The world around me had me believe that at the age of 30 years, I would be running out of my firsts in a realistic sense. But as they say that life is ridiculously long, when I stepped on my first Emirates flight, I knew the following 10 months of my fellowship were going to be a worthwhile ride. This fellowship program is a ‘one of a kind’ opportunity for mid-career professionals like me being part of the inaugural American India Foundation Banyan Impact Fellowship US track. For the duration of this fellowship, I have been placed with Northwestern University in Chicago where I will work at the study abroad office for their GESI (Global Engagement Studies Institute) Program. And a few other related responsibilities like student advising, marketing and the like.
One of my many firsts that the following few paragraphs will cover is the opportunity that I got to spend quality time with young and inspiring minds. That is when I recently delivered a workshop on ‘collaboration’ for undergrad students at Northwestern University. Although I have been involved in talks in non-profit space back in India, this was a new territory.
Here is a bit of context on who the students were and what the session was about. The Buffett Institute at Northwestern offers a funding opportunity for student group organizations at Evanston campus in return for organizing a few mandatory activities and attending some leadership sessions. This is an annual commitment for the student group organizations, and in 2023, a diverse cohort of interesting groups came together, including Engineers Without Borders (EWB), NU (Northwestern University) Community for Human Rights, Menstrual Equity Activist, and more.
My approach to most things in life has always been bringing solutions to the table. So, as it turned out, I was more focused on providing something practical for the audience to take back home. Keeping that in mind, I designed the session around a management tool called the ‘Business Model Canvas’. I toned it down to a different iteration for non-profit organizations, and as an instrument to facilitate intra and inter organizational collaborations.
As we progressed through the session, we discussed an example of inter-government collaboration from India – the polio eradication initiative involving Govt. of India, Rotary International, the UN, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and many more. The group was also given time for questions to challenge each other and the presenter on some of the situations where collaboration might not happen and the natural human averseness to do so. The organic discussion that came from this section was that the students were able to think about where the need for collaboration originates from.
Moving on to the final activity of the session – the Business Model Canvas (BMC) for nonprofits. After sharing an example for each of the 9 sections in the BMC: (1) social value proposition (2) cost structure (3) revenue stream (4) stakeholders (5) channels (6) relations (7) key activities (8) key metrics (9) key partners; the students were asked to try it for their own organizations. As it was the first time that all students were learning about it, I was glad that they got a chance to think from the other perspectives too – the various stakeholders: beneficiaries, donors, partners, etc. And this I believe is the most important thing – adding more lenses to your thinking. We concluded the activity by discussing which sections were easier and which were difficult; which made more sense in their own context and which ones made them go – “that’s new”. For instance, the EWB student group who provide strategies on clean water to local communities in the Chicagoland area and abroad, can now think from a beneficiary perspective and understand their touch-points with them to offer a more enriched experience [BMC element #5 – channels]. Similarly for the Rotaract group, as they are currently undergoing leadership changes within their own organization, this activity helped them in thinking about the crucial partnerships [BMC element #9 – key partners] which comes under intra-collaboration.
At the end of the session, I stood assured of the power of young minds and how important it is to provide them with different perspectives and guide them to ask the right and difficult questions, which many shy away from.
P.S. Out of many feedback tools, the audience nodding heads and stopping the speaker to ask questions is by far the most satisfactory for the presenter.
As I continue my unique journey through the fellowship and continue to navigate the world of study abroad programs – my next stop is Seattle: The Forum on Education Abroad conference. I am excited to meet peers from this space and learn about what designing student learning spaces entail from an ‘education abroad’ perspective. My aim is to ultimately imbibe these learnings into my work at TYCIA Foundation (Turn Your Concern into Action) and 360Plus back in India where we try to deliver solutions for better youth engagement.
