A team of volunteer coaches visiting schools to empower youths to reach their life goals. That is the inspiring core activity of My Dream Now led by social entrepreneur Jonas Bygdeson. Meet Jonas who gave up his job in sales to visit class-rooms and turn young people’s dreams into reality.

Hi Jonas, could you please explain what My Dream Now is all about?
We train volunteers who visit school classes for two-hour sessions for a total of four visits a year. The volunteers operate as a team of four. The pupils are in high-schools as well as in the 8th and 9th grades. We currently operate in 14 schools in six municipalities around Sweden. Our vision is to fully establish ourselves on a national level and then scale up internationally. We need to create a balance between the acquisition of new schools and new partners.

How do you finance My Dream Now?
We are paid by our corporate partners for the opportunity that we are offering their staff. Schools pay as well.
We find our volunteers through events, Facebook, our website and word of mouth. In general, it’s not difficult to recruit volunteers so the number of corporate partners is the main brake on growth.

What’s in it for the corporate partners?
Our corporate partners want staff who want to work for them and so they are interested in actively helping their staff to be happy. Giving them time off to inspire kids is one way of doing this. The employees see that their employer is giving them an opportunity and they can feel proud of it. It helps the image of the company and it builds the brand and social engagement.
Some brands understand that they will need more trained staff in the long run so they feel that they can take on an industry responsibility and look at employer branding. The university students feel attracted to a good image and the companies want more diverse staff as well.
This requires some of the middle management to change their attitudes to diversity and that helps them to achieve wider exposure. They have a business case and we provide them with a service. We help to create a brand culture and diversity.
We don’t talk about sponsorship and we have a business model for the brand. We do good and we keep our top talent. For schools it’s motivating to improve grades and connect the school to work life. They also need someone to provide them with contacts to the business world. We had study visits with big brands. This helps to show the kids that work can be fun.

Why did you start doing what you do?
I’ve always had different types of social engagements. I was with The Red Cross and helped refugees. I’ve been around the world and I’ve seen that there are smart people from all over. I want to help people become integrated into Swedish life. I think Swedes in general could do so much more to make people feel welcome and help to integrate refugees. I thought there would be a number of people who could devote a day for this now and then. Then I felt that with my business background, I could organize the visits myself.

What are the challenges you face? 
We have proof of concept, we know it works and that it’s appreciated by all parties. The challenge now is to scale it without the resources to scale!
We already have companies such as Tieto, DHL, Nordea and Canon as partners, but we still do need to attract more big brands in order to be able to scale up.
Also, finding schools is a challenge. It’s hard to obtain meetings with headmasters and there are always other organizations who need their time.
It’s clear that what we do is interesting to companies. There are many brands that don’t have a long-term corporate social strategy, they sponsor in other countries but it doesn’t involve their own employees in their own country. Many brands now look at how we can involve our employees in our CSR policy.

What have you learned so far? 
I think it’s interesting to see that there are people who want to solve the problems of segregation and youth employment. These people need someone who helps them get engaged. CSR has become a big issue.
I’ve learned how to run a startup and becoming a social entrepreneur was new to me as well.

What are your future plans?
To expand nationally, internationally and co-operate with national partners for stable funding.

How does being an Impact Hub member help you?
It’s an inspiring place where you work with people with shared values. You can also meet people who can provide you with new insights and actions that you can apply to your own business. The events here help as well!
Finally, the Hubs in other countries can be used as springboards into new sectors.

Thank you for finding the time to talk to us!
Find out more about how to become a member at Impact Hub Stockholm here.

Find out more about My Dream Now – visit their website.

Author

Andrea Hessmo is a Web Editor and Translator who is passionate about journalism and creative entrepreneurship.

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