Consulting Day for Nonprofit Organizations drew 125 nonprofits from the Detroit area to the Mike Ilitch School of Business
On Friday, January 26, 2024, The WSU Mike Ilitch School of Business welcomed 175 individuals representing 125 nonprofit organizations in Detroit and Southeast Michigan for a keynote address delivered by Carlynn D. Nichols, Chief Clinical Officer at The Children’s Center on strategic planning for non-profits and for small-group consulting with Ilitch School students.
Nichols described the critical need for a strategic plan to refer to over the course of 3 to 5 years as a “guide for you, a living document to add and update and revise along the way.” In addition to thinking about what to accomplish and how your community will be made better, she noted that strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) should also be considered when creating a procedural plan for a non-profit to “point towards like your north star.”
The event was accomplished in partnership with SHARE Detroit, a community engagement conduit that helps connect non-profits, businesses and the community members they serve, and with the Wayne State Humanities Clinic. Global supply chain management professor Kevin Ketels facilitated this connection and organized the event at the Ilitch School of Business. He later appeared on Channel 4 news along with SHARE Detroit executive director Janette Phillips to talk about the success of this initiative.
Hamad Aziz, Wayne State senior finance and economics major, was also instrumental in organizing the student organizations that provided consulting services for the nonprofit organizations. He is the president of Warrior Consulting Group, which provides consulting services for businesses in the Detroit area. He recruited several other student organizations for this initiative and helped facilitate the on-site and follow up consulting services offered to the organizations.
“We brought all the student organizations at Mike Ilitch together, and what we’re trying to do is help all these nonprofits in any way that we can.” said Aziz. “We hope to continue these relationships and I think meeting in person at a cool event like this is awesome...We want the community of Detroit to be more connected to Wayne State University, and we believe that nonprofits are the backbone of our city.”
