Alabama State University: Teaching Skills for Entrepreneurship– The recent Welfare to Work initiative has created a demand for the training and education of people weaning themselves from government assistance. For more than 20 years, Alabama State University's College of Business Administration has offered free training workshops in business ownership and business management to this disadvantaged population.

Since 1978, the program has trained more than 2,500 people, providing them the opportunity to become financially independent. One program graduate, a former welfare recipient, has been successfully operating her restaurant for 10 years thanks to the entrepreneurial skills learned through the business school. This year, nine clients are currently operating their own businesses through a small business incubator program.

Babson College: Working with Organizations Worldwide to Enhance Economic Productivity – Babson faculty members have helped shape entrepreneurship education for the Native American community. Our faculty members have volunteered their time to travel to tribal colleges to help explore ways to tailor entrepreneurship education as a strategy and option for young people in order to achieve self-sufficiency and community development. They have coached tribal educators on how to effectively use the case method and to write cases about Native American entrepreneurs to which students can relate. In part through their guidance, many new entrepreneurial opportunities have been generated in this community.

Every summer, a group of Babson students and faculty members travel to the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town, South Africa, to assist in the development and delivery of a course in entrepreneurship to disadvantaged South African high school students from diverse racial and economic backgrounds. Since 2001, they have taught entrepreneurship to nearly 1,000 African teenagers. This course has helped these African students to qualify for college admission and compete in local business plan competitions.

In 2004, Babson students funded the Babson Global Outreach through Entrepreneurship (BGOE), a nonprofit educational organization that works to reduce dependency and increase self-sufficiency by bringing MBA students to developing countries, effectively supporting the spirit of local entrepreneurs, and creating sustainable business models. In January 2006, BGOE traveled to Sri Lanka to help do reconstruction work and consult with businesses that were rebuilding after the devastating tsunami of 2004.

For more information please visit: www.babson.edu/eship/outreach-events/outreach.cfm 

Boston College: Bringing Education to Inner-City Youth – In the nation's inner-city schools, students often lack exposure to financial education and real training in today's technology. In 1992, Boston College's nationally recognized program "Kids on Campus" was created to reverse these problems and bring middle school-age children to campus for academic enrichment sessions with MBA mentors.

Over the past six years, the program has helped approximately 350 disadvantaged children improve their grades, enhance their computer skills, and develop their interest in careers and higher education. The graduate business students, in return, receive valuable experience in communicating complex ideas and teaching in a multicultural environment. A new initiative in this program is "Kids Capital Management," in which students learn about the stock market and the Internet with the help of their MBA mentors.

Columbia Business School: Connecting Inner-City Businesses With the Mainstream Economy – Illustrating the blend of community-directed, classroom-based and practical experience at Columbia Business School is the Inner-City Consulting course. MBA students with mentors from Booz, Allen & Hamilton perform hands-on, pro bono consulting for inner-city businesses and other organizations involved in New York City economic development. The course provides businesses with MBA consulting teams who identify and address issues that are key to the success of the individual businesses, while developing important skills in the students.

Last year, over 50 students worked with clients. For fall 1998, Inner-City Consulting had seven new clients and more than 30 students enrolled in the course. The projects students have completed have made a real impact on the community. For example, working with the New York City Investment Fund, the students helped to develop the Fund's sector strategies. For other inner-city businesses, students have assisted in strategic planning, created Web pages, and developed long-term business plans that resulted in additional financing for the client.

DePaul University: Students Use Business Planning Acumen To Create Brighter Future For Uptown Jewish Congregation – About 40 entrepreneurship students, independent study students and members of a campus group called Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) have contributed to the revitalization of the Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation in Uptown. The initial students met with Agudas Achim leaders to learn about the congregation’s needs. They produced an overall plan that divided the effort into various projects, such as dwindling membership, physical disrepair and the question of whether or not the 75-year-old congregation had incorporated as a not-for-profit. Part of the plan already has been realized, with the April launch of an English as a Second Language (ESL) program. ESL has attracted 40 adult students from the congregation’s large immigrant population. Teams also are seeking funding to implement the Golden Diners, a senior hot lunch program. Students are researching Agudas Achim’s nonprofit status and investigating grant opportunities to fund building repairs and renovations. Additional renewal plans call for the conversion of the congregation’s school building into a community center and library and the establishment of long-term strategic and fund-raising plans.

Duquesne University: Applying Good Business Know-How to Make Dreams a Reality – Sometimes all it takes is a good business plan to get a dream off the ground – even in the inner-city. Students from Duquesne University's A.J. Palumbo School of Business Administration are helping those dreams become reality in some of Pittsburgh's most economically challenged communities, including the North Side, Homewood, Allegheny Valley, West End and Garfield.

Students concentrate each semester on providing business assistance to clients and companies located in distressed communities. In a special course called "Business Problems 3," student "consultants" develop sound business plans and feasibility studies for clients. Among the class's clients during the past two years: a medical technology company, a charter public school and a computer networking company. The benefit of the course is two-fold. It ensures that much needed business know-how and support is being delivered to the areas that need it the most, and it gives students experience in solving real-world business problems.

Instituto Technologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM): Leadership Program Develops Management and Leadership Skills for Coordinators of Charitable Organizations – The ITESM Monterrey Campus Graduate School of Business Administration and Leadership (EGADE) designed a leadership seminar on humanitarian development targeting charitable organizations. The purpose of this Leadership Program is to develop management and leadership skills in the people who run and coordinate these organizations. The 25-hour leadership program makes it possible for EGADE to directly support less-favored communities while it reinforces the institute’s mission. Seventy individuals, representing 35 institutionsć with wide-ranging activities including attending the disabled, homeless children and senior citizens, support for police abuse victims, and environmental protection and human rightsć participated in the program. Based on positive feedback from program participants, EGADE is contemplating teaching this course once a year, inviting different charitable institutions to participate.

