Marijo Upshaw
Biography
Marijo Upshaw, MSW, MBA, is an experienced social entrepreneur. Her career has spanned over 30 years at the social administration, leadership and management level. Upshaw has a joint position at both the School of Social Work (SSW) and the Mike Ilitch School of Business where she has developed social entrepreneurship curriculum and teaches courses.
Upshaw co-chairs the Social Entrepreneurship Committee at the SSW. SAGE publishers and the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) awarded the committee the Innovative in Teaching Award in 2018 for the ground-breaking work the committee is doing to promote and foster entrepreneurship among key social work stakeholders including students, alumni, faculty/staff and community members. The committee plans and hosts numerous events that encourage and support would-be and existing social work entrepreneurs including an annual Social Entrepreneurship Conference that attracts over 250 participants, a Social Work Start-up Story Night that features budding and long-time social work innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders in for-impact organizations, and Social Work Build, a 9-week business planning course for aspiring social work entrepreneurs developed in partnership with The Build Institute in Southwest Detroit.
Previously, Upshaw was a principal of Social Work p.r.n., an entrepreneurial start-up that grew into the leading national provider of social work staffing services in the U.S. She also served as the Leader of Financial Services for Goodwill Industries of North Central Wisconsin, Inc., where she led a broad portfolio of dynamic programs to help vulnerable populations build financial capabilities that touched the lives of 10,000 people annually.
Upshaw is passionate about helping others build ventures and movements that address transformative, inclusive and equitable social impact and systems change through innovation and enterprise. Additionally, she desires to address a gap in the social work research around entrepreneurship and better understand the entrepreneurial intentions of social workers. She is currently pursuing an advanced research certificate from the SSW, with her research interests coalescing around the intersection of social work and entrepreneurship.
Upshaw previously received grant funding from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneurship to participate in their research bootcamp. The bootcamp brings together entrepreneurs, policy advocates, policymakers, and support organizations for discussions the complex needs of entrepreneurship and provides mentorship and development workshops focused on research for practical impact, evolving questions in the study of entrepreneurship, new opportunities for data and methods, and career trajectories in the field.
Degrees and Certifications
- MSW, Wayne State University
- MBA, Rutgers University
Teaching Interests
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Impact Investing
- Intervention and Program Planning
- Social Work Leadership
Courses taught by Marijo Upshaw
Winter Term 2025 (future)
- EI5900 - Special Topics in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- EI7800 - Special Topics in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- SW8015 - Intervention/Program Planning and Grant Writing