Remote Projects: AskACT: Resources: ACT: Stanford GSB

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ACT is a program of the Stanford Business School Alumni Association and the Center for Social Innovation.
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Remote Projects: Beyond the SF Bay Area

Two Models for Remote (non-SF Bay Area) Projects

ACT has successfully operated in the San Francisco Bay Area for twenty years. Periodically, alumni from other geographic regions express interest in replicating ACT to serve nonprofits in their communities and to provide meaningful volunteer opportunities for local alumni. Recognizing the value created by ACT in the Bay Area for nonprofits, alumni, and the school, the GSB has tried to establish ACT organizations in other areas. These experiences have generated a substantial knowledge base regarding the challenges involved in starting an ACT organization, which can be helpful for those seeking to coordinate ACT projects outside the Bay Area.

We have observed two typical attempts to replicate ACT activities outside the Bay Area:

Conducting a Single Project: A small group of alumni conduct a pro bono consulting project for a nonprofit in their area. This requires one nonprofit client, between 2-8 alumni volunteers, and at least one alumnus/a who agrees to volunteer as a project leader.
Creating a Sustainable Chapter: One or more alumni lead the coordination of several consulting projects, often in partnership with MBA alumni from other schools.

Conducting a Single Project in Your Community

Refer to The ACT Process: Full Project Process for more information on a typical project cycle in the SF Bay Area. The entire process can take up to 10 months, with the project execution stage lasting 4-6 months.

The following steps represent an abbreviated process for conducting your local project. Useful resources for each step are provided as links.

Identify a local nonprofit with a need that can be met by GSB alumni consultants and ask the nonprofit to complete an application. As part of the screening process, you or the client might find it helpful to look at some of the most common types of projects that ACT has done over the years, highlighted in the Ask ACT section of the website.
ACT Client Screening FormDoc (1.2 MB) ACT Client ApplicationDoc (1.2 MB)
Write a description of the project using the screening form and the application.
Example of ACT's Project Description Format (1.2 MB)
Recruit alumni to serve as Project Leaders (1-2 people) and team members (2-8 people).
Contact ACT to Request an Alumni Contact List
Project Leaders and or/entire team meet in person with client organization to create a
project work plan.
Download Project Work Plan Template (5.3MB)
The entire alumni team executes the consulting project.

Volunteer Handbook PDF (0.8 MB)
Access Additional Volunteer Resources
The project is evaluated by Project Leaders, team members, and the client organization.
View Sample Evaluation Questionnaire (coming soon)

Creating a Sustainable ACT Chapter in Your Community

In order to sustain an ACT chapter in your community, a larger group of alumni must create a long-standing organization to conduct multiple pro bono consulting projects for nonprofits in their area. This requires collaborating with other business school alumni associations and/or a local support organization, recruiting volunteers and clients, establishing ways to ensure project quality, and raising money to support an executive director and office. Even with a dedicated part-time staff member, a volunteer leadership team is essential to provide additional help and contacts.

Examples of successful sustainable ACT or ACT-related organizations are:

Compass, Washington D.C. [learn more]
ACT's Monterey Chapter, Monterey, California [learn more]

...more

Success factors for a sustainable ACT organization include:

A dedicated effort by a local individual for a sustained period of time
A critical mass of volunteers
A local organization that can provide infrastructure support
A network of alumni volunteers to provide consulting services
Nonprofit organizations seeking pro bono consulting services

...more

A dedicated effort by a local individual for a sustained period of time
In the case of Stanford ACT, twenty years ago two alumnae worked for several years to recruit volunteers and clients before they were able to raise enough money for one of them to become a part-time paid executive director. Your initiative might require funding to support hiring paid staff to operate the program. Stanford ACT cannot provide staff support for your local chapter.

A critical mass of volunteers
In the Bay Area, about 5 percent of alums participate in an ACT project within a 3 year period. Thus, it takes a fairly large local alumni population to provide enough volunteers for a sustainable organization. In the case of Compass DC, Stanford, Wharton, Harvard, and Tuck alumni were invited to participate in order to increase the pool of potential volunteers. In 2004, there were somewhat over 6,000 GSB alumni in the Bay Area. The total alumni pool available to Compass from all four business school alumni groups is about 2,500.

These numbers illustrate that a total volunteer population above 2,500 should be a goal for any group wanting to start a chapter in their area. Using this model, alumni from local universities, not Stanford, will provide the bulk of volunteer support. Single projects can be conducted in areas of less concentration but organizers will need to use creative methods to reach sufficient numbers of volunteers.

A local organization that can provide infrastructure support
Unless you intend to provide only one project for a single nonprofit, support from a community foundation, other business school alumni association, or nonprofit support center will help your chapter stay viable and connected with local resources that can ensure your success. Additionally, you should make arrangements with the organization to provide database and website space for your chapter to track projects and advertise opportunities.

A network of alumni volunteers to provide consulting services
Seek alumni with varied business and organizational management skills such as marketing, financial management, organizational development, strategic planning, operations, technology. They should be willing to offer a minimum of 2-4 hours/week (8-16 hours/month) for project execution, with at least one person per team willing to spend extra time to lead the team's efforts.

Nonprofit organizations seeking pro bono consulting services
Contact local nonprofits or use personal connections to identify the right nonprofit.

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Using the "ACT" Name for Your Endeavor

We expect that any ACT project or chapter will provide high quality consulting to nonprofits in keeping with the ideals and ethics of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Therefore, if you would like to use the Alumni Consulting Team name, we require the following for our records:

Client name and primary client contact information
Team roster
Final work product
Permission to send evaluation requests to your team members and client contacts

In addition, please email us a one page summary describing the project's impact on the nonprofit, collaborations with other business schools, and any other pertinent details about how the project was conducted.

Project Summary Template (1.2 MB)

Ready to get started? Contact ACT

Alumni Consulting Team (ACT)

Related Sites

Remote Projects: Beyond the SF Bay Area

Two Models for Remote (non-SF Bay Area) Projects

Conducting a Single Project in Your Community

Creating a Sustainable ACT Chapter in Your Community

Using the "ACT" Name for Your Endeavor