Sharon Prince, CEO and founder of Grace Farms, has fulfilled an ambitious vision to build both a foundation with an interdisciplinary humanitarian mission and an intentionally-designed space that embodies hope and peace. Housed in the sinuous, innovative River building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA, Grace Farms focuses on programming in five areas–justice, nature, community, faith and the arts–with a particular emphasis on addressing modern slavery and advancing gender and racial parity. Sharon is taking an entrepreneurial approach to tackling a wide range of social and cultural issues, including pivoting early in the pandemic to supply PPE, developing an ethical supply chain, creating Design for Freedom, a movement to end modern slavery in the building trades, and launching a social venture, Grace Farms Foods. In this conversation, Sharon talks about the importance of setting clear goals for a project, hiring a values-aligned team, how her previous experience running a clothing brand helped prepare her, the importance of making a commitment to a goal, and how each of us has a role to play in asking how the products we use are being made.
Highlights of the episode
- How the idea for Grace Farms came about
- Its mission of advancing good through five key initiatives
- The role of architecture in creating a just world
- Building a values-aligned team
- How Sharon’s entrepreneurial experience prepared her
- Developing an ethical supply chain
- Human trafficking as a priority issue for Grace Farms
- How the Design for Freedom movement began
- Working together to rid the building industry of forced labor
- Pivoting during the pandemic to address urgent needs
- Creating a social venture business as an income stream for non-profits
- The importance of asking how products are being made
- Grace Farms Foods’ ethically sourced products
- Partnering with chef Silvia Baldini to creates a fair trade cookie
- An entrepreneurial ethos as key to non-profit success
Links in this episode