Community Consulting Club focuses efforts on American Red Cross

By: Deep Chakraborty, Evening MBA

Posted: 1/9/05

The Community Consulting Club (CCC) held its Fall Banquet and Award Ceremony on December 13, 2005 to recognize the twenty-four student teams that worked during the Fall term on projects for several local non-profit organizations.

This year's winning team for the "Best Project Award" consulted with the club's long-time client, the American Red Cross (Washtenaw County Chapter). Best known for its disaster relief services, including providing shelter and supplies during Hurricane Katrina, and its health and safety programs, including blood drives and CPR courses, the American Red Cross has also identified the aging U.S. population as a major healthcare concern and has begun to develop programs to help communities provide the necessary care for their elderly populations. In January 2004, the American Red Cross launched the Family Caregiving program to provide training to assist caregivers (both professional and family members) to provide in-home care for parents, spouses, and other loved ones.

A group of six students (three BBA and two MBA students from the Ross School of Business as well as one Ph.D. student from the School of Social Psychology) provided consulting services to the American Red Cross during the Fall semester. The project was split into three pieces: projecting the number of home healthcare workers in each of Michigan's 83 counties over the next 25 years, assessing the growth potential of the Family Caregiving program, and developing recommendations for the upcoming Direct Careworker program. The student team conducted research on healthcare trends in Michigan's elderly population, interviewed local home healthcare vendors currently providing in-home care, and analyzed the feedback from the existing Family Caregiving program. The team synthesized its findings into a fifty page recommendation, which was presented to the leadership of the Washtenaw County Chapter of the American Red Cross in early December.

"The professionalism of the CCC team was most rewarding. They understood the requirements and the timeline and got to work immediately. The market need was instinctive, but their analytical research helped me build a business plan to present to my executive management," said Pam Reading-Smith, Director of Public Support, American Red Cross (Washtenaw County Chapter).

"Red Cross was on the right track. Our team was able to provide them an analytical framework to assess the value of their business activity," said Adam Goetsch, MBA2, team leader for the winning project. "We also found out, through our market research, that their direct-care worker program needed to focus on some critical sub-segments of the market. American Red Cross has had a long working relationship with the Community Consulting Club. That really helped us in our study. Everyone pitched in. We had a very balanced team," Goetsch added.

The Community Consulting Club (CCC) donates business experience to local non-profit institutions that otherwise would not be able to afford expert advice. To carry out this mission the CCC matches current RSB students, both BBA and MBA, with local organizations in projects chosen during an application selection process to ensure the most useful combination of needs and capabilities for each project team. The CCC requires students to put their business skills to work, even if they don't have a lot of prior consulting knowledge. For those who are interested in pursuing a career in management consulting, the CCC provides valuable exposure to proven consulting practices and industry professionals.

"Non-profits often do not understand what the CCC teams are capable of doing. I think this club is an asset for Washtenaw County. Local non-profits often lack the kind of management talent this Club can provide. They need to utilize the services of this group more effectively," said Reading-Smith.