Student Group Training Tomorrow’s Consultants
WHILE MANY CONSULTANTS DON’T GET
first-hand experience in the field until they
are placed on a project, students in a group
called Students Consulting for Non-Profit
Organizations actually get the opportunity
to explore the career before committing to
it. At Michigan State University, one of two
“When I found out
you can do this for a job,
it blew me away. Joel Clum, Michigan State”University
schools the organization has a chapter at
(the other is the University of Arizona), the
organization has helped dozens of groups
in the Lansing, Mich., area.
MSU senior finance major and Accenture hire-in-waiting Joel Clum heads up
the completely student-run organization
and already has the mindset of a project
manager. “We try to put people on engagements that they’re going to do well on,” he
says, explaining nonprofits approach the
group with a project in mind, and the organization determines if it has the expertise
to handle the projects. “It’s completely
free for the nonprofit. The only thing they
have to invest in is time and resources,”
Clum said. Then teams of a half dozen students are sent in to work with the organization to meet its objective. Trust, Clum
says, is a two-way street.
SCNO (online at www.msuscno.org)
has created donor databases, worked on
marketing campaigns and provided other
services to more than 70 organizations
since its 2003 inception. And while not all
of his fellow students will go into consulting, Clum himself says he’s excited about
his future in the industry. [When I found
out] you can do this for a job, it blew me
away,” he says. —Jaqueline Durett
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