Ivy Dall leaned on industry connections and continued the work she started six months prior.
In March 2026, Ivy Dall joined 14 other students from the Daniels College of Business and the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs on an interterm class trip to Guatemala. She hoped the cross-listed Global Societal Impact and Social Entrepreneurship course would add a new business perspective to her graduate studies in international security and humanitarian assistance at the Korbel School.
By summer, the relationships Dall formed through the course—as well as her own initiative—helped her land a yearlong internship with Friendship Bridge, an international nonprofit supporting women in Guatemala.
Leading up to the trip, Dall and her classmates developed a sustainable funding plan focused on engaging young donors and volunteers. They presented their recommendations to Friendship Bridge leaders, including CEO Tracie Cordeiro, on site in Guatemala.
Dall saw firsthand how Friendship Bridge supports Guatemalan and Indigenous women through business coaching and microfinance. Because Dall speaks Spanish, she was also able to talk directly with several of the women to learn more about their businesses and the organization’s impact on their lives.
“Once we were on the ground in Guatemala and got a sense of what the work actually looks like in practice, I thought, ‘OK, this is something I really want to continue to stay involved with,’” she said.
Turning experience into opportunity
Through conversations with Cordeiro, Dall learned that Friendship Bridge was looking for an intern to continue developing its youth-engagement initiatives—including implementing strategies her class had proposed.
The opportunity aligned with Dall’s previous experience in social media marketing and the work she had done with high school students as a summer camp counselor. Back in Denver, she reached out to Cordeiro to learn more.
“We all had such an impactful experience in Guatemala that the idea of getting other people our age equally as excited about the work they’re doing was really important to me,” Dall said. “When Tracie said that was the role I would fill, I was really excited to continue doing that.”
Cordeiro connected Dall with Friendship Bridge’s director of development, and Dall began her internship in June. She is developing a committee of college students and recent graduates to bring a younger perspective to the Friendship Bridge board of directors. She also is helping pilot a program that will give high school students opportunities to support the nonprofit through event planning, social media and content creation.
Dall has also built a new network of mentors through her work with the women-centered organization.
“I’ve been able to create some amazing mentorships, even though I’ve only been there for a couple of months,” she said.
Because the internship is unpaid, Dall received institutional funding through DU, which leans on its 4D Experience to push students toward careers and lives of purpose. The financial support allowed her to pursue professional experience with an international nonprofit while continuing her graduate studies.
Consulting beyond the classroom
Classroom learning provides students with an essential foundation of knowledge and skills, said John Sebesta, the director of Entrepreneurship@DU who co-led the class to Guatemala. The live, client-facing project with Friendship Bridge then allowed students to apply that foundation in a real-world situation, “where the stakes are higher and the challenges reflect the full complexity of life.”
Experiential learning projects “also give clients an opportunity to see how students would perform as interns and employees,” Sebesta said. “This creates a rich learning experience for our students and de-risks the hiring process for employers, creating a win-win scenario.”
Sebesta says Dall’s progression from student consultant to intern exemplifies the power of industry integration—a core aspect of The Daniels Effect, which prioritizes students’ future preparedness through experiential learning and career readiness.
For Dall, the course and internship have revealed how closely business, humanitarian work and international affairs intersect.
“I really didn’t know much about sustainable entrepreneurship before I took the class at Daniels, but I can now see so many of the things we learned in that class and apply them to other classes at Korbel as well,” she said.
“There’s a huge overlap that I didn’t necessarily know about until I got involved with Daniels and this class specifically,” she added. “Understanding how these things factor together is a really valuable skill I’ll have for the future.”