Letter From Miami

Colin Gilbert ’07 describes a career path that started at LMU’s Pam Rector Center for Service and Action, a journey that continues today.

Dear LMU:  As I reflect on my life since graduating 20 years ago, I can sum it up as a series of disparate attempts to do good things in a pretty screwed-up world. A thread through it has involved accompanying those on the margins, feeling their pain, and trying to transform unjust structures that perpetuate suffering.

The seeds for all that were born during my years in L.A., where I spent half my time in classes on the bluff, and the other half working in East L.A. at Dolores Mission and Homeboy Industries. The Pam Rector Center for Service and Action opened those doors to me. I was able to follow my heart while ensuring I still completed a bachelor’s degree.

After graduation, I spent time in Colombia working with internally displaced populations. Later, I helped found a service-learning program at a Jesuit high school in the Coachella Valley. After that, I was led to the Middle East, where I managed programs with Jesuit Refugee Service during the Syria crisis. I might have stayed on the humanitarian career track, but I moved to the Bay Area to figure out how to use technology to catalyze social change.

That led me to help build Sown to Grow, a social-emotional learning platform designed to support students’ mental health and well-being. Because of the pandemic’s effect on mental health, that work intensified and grew.

In the past five years I’ve returned to Jesuit/Catholic roots. I had gathered a group to reflect on faith and economics around the same time Pope Francis put out a call for economists and entrepreneurs to come to Assisi to imagine a new economy that respects human dignity and the planet. Several of us headed to Assisi. Since then, we’ve supported Catholic institutions — congregations, universities, and family foundations — that are exploring how impact investing and catalytic capital can support work aligned with Catholic Social Teaching.

With the dismantling of USAID, groups like Catholic Relief Services and Jesuit Refugee Service face major funding disruptions. In response, we are bringing together investors, nonprofit leaders, and intermediaries to imagine more sustainable models for mission-driven work.

So that’s where I am today, not sure where I’ll be in five years. My first kid was just born, political structures are destabilizing, wars increasing, AI’s rattling everything. I’m trying to take it day by day. What will remain true is that the values that inspired me in L.A. will continue to guide whatever comes next. —Colin Gilbert ’07

Colin Gilbert ’07 is the senior director of Pedagogy and Partnerships at Sown To Grow and a Fellow at the Francesco Collaborative, which works for social change with faith-based investors and others.