VIRTUAL: Applying Education

Abstract

The world is a challenging place; pandemics, poverty, warzones, child abuse, violence etc. Charities play a huge role in helping people all over the world. Many students have had very little exposure to charities. In their first week of arriving on campus, the students on the MBA program start off with their first real life consultancy project; The Not-for-Profit Consultancy project, where the MBA students help charities with a business problem. The consultancy projects are all of “commercial” nature. The Not-for-Profit project can provide a huge amount of value to the charitable organisations that often are cash strapped and have limited resources. However, working with charities also gives the business students huge learnings and new skills. There are numerous benefits: 1) To be able to provide the charities with a value added service and real problem-solving solutions. 2) Giving back – working with charities will sometimes introduce or already enhance student’s involvement, understanding and opportunity to give back to the society 3) Engagement with local organisations – increase the charities profile and overall broader reach. 4) Academic foundation – the Nfp-project is the first of the student’s consultancy projects, learning about consultancy. This case study presentation will inspire you and make you realise that we can all give back and that we can do it through our teaching in Higher Education. It will share the results of a survey of key skills learnt by students. Working with charities is easy to implement, particularly considering how much can be gained by all parties. The presentation will assist you in teaching your students beyond the classroom and make a real difference to people’s life.