Meet the 2025 Tarrson Fellows

Five mission-driven startup founders, all recent University of Chicago graduates, have been named Tarrson Social Venture Fellows. As part of the fellowship, the founders will receive funding and mentoring to pursue their social ventures full-time from September 2025 through August 2026.

The Tarrson Social Venture Fellowship is the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation’s capstone social entrepreneurship resource. The program provides funding and coaching support to graduating University of Chicago students and recent alumni who are committed to growing a startup that helps solve a social or environmental problem.

This year’s ventures are accelerating volunteerism among young professionals, empowering women vendors in Kenya, tackling the compliance market, and using quantitative finance to help people and institutions do more good with their money. Past Tarrson Fellows have gone on to achieve impact in every area of the social sector, from expediting the pre-trial preparation experience to supporting emerging social entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ron Tarrson, ’72 (XP-31), provided the funding to create the Tarrson Social Venture Fellowship. The program also receives matching funds from John Edwardson, MBA ’72.

To be eligible for the fellowship, applicants must be committed to working full-time on their startups, which should be focused on social or environmental impact. Most of the Fellows will receive $25,000 in funding to support their work.

All of this year’s Fellows are alumni of the John Edwardson, ’72, Social New Venture Challenge (SNVC), the social impact track of the University of Chicago’s nationally ranked business launch program. The Edwardson SNVC has jump-started more than 200 mission-driven startups that have collectively raised more than $260 million in philanthropic dollars, grant support, and venture capital funding.

“This year’s Tarrson Fellows are providing innovative and practical solutions to important issues such as volunteerism, compliance, and driving gender equity,” said Robert H. Gertner, the Frank P. and Marianne R. Diassi Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Strategy and the John Edwardson Faculty Director of the Rustandy Center. “I’m excited to see their startups grow in scope and impact this year.”

The 2025 Tarrson Fellows are:

Daniel Buckman, MBA ’25, Total Values LLC
Total Values is an impact portfolio construction platform for investors, philanthropists, and advisors. By uniting quantitative finance with rigorous, evidence-based impact evaluation, it enables users to set personalized objectives, forecast counterfactual impact for any investment or grant, and build optimized portfolios aligned to their goal hierarchy.

Manda Bwerevu, MPP ’25, and Judith Nguli, MPP ’25, Kuleta
Kuleta  /kooˈlehːta/ is a purpose-driven e-commerce platform connecting women vendors in Kenya with US consumers seeking high-quality, culturally rich nonperishable products. Meaning “to bring” in Swahili, Kuleta bridges the gap between underrepresented women vendors in Africa and a rapidly growing global market for ethically sourced African goods, turning small stalls into international storefronts. Unlike mass exporters or generic platforms, Kuleta allows customers to shop with intention while women vendors gain consistent income, business skills, and resilience against climate and economic shocks. By leveraging a B2B2C model, Kuleta is building a scalable brand that democratizes global trade, drives gender equity, and redefines commerce as a tool for inclusion and empowerment while meeting global demand trends.

Ram Mukund Kripa, MA ’25, Papaya Privacy Co.
Papaya Privacy Co. builds AI compliance agents for CMOs, automating privacy and accessibility testing. The company is tackling the $25 billion compliance market, where automated tools currently miss most violations and the only alternative relies on manual QA, which is slow and expensive. Our agents interact with products like real sighted and blind users and map findings directly onto ADA, WCAG, GDPR, and more than 20 US state privacy laws, uncovering more than 90 percent of issues.

Harriet Spears, MBA ’25, Emerging Donor Alliance
Emerging Donor Alliance is a nonprofit member community whose mission is to accelerate charitable giving and volunteerism among young professionals. Launched in Chicago, Emerging Donor Alliance builds city-based cohorts of young people (ages 22–35) and empowers them to become more informed, engaged citizens through community, skill building, and collective action. Emerging Donor Alliance was a finalist in the 2025 John Edwardson, ’72, Social New Venture Challenge.

Lorenza Ramirez, MBA ’25, Blueline
Blueline identifies, recruits, and matches top campaign talent with mission-driven employers post-election. In addition to employment, Blueline provides campaign staff with networking and professional development training between elections. In doing so, Blueline is solving the cyclical unemployment problem that campaign staff face.