Writing a business plan is one thing. But translating it into action is a completely different thing. At least, that is what Minal Vora is learning this summer.
The University of Rhode Island MBA student is using her summer off to work as an unpaid intern with Cookie Place, a nonprofit bakery, to implement the business plan she wrote for the venture in the spring semester, for a “social enterprise” class.
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Vora and four other URI graduate students created the plan, suggesting Cookie Place generate revenue by marketing its goods to Providence hotels.
“Our idea was, if they could supply breakfast to the hotels, they would have stable income,” said Vora, 26, who moved to Providence from India about two and a half years ago.
But implementing the plan proved to be challenging, she said. After calling more than 60 hotels, she realized they just weren’t interesting.
So, she shifted her focus. For the past few weeks, Vora has been working on marketing the bakery’s products to an apartment complex across the street.
“I realized it’s not just about writing it out,” she said of her experience with the business plan. “Implementing it is completely different.”
The opportunity for internships was one of the “interesting things” that came out of this year’s social enterprise class, said Deborah Rosen, the professor who teaches the class at URI’s College of Business Administration.
Although the college has no funds to support a paid internship program, “we’re going to look into it in the future,” Rosen said. The college might support a fellowship program in which students would compete for paid internships.
This is the second year in which URI’s 25 full-time MBA students developed business plans for nonprofits, Rosen said. The college works with Social Venture Partners Rhode Island (SVPRI) to find nonprofits that meet the program’s requirements and objectives.
SVPRI is the local chapter of a national nonprofit focused on advancing the nonprofit sector. Rosen said one of the things it does is help nonprofits find alternative sources of funding through “social enterprise” – for-profit ventures such as selling a product or service to corporate or individual customers.
The dwindling of public and other funding has caused many nonprofits to develop their own sources of income, she said. That’s why SVPRI is in line with the mission of the class, Rosen said. “One of our main goals was to focus on for-profit initiatives for the nonprofit sector.”
Cookie Place agreed to participate in URI’s program for that very reason. The Providence bakery and café, established in 1982, offers employment and training for individuals with psychological and developmental disabilities.
“We’re trying to generate our own business so we don’t have to depend on funding from the state,” said Ray DePasquale, executive director of Cookie Place.
The Providence Maritime Heritage Foundation participated for similar reasons, but it is a little farther along in its “social enterprise” initiatives.
“We had a good idea of what to do,” said Robert Hofmann, executive director of the foundation, which operates the Continental Sloop Providence, a fully-restored 18th-century vessel recently used in scenes of the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”
Hofmann said the nonprofit had begun to offer corporate training before it agreed to participate with the URI class, but it had not yet finalized a business plan for the venture.
“The students were very thorough,” he said. “We normally would not have had the time or resources to conduct it ourselves.”
The 100-page business plan outlines ways the foundation could offer corporate outings on the sailboat that would teach employees about teamwork and communication.
“But it’s more engaging than just an outing,” Hofmann said. “They can’t just Google something – they actually have to speak to people.” In addition, he said, sailing is physically challenging. It requires teamwork and an understanding of hierarchy.
The program would be like “taking what we do with young people into the corporate boardroom,” he said.
The MBA students suggested the foundation market the maritime sessions as unique training for recruiting and retaining quality employees, which Hofmann said he had not thought about.
If successfully implemented, Hofmann said, the corporate training program could be earning the foundation about $200,000 a year – half its operating costs – within five years.
The class also developed business plans for the Eight Women Project at Southside Community Land Trust in Providence, RiverzEdge Arts Project in Woonsocket, and Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation.
Rosen said she had always wanted to add a nonprofit component to URI’s MBA program.
“There are job opportunities in the nonprofit sector that MBA students don’t always think about,” she said. “I’m an advocate of social responsibility. It gives students a chance to give back.”
