In 2006, following St. Vincent of DePaul’s commitment to serving the poor, the IBPE aligned its mission with that of DePaul University’s: “serving first-generation and underserved student populations and …addressing social issues.” This initiative was further promoted by DePaul’s new strategic plan, Vision Twenty12. As a result, IBPE enhanced its mission to include becoming a catalyst aimed to inspire companies to address the reduction of poverty both globally and locally through for-profit initiatives. There are many dimensions to the achievement of this mission, including teaching, research, and community outreach; and the Institute is just beginning this lifetime set of projects. As an academic institution, however, the Institute realized that, first, it needed to develop strong philosophical arguments justifying and supporting this goal. With that in mind we have developed a series of thought-provoking papers. This article summarizes some of this thinking.