FollowWhat I’ve come to love most about my time in Berkeley is the vibrancy of the local business community. Out with your Olive Gardens, your Cheesecake Factories, and your Coldstones; give me Gypsy’s, Jupiter, and Ici. Beyond the occasional Subway or American Apparel (does anyone actually buy things from there?), living at Berkeley has been such a big shift from the life of chain-dominated Southern Californian suburbia. I’m pretty sure that the same applies to almost any urban college town.
Consult Your Community, a new nonprofit organization, has set out to help these exact small businesses that make the Berkeley experience so unique. Founded just three months ago by Michael Bloch, a Berkeley senior studying Business Administration, CYC is driven by one tagline: “inspiring students across America to strengthen the 6 million small businesses that drive the success of our nation.” This initiative, which started out as an on-campus club, has since grown into a full-blown national nonprofit, dedicated to providing pro bono consulting services to low-income, small business owners across America.
Beginning this Fall, the organization will launch over 15 new chapters at many of America’s most prestigious universities: Harvard, Columbia, Notre Dame, and Stanford, to name a few. The amazingly rapid growth does not seem to have any foreseeable end, either. Bloch hopes to have at least 50 chapters, one for every single state, up-and-running by the end of 2014. When asked if CYC has any ambitions to go international, Bloch even seemed to have that base covered: “One of our founding members here at Cal is a study-abroad student from Japan. She expressed interest in starting a chapter on her campus next semester, so we’ll see!” Beyond chapter expansion, the organization has already enlisted the cooperation and support of some of the top consulting firms, and hopes to have official partnerships established soon.
When asked about what makes the organization so unique and so appealing across the nation, Bloch responded that “Consult Your Community is a simple yet powerful idea, in which everyone who invests in its success will get something more out of it later,” a truly crucial shift away from the usual nonprofit paradigm. Students win by gaining hands-on consulting experience, businesses receive free help from some of America’s brightest students (who often tend to also be their best customers), universities ensure that their students are equipped to take on the challenges of the real world, cities develop economically through job creation and increasing economic prosperity, and lastly, consulting firms can better identify, access, and recruit the next generation of top-tier consultants. It’s a win-win for everyone.
But don’t just look far out across the nation for Consult Your Community’s impact; CYC has already made a splash on our very own community. Our founding chapter has already consulted multiple clients this semester, including Cal favorites such as Sam’s Market and Sweetheart Cafe. They will also soon be implementing long-lasting changes to benefit the businesses; another distinguishing factor from other university consulting clubs. Apart from the sheer ambition and scope that drives its idea, the club not only analyzes and recommends changes, but works with clients to implement the changes they recommend. In fact, the organization is in the process of fundraising $500,000 in start-up capital by the end of summer, much of which will be used to fund those capital improvements. I myself am looking forward to seeing the changes that will be made!
To ensure the highest-quality consulting services, students who are selected to join CYC will be trained by graduate student mentors, faculty advisors, and experienced professionals from the top firms. So, if you’re looking to gain some great consulting experience while making a real impact on your community, look for CYC on Sproul in the fall. For more information, feel free to visit CYC’s website at www.consultyourcommunity.org, its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/consultyourcommunity, or email Michael Bloch himself at [email protected].
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