Program Overview
Social impact organizations face many challenges in addressing society’s largest and most complex problems. With guidance from Haas faculty and coaching from experienced McKinsey & Company volunteer consultants, multi-disciplinary student teams are paired with organizations and delve into semester-long consulting projects to address strategy or organization development questions put forth by their nonprofit clients. This is a fee-for-service offering, based on 17 years of proven, high-quality work that provides top value and demonstrated results.
Clients receive:
- 900 hours of targeted, affordable, high quality management consulting
- Fresh perspectives from a team who is mentored by McKinsey & Company management consultants
- Faculty advisors to drive key results
- Action plans with innovated solutions to complex challenges, driven by the latest academic thinking and practical application in strategy, marketing, finance, and more.
Students Gain:
- Hands on management consulting experience
- Academic training, coaching, and support
- Career exposure with top consulting firm McKinsey & Company
Additional Program Details:
- Team leads typically have prior consulting experience, prioritize clients based on subject matter expertise, and are placed on projects accordingly
- Team members also apply for S3 and are placed on teams by team leads and faculty
- Each team is coached by a McKinsey consultant, who works closely with team leads to ensure a polished, professional result.
Faculty
The teams are co-taught by Paul Jansen, Director Emeritus, McKinsey & Company and Joe Dougherty, Haas Lecturer and Partner at Dalberg Advisors. Instructors meet weekly to work with each team and drive a process proven to produce results.
Timeline
- Client Applications due September 8, 2023
- Consulting Teams Finalized – December 2023
- Kick-off Event – January 19, 2024, 3-5 pm*
- Finale Event – May 7, 2024, 6-8 pm*
*Dates and times are subject to change as they are dependent on the academic calendar
Learn More:
Client Project Examples
- Develop business plans for growth or change
- Our S3 consulting team created a business plan to develop Meals On Wheels Sacramento its own commercial kitchen as a social enterprise, to serve more people, with locally-made, freshly prepared meals and to expand service area. MOW Sacramento currently serves 2,400 people 5 meals per week.
“The team believed in the organization’s mission and was enthusiastic about our work. They are driven, detail-oriented, creative, collaborative, and dedicated. Moreover, they took research to the next level!”
– Kevin McAllister, Executive Director, Meals on Wheels Sacramento.”
- Organizational design and staffing plans
- Business plan and revenue model
- The S3 consulting team created a business plan for a new capacity building training program that will be offered to community based organizations in San Francisco, the state and nation based on success of MEDA’s programs in SF Mission neighborhood.
“The team took 49 years of MEDA’s work and organized it into a structure for us to engage, share and adapt our model for large-scale application across the nation, The Institute for Equitable Recovery. Their recommendations were used in our presentation to the Mayor of San Francisco as part of the Mayor’s equitable economic recovery for the City of San Francisco.
– Richard Raya, Chief Strategy Officer, MEDA
- Assess current state, identify and evaluate opportunities, create implementation plan
- Financial modeling and analysis
- Our S3 consulting team conducted a landscape analysis for our social enterprise to support “Pop-Up Villages”: mobile architecture and programming to turn blighted/vacant urban outdoor spaces into beautiful regenerative community hubs that facilitate under-resourced communities of color to access resources.
“The team provided capacity we do not currently have at DJDS. They adapted to our many needs, provided very good project management, financial modeling, landscape analysis, and a list of leads. The team lead’s articulation of the business processes and emergence of clear and relevant options is exactly the trajectory we needed to see on the operational level”.
– Garrett Jacobs, Director of Research and Evaluation,
Designing Justice, Designing Spaces
- Landscape and comparative analyses
- Growth projections
- Our S3 consulting team conducted a feasibility study of next stage funding to bolster early stage social ventures that serve Bay Area kids graduating from the accelerator program for All Stars Helping Kids.
“Our S3 consulting teams remained very flexible…one of the things I appreciated with both of the teams we worked with was their level of curiosity and their flexibility worked really well.”
– David Greco, Executive Director,
All Stars Helping Kids
- Assess market, create theory of change, determine top priorities, develop strategic plan.
- The S3 consulting team developed a startup business plan for the Berkeley Food Network for a new community-based organization that coordinates the distribution of food and related programming to hunger relief organizations throughout the city of Berkeley.
“Our experience with the Haas S3 program exceeded our expectations! The team was very professional and the business plan they wrote for us was thorough and actionable. Now, with the COVID-19 shelter-in-place crisis, our business plan has served as a roadmap for ramping up our services to meet unprecedented need in our community.”
-Sara Webber, Co-Founder and Executive Director.
Berkeley Food Network
- Study the market and competitors, choose optimal product/service design and agree on a go-to-market plan.
- The CommonApp consultation improves the transfer pathway for students between community college and a 4-year school, in service of CommonApp’s goal to increase access and equity to college.
Visit CommonApp’s blog about our work
“I’ve worked with many elite consulting firms over the years on numerous projects, and this team of MBA students from Berkeley topped them all in terms of their clear passion to help the underserved, lack of ego and the ultimate product they produced in a very compressed period of time.”
– Don Yu, Chief Operating Officer, Reach Higher, and Senior Director of Equity & Access at the Common Application, Inc.
“Way to go! Your work on this project has provided us with incredible depth of research and information. This report is impressive, robust, thoughtful, creative, and actionable the results of which will make a difference for thousands of students. Thank you!”
– Jenny Rickard, President and CEO,
Common Application, Inc.
Student Information
For the upcoming Spring 2024 Social Sector Solutions program, informational sessions and bidding occurs in the fall. Two info sessions will be held–one for those interested in becoming a team lead, and one for those interested in being a team member.
S3 Team Lead Info Session: Thur., Sep 21, 2023, 12:30-1:30pm. Register Here
S3 Team Member Info Session: Thur., Oct 5, 2023, 12:30-1:30. Register Here
“S3 offers a world-class opportunity for students who want to learn the art and science of consulting, one of S3’s most valuable assets is the program’s incredible access to the world of business management consulting firms. By being a Team Lead, I was recruited by 2 of the Big 4 firms. Two of my teammates were also offered consulting roles at well-known companies.” –Stephanie Rivers, EMBA, MPA
2022-2023 S3 Team Lead Info Session Recording
2022-2023 S3 General Info Session Recording
How to Apply
MBA’s receive an application link once students bid for the course during their designated course bidding period in the Fall. (Bidding dates are in November, with the exact window posted at the beginning of the fall term). For more details, contact your MBA program office.
Non-MBA students (including undergrads) must apply to the program by November 15th, 2023 at noon to be considered for one of the teams. The link to the application is here.
Course Enrollment
- Selected graduate students will be enrolled in MBA292S for 3 credits by the MBA program office
- Selected undergraduate students will be enrolled in UGBA192.T7 for 3 credits.
- More details and enrollment verification will be provided at the start of the spring semester.
For more information email [email protected].