Volunteer Consulting for an NGO - learning by doing!

Stijn Boon, Branch President

Text: Elisabeth Björkman Photos: 180DC Helsinki

This spring I’ve had the opportunity to try something completely new - consulting! Specifically, a student-driven volunteering consulting project for a non-profit. What does it mean? I called two of the board members of the Helsinki branch of 180 Degrees Consulting, branch president Stijn Boon and marketing director Darlene Tran, to talk about student volunteering and consulting.

180 Degrees Consulting works like this: the board members - they, too, are volunteers - reach out to charities, NGOs and nonprofits that have a problem to solve. There’s a big variety among the clients, from the biggest NGOs in Finland to smaller organisations, and the board aims to find interesting cases that attract students. Once they’ve found suitable cases, they recruit student consultants that receive basic training from professional consultants and then have 10 weeks to finish the consulting project. This spring, the Helsinki branch has three cases, each with a team of four volunteers. I am in a team together with students from Aalto University, working on a case for Physicians for Social Responsibility with mentoring from Bain & Company, and as of writing of this article, we’re running the final weeks of the project. Darlene and Stijn started out in 180 Degrees Consulting as student consultants as well. They were in the same team, working on a case for Monaliiku, developing a corporate funding strategy. Neither of them had any previous consulting experience and were curious about the consultant role.

“That sounds very sophisticated,” tells Stijn about his expectations on consulting. “But since the onboarding was so good - we had training from the partner companies - it was quite easy to roll into the role of being a consultant.” His favourite part about working on that case was the teamwork and friendships that were formed during the project, and mentions that Darlene always brought snacks to the meetings. It was energizing to meet the team members and work together towards a common goal. Before starting the work, it’s important to get a good picture of the issue the NGO is facing and narrowing it down to a problem the team can solve, and once the project is finished, to communicate your solution in a way that the NGO can apply. Effective communication is key - which is something both Stijn and Darlene has learned from working their case.

How can an inexperienced student help an NGO?

“The reason why the client is looking for outsiders’ opinion, is that they want to have fresh eyes and viewpoints,” explains Darlene. The client has been facing their problem for a long time and haven’t been able to solve it by themselves. “In general, students at any university in Finland are smart people and have a lot of skills and knowledge,” adds Stijn. It is fairly easy to adapt them to practical problem solving, and a lot of learning is done by doing. He believes that students possess skills that they’re not aware of themselves, and any expertise is useful. Every year, a new board is formed. Stijn emphasises the importance of friendship: especially in volunteering, teamwork and commitment is important, and having reliable board members is vital.

Then the board is playing match-makers: they look for appropriate cases and the right people to solve them. The most promising applicants are invited to an intensive recruitment day, consisting of interviews and workshopping a fictional example case, in order to expose their skillset. “Based on the recruitment day performance, and the application, and the clients’ problems, we chose the finalists to be in the project teams. And from that final list, we group them in project teams,” explains Darlene. Their aim is to form teams that work well together, that each member has a social impact mindset, and that the teams are as diverse as possible to maximise variation of skills that the team members bring to the table. A good consultant is a problem solver and critical, but above all, a team player. Darlene adds that motivation is also important to have when you’re a student consultant. “Especially in this situation, when every team can’t meet face-to-face - it’s a huge obstacle, and we have no way to find a solution, so we have to adapt to the situation.”

Why should a student work for free?

“Volunteering experience is really great,” says Stijn. “I have so many connections right now, because of this experience, and especially in Finland, a network is really important to get a job, or get a recommendation.” Darlene agress, and adds that this is no different than volunteering for Slush or Nordic Business Forum, and emphasises that volunteering for 180DC teaches you skills that you can then bring with you in your future career. “And with 180, you have both friends and a professional network.” Stijn also adds that once the consulting project is finished, it is really rewarding to see how happy the NGO is with the result, to have helped, instead of simply being commercial like you usually are in a business school.

The team of student consultants for spring 2020 in Helsinki

Why would an organisation be interested in receiving consulting from students?

NGOs have very restricted resources, and could never afford the services of the big fancy consulting firms. But the volunteers of 180DC are mentored by those firms, accessing their knowledge while working on the projects, which leads to improved results that are beneficial to the NGOs. “At any point in time we have 12 000 consultants working for us,” says Stijn. “The global impact we have in the organization is really huge, and the clients are interested in that.” In addition to that, 180DC is the world's largest university-based consultancy. It consists entirely of volunteers and has a positive reputation globally.

Soon, a new board for the Helsinki branch will be formed. The current board has an aim to expand the branch, to increase the capacity to help more NGOs, as well as training students to become future leaders. “But even though each of us have our own plans in the future,” adds Darlene, “I am happy to support the new board team whenever they need help.” The past board members have helped the current board - even those who are no longer involved with the organisation are eager to help. It’s a community, not only on national level, but globally as well.

Darlene Tran, marketing director

“Obviously, you don’t get money,” laughs Stijn when I ask what the main difference is in consulting for a nonprofit and a for-profit firm. “And we have a more informal relationship with our clients, since they know we’re volunteers. So they’re not expecting crazy results from us.” There’s still a pressure to provide quality results, but it’s a more friendly atmosphere, and with mentoring from the partner firms you get a glimpse on what it’s like to work for one of those firms. The most common problems that NGOs need to solve are financing issues. It’s difficult for NGOs to predict future income, and they have a lot of pressure to constantly report their finances, both for public and private funding. Darlene explains fundraising with a metaphor: “It’s like you have a net, you spread it out and see which fish you can catch.” Marketing and raising awareness for the issues that the NGO is advocating for is also important. “All the projects take into consideration that the NGOs have limited resources, and therefore it has to be an outcome of the project that is easily implementable for the organisation with limited resources,” summarises Stijn. A fun example of a past project involved a second-hand store the NGO used for fundraising: they needed help with figuring out the best store layout to maximize shopping. After extensive research, the students went to the shop and moved the shelves around! The case I work on with my team involves raising awareness. Despite that we have almost no expertise in marketing - I major in economics, and my fellow team members major in finance and engineering - it has been interesting to learn that our seemingly unrelated skills can be applied to develop a strategy for our client. And as we have learned more about our client organization, it is satisfying to know that our hard work will be used to increase positive social impact. Truly, my experience has been a win-win: I have learned practical consulting skills, and (I hope) the project results will be helpful to the client. I can’t yet say about any advantages for my future, but I’ve had a lot of fun!