruwink ’60, professor emerita of accounting, and John Vruwink ’58, professor emeritus of art, were long-time faculty members, shaping her unique blend of analytical and creative thinking. This foundation inspired her journey as an entrepreneur dedicated to improving communities.
As a child of art and accounting professors, she acknowledges the tension between the creative and the analytical worlds. Reiser learned how to leverage that natural tension leading her to be an entrepreneur focused on creative and social entrepreneurship.
“I loved economics and political science courses,” Reiser shares. “These laid the groundwork for my entrepreneurial path, combining my passions for design, food and ideas of beauty as foundational to community building.”
After two decades in government roles, Reiser flipped a home in Washington, D.C., launching a successful real estate career that grew into a robust pipeline of projects focused on multi-family affordable developments.
One of her current standout initiatives that grew out of her real estate work is The Nicholson Project, an artists’ residency and neighborhood garden in one of D.C.’s underserved communities.
“I was interested in the intersection of real estate and the arts,” Reiser explains. “We’re supporting artists and highlighting art in a neighborhood that has been traditionally underserved. You can tell a lot about how a community values certain neighborhoods by what’s there and what’s not there, like healthy food and grocery stores, or access to outdoor spaces, art and beauty.”
The nonprofit provides stipends and resources to artists, fostering creativity in a historically marginalized area. The artists live on the campus and work in their career. Extra support is given if they want to do a project or an exhibition.
Reiser’s most recent venture is Acknowledge.co, a regenerative organic-certified hemp farm in Maryland’s Pleasant Valley. Focused on restoring soil health and producing wellness-oriented hemp products, the farm reflects her broader commitment to sustainability. She also is a member of Pipeline Angels, a network of new and seasoned women investors who are changing the face of angel investing and creating capital for women social entrepreneurs, and an angel investor herself.
“What I’m doing with The Nicholson Project and Acknowledge is changing the rules of operation – building different businesses that look at our social compact. We need to look at the systems and structures around businesses. There are bigger questions we need to ask ourselves,” Reiser says. “Where’s the opportunity to create something with impact here?”
Reiser does not shy away from the fact she is trying to harness an economic engine to create a revenue stream. But her objective is to create a machine that provides a better livelihood collectively – a more holistic life.
Reiser credits her liberal arts education at Central for her success. “Central builds critical leadership skills — beyond test performance — focusing on creativity, problem-solving and making meaningful contributions. It’s about building things that matter,” she says.
“I can tie both of these business projects to things that I was really interested in and passionate about when I was at Central. It’s kind of been a full-circle moment to be at this point in my career and think back to things that happened 50 years ago that set me on this path. I believe deeply in the type of education places like Central provide. Central is building skills that are critical in leadership.”
Central is the best place to start incubating that ideology and thought process that prepares a student to be successful in the world today.
Reiser chooses to demonstrate her support for Central by giving annually to the endowed scholarships in the names of her parents — the Carol Vruwink Accounting Scholarship and the John Vruwink Scholarship in Art.
For information about how to establish an endowed scholarship or to contribute to an established endowed scholarship at Central, contact Michelle Wilkie at 641-628-5281 or wilkiem@central.edu.