In Fall 2007, there were eight projects staffed by 16 first year, full-time MBA students. The following are the organizations that received assistance from the students:

BLOK is online organizational tool that received favorable reviews from educators that were surveyed. It has the potential of being a very helpful and useful tool for educators, parents and students trying to organize their academic careers.

Digit All Systems, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation committed to bridging the digital divide and bringing the benefits of expanding technology to everyone. It was founded in September 1998 and has since served more than 435 clients.

Generations Community Development Corporation is a non-profit that helps deliver job-training and other services to unemployed and underemployed Chicago residents. >> Read more

Hiyaah Power is a dynamic online community that consists of a network of over 40,000 women in 40 states, the UK and Caribbean. It was created to serve as an online conduit of information for women.

The North East Community Center (NECC) is a non-profit social services organization based out of Millerton, NY. They run a variety of programs for toddlers, children and senior citizens, and also get grants from a number of donors. >> Read more

Project PLASE, Inc. addresses homelessness by providing transitional housing, permanent housing and supportive services to homeless adults. They serve the most vulnerable and undeserved, including persons with mental illness, HIV/AIDS, addiction, developmental disabilities, and ex-offenders, etc.

High Voltage Youth Camp is a non-profit organization that provides educational as well as recreational programs for economically disadvantaged youth, ages 14-19, to realize their potential, build character, and to function effectively as contributing members of society.

Projects in Focus

Generations Community Development Corporation
Written by Brian Gottlieb

On January 22 and 23, Aditya Betala and Brian Gottlieb braved two freezing days in the windy city in order to fulfill the duties of their Fall 2007 Social Venturing project. This project was due to the generosity of Michael Mann, founder of Grassroots.org. Up until this point, their project contact, Deborah Young, was only a kindly voice on the phone and they were anxious to meet her in person. Deborah is the director of the Generations Community Development Corporation, a non-profit that helps deliver job-training and other services to unemployed and underemployed Chicago residents. The project goal was to design and program a database to track the progress of program participants and then implement the database over Generations’ office network.

The trip was a great success. Deborah and her board were pleased with the database design and felt that it would be an invaluable tool in running the Generations’ program. Unfortunately, for their free time, while demonstrating the database, Deborah and her team became so excited that they though up a handful of new features that they hoped to be added to (a never before discussed) “version two” of the database. So the students were hard at work creating an upgrade to the database.

In addition to being persuaded to do more work, the students managed to have a lot of fun. Deborah and her team were all very friendly and welcoming. They also had a good time out the one night they had in town. They explored Michigan Street, the Navy Pier and the Sears Tower and ate about a dozen slices of Chicago-style pizza between the two of them. Great fun all around.

North East Community Center
Written by Luz Camargo Agudelo, Arun Karthikeyan and Aditya Saini

North East Community Center (NECC) is a non-profit social services organization based out of Millerton, NY. They run a variety of programs for toddlers, children and senior citizens, and also get grants from a number of donors. NECC approached the Social Venture Consulting program seeking a cost-effective new database to better run their daily and long-term operations.

The team dove into the problem immediately and tried to fully analyze the issues at hand. Phone interviews were conducted with different staff members at NECC and an attempt was made to understand their individual requirements. Different staff members run different programs and deal with various kinds of data on members, donors and programs. Their mode of recording and storing data is also very diverse – some used Excel spreadsheets, some used an existing database (e-Tapestry) and some others relied on paper.

Once the problem was clearly identified, the team began a search for a new database that could increase NECC’s operational efficiency. NECC was spending $2,400 per year on e-Tapestry but were not entirely satisfied with its offerings. One of the objectives for the team was to ensure that the new database fits NECC’s budget. Other constraints for the new database were that it should be easy to understand to all present and future employees, easy to configure and link sub-databases within the system, and have access from anywhere across the internet.

After testing many sample databases, Webex Web Office was identified as a near-perfect solution for NECC’s database requirements. The Dingman Center team was in close contact with NECC’s Executive Director, Jenny Hansel, and demonstrated the power and relevance of Webex to her via a detailed PowerPoint presentation. After NECC accepted the team’s initial recommendation of Webex (and reasoning for rejecting other available databases), the team mapped out a detailed structure of sub-databases within Webex, utilizing its power to link tables and potential data fields required by various NECC programs.

The team then introduced individual program sub-databases to corresponding staff members at NECC via another round of conference calls. After they approved the recommendations and recognized the ease and power of Webex compared to their earlier mode of operations, the team finalized work on Webex and created another Powerpoint file that details step-by-step procedures to use various modules. The Powerpoint was deliberately made extensively detailed so future employees at NECC can train themselves without any personal help.

Finally, the team traveled to Millerton, NY on January 24, 2008 and visited NECC’s premises. The team met with the staff members and trained them on the overall capabilities of Webex and also in detail on their respective program modules. The training was well received and the team answered questions that NECC staff members had.

Overall, it was a great learning experience for the team, not just in database technologies but also in client relationships and project management. These skills and the knowledge gained about the functioning of a non-profit organization will certainly help the team members during their MBA and in their future endeavors.

Back to past projects by semester.