University of Missouri-Kansas City: Tackling Urban Problems Through Strategic Alliances – Residents in Kansas City's metropolitan core face the same distressing issues typical to many urban centers: crumbling infrastructure, unemployment, crime, and lack of access to training, education and jobs. Applying vast resources in a variety of disciplines, including public affairs, urban planning, sociology and economics, the Kansas City Community Outreach Partnership Center (KC-COPC) is engaged in 11 applied community research and technical assistance projects, targeting housing, family services and economic development needs of the community.

The KC-COPC was created as a result of strategic alliances with several government and social service agencies aggressively built by the University of Missouri-Kansas City. To facilitate outreach to Kansas City's disadvantaged communities, the KC-COPC serves as the central coordinating and support mechanism. The new Business Incubator Without Walls, for example, has helped 22 budding entrepreneurs in these disadvantaged areas develop businesses, providing self-employment and other job opportunities.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Promoting Entrepreneurship Among Inner-City Residents – Founded on the premise that as central cities reverse their decline, America's global competitiveness will improve, the Urban Investment Strategies Center (UISC) was established by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, an arm of the Kenan-Flagler Business School. The objectives of the Center are simple: encourage and promote entrepreneurship among residents in economically distressed communities as a means to financial independence, and prepare residents to actively participate in the 21^st century knowledge-based economy.

The UISC's Urban Enterprise Corps places recent MBA graduates in businesses, community-based non-profits, and local urban economic development organizations to share their managerial and technical skills. A typical private business receiving help is three to five-years-old, has an annual revenue of at least $1 million and operates in a growth sector of the local economy. The UEC helps community-based organizations to develop entrepreneurial strategies for generating income, which, in turn, is used to support their social missions. By using the Corps's resources, enterprising business owners and non-profit organizations are able to develop their managerial skills and self-sufficiency.

University of Notre Dame: Developing Plans for Revitalization – Declining conditions of neighborhoods in northwest South Bend, Ind., have brought about considerable financial and social costs. While the symptoms of the problem are easily identified in the blighted neighborhoods, the city of South Bend and the South Bend Heritage Foundation had trouble assessing the financial impact of the decline on the city. Recognizing that this type of analysis was imperative to finding a viable solution, the city turned to the College of Business Administration at the University of Notre Dame to research the area and develop neighborhood revitalization strategies.

A team of business school students developed a framework for estimating the total cost of decay of the area to the community at large. The formula they developed now is being used by the South Bend Heritage Foundation to evaluate other neighborhoods in the Near Northwest region.

Salem State College: Helping Entrepreneurs Learn and Prosper –Partnering with the Salem Harbor Community Development Corporation, Salem State College's School of Business works to promote economic opportunities for Salem, Massachusetts's low- to moderate-income population, especially Hispanic residents. The program, Helping Entrepreneurs Learn and Prosper (HELP), currently assists more than 30 fledgling entrepreneurs, one-third of whom are minorities.

Under the leadership of business school professors, the entrepreneurs are assisted by teams of university students in developing business plans. After 10 weeks of instruction, the budding entrepreneurs are ready to begin their own firms.

University of Southern California: Creating Economic Opportunity Through Specialized Education – Southern California's real estate market is booming, but the Los Angeles Redevelopment Agency faced a dearth of minority developers and entrepreneurs interested in and capable of working on agency projects. The agency turned to the University of Southern California to create a program to provide this specialized education.

The result is the Minority Program in Real Estate Finance and Development, drawing students mainly from the southern Los Angeles area. Supported by USC, financial and real estate companies, and government institutions, the intensive two-week course exposes its students to everything from operating a financial calculator to negotiating leases. A number of students are successfully working in the real estate field, including careers with Fundamerica's affordable housing group and a private development company. With the new skills and knowledge, Los Angeles's minority population now is able to play a larger role in the real estate and development market.

University of Washington: Building a Stronger Local Economy – One Business at a Time – During the 1997 academic year, student consultants from the University of Washington helped create more than 125 jobs and generate nearly $3 million in value added revenue to Seattle's Central Area, an economically disadvantaged community just outside the UW campus. Through the university's Business and Economic Development Program (BEDP), graduate and undergraduate student teams provided direct consultation to nine local businesses in developing financial, marketing, human resource management, production and accounting practices.

Since 1995, the Business and Economic Development Program has advanced the university's mission to help economically disadvantaged business communities create and retain more jobs for local residents. By using the business school's resources, these local businesses, from an automobile detailing shop to a furniture store, are able to grow their enterprises and build an economically stronger community.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh: Offering Management Expertise to Minority Communities – For thousands of years, the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin governed its people according to the laws of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. Though the Oneida Indian Nation exists as a separate political unit from the United States, the tribal leaders recognized the importance of Western management and communication techniques in the modern age. To meet this need, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh worked with the tribe to develop a customized certificate for Oneida Tribal Management.

Management and accounting faculty and staff provide the instruction, sometimes team-teaching with members of the tribal organization. Since 1987, 125 students have attended courses; in January 1995, the first graduates earned Certificates in Tribal Management after completing the required 178 hours of workshops and seminars. The long-range objective is to have Oneida members trained as instructors so that the program can be offered completely in-house.

For more information, contact: John Mozingo, director of the Business Development Center, 800-232-8939