Student Activist Ben Simon Sparks Change Through Co-Founding Nonprofits

During college, many students begin to develop a vision for their future careers. Upon identifying their respective fields of interest, they complete related classes and internships, hoping to get valuable experience under their belts.
 
However, few students acquire as much firsthand experience as senior government and politics major Ben Simon has attained in his preferred discipline.
 
Simon, who wants to pursue a career in nonprofit work, has co-founded three organizations since his freshman year of college. Through these groups, he has worked to mobilize action on the behalf of an array of causes. Currently, Simon is focused on rousing support for his two most recent projects, the Food Recovery Network and MyMaryland.net.

 
“It’s a pretty great semester for me,” Simon said. “I’m taking two classes, non-profit management and non-profit writing, and then I’m helping to start two non-profits. I love it. This is what I want to do.”
 
Simon’s steadfast dedication to activism first developed when he was a student at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., and suffered an injury that prevented him from playing sports. 
 
“All throughout middle school and high school, all I did was play sports, and then never really did any activism or anything like that,” Simon said. “And then I suffered a pretty serious injury, and I no longer played sports, or could even shake hands or open doors. It got pretty bad. So I had to find something to do with my time.”
 
Simon found a new niche in Blair’s Students for Global Responsibility Club, which sparked his devotion to the cause of ending genocide. During his senior year of high school, Simon planned a fundraising dinner for Darfur and raised $8000 for the cause.

 
He also worked to unite students from 10 Montgomery County high schools to lobby for the passage of Bill 3-08, which divested the Montgomery County Employees’ Retirement System pension from any companies that had operations in Sudan.
 
After acting as the College Divestment Coordinator of the Genocide Intervention Network his freshman year of college, Simon decided to pursue other causes beyond genocide.
 
“I didn’t want to get tracked on a single issue because I believe in a lot of different issues,” he said.
 
In fall 2010, Simon co-founded The Love Movement (TLM), a student group devoted to raising awareness about a wide range of causes, including homelessness, global hunger, poverty and the environment. He also co-founded the Food Recovery Network (FRN), a network of student groups at UMD that donate surplus food from the dining halls and sporting events to homeless shelters in D.C.
 
At present, Simon is the co-president of FRN and president of MyMaryland.net, a Web site he established that aims to connect citizens to their elected officials.
 
Simon first conceived the idea for MyMaryland.net when he was interning at a non-profit organization called Search for Common Ground in summer 2009.
 
“I was helping out with a participatory democracy research project and realized that there was so much anger with the political system … and the main diagnosis for the problem was a huge amount of space, both literal and figurative, between everyday average Americans and their elected officials,” Simon said. “So I was just dumbfounded as to why the Internet was not being used as a tool to connect people and their elected officials.”
 
MyMaryland.net, which is set to launch in a few months, will allow Maryland residents to create accounts and view district forum pages designated for each of their state and federal elected officials. On these district forum pages, residents will be able to view elected officials’ campaign finance information, floor speeches, key votes and sponsored bills. The site will also allow elected officials to poll their constituents about important issues.
 
“It’s sort of a communication hub for the district,” Simon said. In the long term, Simon hopes to channel the concept of MyMaryland.net into a nationwide project called MyAmerica, which would connect every American citizen to all levels of government. At present, however, Simon is primarily focused on ensuring MyMaryland.net’s success on the state level.
 
“We hope to establish an ecosystem on the site here in Maryland,” Simon said. “As the saying goes you have to get small before you get big, so that’s what we’re trying to do here, and on an even smaller scale that’s what we’re trying to do here at UMD is get small and get the UMD community on board.”
 
“Right now we’re in the process of raising money, of building buzz, and finishing the site itself,” Simon said.

 
On March 1, MyMaryland.net received the $1000 grand prize at the Pitch Dingman Competition at UMD’s Fourth Annual Social Enterprise Symposium. The Food Recovery Network was also awarded a $750 grant from the competition, enabling the organization to apply for non-profit status.
 
Overall, Simon proves that successful activism requires a careful balance between compassion and calculation.
 
“I’m always open to different opportunities and I’m constantly looking at different ideas … And then I just choose them,” Simon said. “If it’s something that has tremendous potential for a cause that I don’t really believe in then I probably won’t jump on board, just the same way I probably wouldn’t jump on board if it is something that is not really a great opportunity or great idea for a cause I do really believe in.”
 
“I’m always … looking for opportunities and I think I’ve found two really good opportunities with the Food Recovery Network and MyMaryland.net,” Simon said.