One of the unique experiences for candidates enrolled in the One Year MBA program at the University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics is the built-in team internship called Project Connect. Each year, the University of Kentucky MBA selects a nonprofit organization to participate in Project Connect and this year GreenHouse17 was selected.
"GreenHouse17 was so fortunate to be chosen as a Project Connect partner this year," says Corissa Phillips, External Relations Director of Green House17. "The team’s efforts focused on our organization’s social enterprises to support services to nurture lives harmed by intimate partner abuse. The Fall semester explored marketing expansion of our local fresh-cut flowers, and the spring semester considered supply chain improvements for our line of handmade products."
GreenHouse17, formerly Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program, is an advocacy agency committed to ending intimate partner abuse in families and the community. Their specially trained crisis counselors are available to help people harmed by intimate partner abuse any time of the day, every day of the year. From their three offices along with their main facility, which is situated on a beautiful 40-acre property in rural Fayette County in Central Kentucky, they provide crisis intervention and stabilization programming to nurture lives harmed by intimate partner abuse. GreenHouse17 is somewhat unique in the not-for-profit sector it’s social enterprise activities from their farm provides a reliable source of funding for their agency while offering their survivors small-business training and micro-enterprise opportunities.
"GreenHouse17 is doing such important work across the 17 counties it serves in central Kentucky," says Jasmine Afshar, alumni of Gatton's One Year MBA program and team lead of the GreenHouse17 internship group. "Our team knew that whatever recommendations we provided for them had to connect with the organization's important mission of advocating for survivors of intimate partner abuse. Their Flower CSA and Handmade by Survivors businesses are different than anything else on the market - customers have the opportunity to purchase flowers or bath and body products that give survivors the chance to heal and grow while gaining employment and business experience."
Participating in Project Connect happens simultaneously with your coursework, providing students with a great opportunity to apply what they are learning in class with real-time projects of importance. Student teams devote 70- 80 hours per person per project, working to address issues and develop strategies for their project sponsor.
Jasmine says, "Our Marketing Research and Supply Chain Operations courses, as well as the Six Sigma Green Belt certificate course, were all extremely helpful in terms of unpacking the root causes of revenue loss for both social enterprises. In these courses, we learned how to effectively create and analyze surveys, run financial projects, and develop marketing and growth plans to maximize profits while providing a great experience for the customer and survivors enrolled in the programs."
The GreenHouse17 Project Connect UK MBA team was comprised of Jasmine Afshar, Nicolas "Nico" De Villalobos Paz, Nathan Sardoni, Holly Young, Amber Swartzentruber and Candace Bramley-Hardesty. The team met frequently throughout the year to research and develop strategies for their Project Connect sponsor, GreenHouse17.
"In the first semester, we developed a 3-year marketing and growth strategy to expand GreenHouse17's Flower CSA and were happy to learn that subscriptions for the Flower CSA have already sold out for this year," says Jasmine. "For the second semester, we created a Business Playbook to streamline the processes of internal reporting, product shipping, and demand forecasting for the Handmade by Survivors products. With our recommendations, we believe that GreenHouse17 has the opportunity to increase profit margins by 34% or provide 59 additional weeks of work training for survivors in 2019."
For 32 weeks, One Year MBA student teams are paired with companies to work on projects of importance to their corporation or organization. These projects focus on core business processes such as: data analysis, marketing, research, growth strategy, supply chain management, logistics and operations. Student teams will present to their sponsors at the end of the Fall and Spring semesters with the expectations of providing meaningful data, recommendations and solutions to their sponsors.
Corissa of GreenHouse17 says, "The team's final presentations and resources provided at the end of each semester will prove invaluable as we continue to grow. In fact, we already have begun implementing the three-year expansion plan for our Summer Flower CSA subscription service. The data collected by the team’s survey of past flower subscribers and community-wide flower purchasing habits have given us insights and understanding to prepare us for next steps. The team’s close consideration of our Handmade by Survivors products resulted in inventory and shipping improvement suggestions that will make our efforts more efficient and profitable in the coming years."
According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), approximately 1.56 million nonprofits were registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2015, an increase of 10.4 percent from 2005. In addition, the nonprofit sector contributed an estimated $985.4 billion to the US economy in 2015, composing 5.4 percent of the country's gross domestic product. They comprise a diverse range of nonprofits, including art, health, education, and advocacy nonprofits; labor unions; and business and professional associations.
Jasmine says, "One of the most challenging parts of managing a non-profit is the fundraising needed to keep the doors open. GreenHouse17's Flower CSA and Handmade by Survivors products are a great opportunity to bridge the fundraising gap, provide healing and growth opportunities for their program participants, and to create additional incentives for the local and national community to engage with and support their mission. In time, I'm confident that these businesses will play a large role in sustaining the organization's programs and allow for their staff to focus on what's important, which is creating a community that supports survivors on their paths towards self-sufficiency."
"Career opportunities for business majors are many and varied in the nonprofit sector," says Corissa. "Although traditional administrative and management roles often focus on fund raising and marketing, social enterprises such as ours are becoming more common as nonprofits begin to consider alternate streams of funding to support their missions. These efforts are creating a large need for thought leaders in business management who are interested in applying their education and expertise to improve communities and create social change."
GreenHouse17's services are based in the trauma-informed care model by honoring that everyone responds to and heals from trauma in different ways. Survivors have the opportunity to be out in the fresh air on a beautiful 40-acre farm that surrounds their emergency shelter. Their innovative approach to survivor services has received several recent awards: National Mary Byron Project Celebration Solutions Award, Kentucky Nonprofit Network 2013 Innovative Nonprofit Award, Center for Nonprofit Excellence Pyramid Award for Social Innovation and the National finalist in the Partnership for Freedom Reimagine Opportunity competition. GreenHouse17 serves seventeen counties in Kentucky: Anderson, Bourbon, Boyle, Clark, Estill, Fayette, Franklin, Garrard, Harrison, Jessamine, Lincoln, Madison, Mercer, Nicholas, Powell, Scott, and Woodford.