Aalto University: A brand new opportunity for NGOs to collaborate with Kauppis

Aalto University School of Business has long traditions of corporate collaboration. Volunteer organizations and other non-profits have also been involved, but to a lesser extent. NGOs are a great asset to our society – as societal influencers as well as important service providers. NGOs are also potential employers of our students, especially for those who want to influence society with their work.

During the academic year 2022-23, the School of Business will for the first-time pilot a new form of collaboration targeted exclusively to NGOs: The NGO project. This collaboration opens up a unique opportunity for School of Business Master’s students to help nonprofit organizations in their development work on a pro bono basis. From the students’ perspective there are many ‘wins’: they get to apply what they have learned into practice, learn more about the NGO sector and earn study credits. The NGO project concept has been developed in collaboration with Fingo.

Every project is managed by an academic supervisor, who will need to be appointed before the project can start. The supervisor’s role is to ensure that the scope of the project responds to the needs of the organization and meets the learning objectives of the course.

The development project’s theme has to relate to topics taught in the School of Business. There are lots of topics to choose from! Management, information and service management, finance, accounting, economics, marketing as well as all kinds of subtopics within these fields. Concrete examples include developing processes, preparing communication plans, developing fundraising, developing different membership forms or creating new event concepts, as well as developing administrative tasks such as financial reporting or preparing the procurement of a new membership database.