By Julie McWilliams

University of Pennsylvania senior Tess Michaels has found herself in an enviable situation not unlike game show contestants who must pick Door No. 1, Door No. 2 or Door No. 3.

Although the contestants rely on luck to guide their choices, this life sciences management dual major from Dallas has worked hard to create some pretty enticing options to choose from when she graduates in May. She could accept Harvard Business School’s offer to pursue graduate studies in health care, strategy and management. Or she could take the position in health-care banking that Bank of America Merrill Lynch has on the table in New York. Conversely, she could continue as CEO of SOCEANA, the social media site she founded while at Penn.

Michaels, an ever-busy multi-tasker, has found a way to open all three doors, at least for now. After Commencement, she will take the job on Wall Street, deferring grad school for the present and continuing to oversee SOCEANA.

SOCEANA, an acronym of sorts for “Standardize, Organize, Centralize, Empower, Aspire, Network and Affect the world around you,” links non-profits and corporations to promote volunteering and philanthropic giving. 

But it’s more than that.

“I imagine a world, a social ocean, where people earn only to pay it forward to others in need,” Michaels says.

“It’s been very much my baby,” she says of the two-year-old company she spent years researching and developing. “It’s a technology company with a social purpose, structured as a hybrid organization, a for-profit serving nonprofits and volunteers for free.”

SOCEANA was born of experience. While in high school, Michaels spent several years studying aging and Alzheimer’s while volunteering in health-care settings.

“It was filing charts and such,” she said, “not the most meaningful experience.”

So when she got to Penn and enrolled in the LSM program, majoring in biology and global impact investing, Michaels researched social entrepreneurship and social responsibility for two years before asking herself, “Why not put this into action?”

The result of her efforts was SOCEANA, which multiplies philanthropists' donations and companies’ corporate social responsibility funding through the use of Philas, an innovative, patent-pending currency for social good she named for Philadelphia, the city of her birth and undergraduate education.

The program works this way. Donors pledge funds that carry certain conditions that volunteers are challenged to meet. For every hour a volunteer puts in, 22.5 Philas are paid forward to his or her choice of charities, which unlocks the donors' funding. More time volunteered results in more funds donated. And participants can keep track of their part in the equation online. Thus, volunteers have the incentive to give more time, philanthropists more funds, and the gamification aspect makes it fun to do social good. Volunteers can use SOCEANA metrics to find the perfect opportunity that matches their skill set and location and can also create networks and lasting connections with other like-minded individuals.

To pull this all together, Michaels has assembled a wonderful team, she says. Peter Menninger, chief information officer, brings more than 20 years of executive experience through a career with several Internet start-ups.

"I went to every tech event in Philly, trying to find an experienced professional," Michaels says. "I pitched SOCEANA to Peter whose last start-up had just gone IPO, and he had a few extra hours.

"He fell in love with SOCEANA and ended up joining full time,’ she says. "He is such a valuable member of the team, with lots of experience in managing technology teams. He's a secure presence."

The other team members include two Penn students, one of whom wrote a 20-page paper on SOCEANA for a class on entrepreneurship, two Penn grads and five advisors. Several advisors like Eric Ly, the co-founder of LinkedIn, are drawn to SOCEANA by its social purpose, she says.

"All members of our team are very passionate and driven for the mission and impact we can create," says Michaels.

"Also, I couldn't have done this without all the support from Penn, from mentorships, all my Penn professors, especially Diana Robertson and Chris Geczy. Weiss Tech House has been a great resource for us." 

Michaels’ work has been recognized at a number of levels.

In November, the United Nations Foundation included the Penn senior in a list of the “Top 10 Global Women to Watch” as part of its Women’s Entrepreneurship Day celebration. Previously, SOCEANA won the 2013 New York Challenge Cup, Smart Cities division, which earned a spot in the Global Challenge Cup competition in Washington, D.C. It was there that Michaels' ideas caught the attention of a Washington Post editor, who asked her to write a piece on her entrepreneurial strategy that ran last spring.

She says, however, that the real honors she’s received have come in the form of support from her friends and family, Penn faculty and advisors and those executives from the corporations that have supported SOCEANA, including Comcast, Cisco, HP, Lincoln Financial, Bank of America and JP Morgan.

“Tess is truly a natural entrepreneur,” says Steven Nichtberger, a physician, adjunct professor of health-care management and senior fellow in the Vagelos LSM Program. “She is an outstanding example of what is possible when you are passionate about an idea and willing to make a commitment of time and energy. Her ability to motivate companies, non-profits, philanthropists and others to collaborate around SOCEANA is a testament to her leadership and vision.”

It’s anyone’s guess what the future holds for Michaels. She has a four-year window in which to accept Harvard’s offer, and she is using funds recently raised to recruit a full-time president for SOCEANA.

“After a year, I will reevaluate if SOCEANA needs me full-time,” she says. “Social entrepreneurs are passionate change-agents, not seasoned operators.”

On the other hand, she may enjoy working and living in Manhattan enough to stay. Having recently taken up squash, she says, “There’s not a lot of room to play tennis in New York, but there are lots of squash courts.”

Or she may continue her entrepreneurial ways. On a recent March morning, she was found baking her own version of a cookie-brownie combination she calls “crownies.”

“This may well have been my first venture,” she joked, “but cookies do not multiply social good like SOCEANA.”