Net Impact San Francisco

Looking to apply your business skills while gaining valuable experience critical for building your resume?  USF Net Impact is accepting applications from members interested in engaging in Service Corps consulting projects in the nonprofit organizations.  This opportunity is open to any San Francisco Bay Area Net Impact members to participate in the projects.  Give back to your community!  Apply Now!

About the projects:

Project A: Business Planning for the East Palo Alto Community Farmers’ Market
Project B: Emerge Loan Employer Survey and Interview Project for Rubicon National Social Innovations (RNSI)
See more details below.

Number of Volunteers
Each project needs 3 -4 volunteers. Please indicate in your application if you would like to be the team lead.

Eligibility
Volunteers must be Net Impact members (www.netimpact.org)

Time Commitment
Volunteers must be able to devote 4 to 5 hours per week of work in the duration of the projects.

How to apply

Please submit your resume with a brief statement of interest in the indicated project to usfservicecorps@gmail.com by Sunday, October 11th.

Contact Ling Huang @ usfservicecorps@gmail.com with any question about the projects

Project A

Business Planning for the East Palo Alto Community Farmers’ Market

The East Palo Alto Community Farmers’ Market is a community-based and youth-focused Certified Farmers’ Market.  Before its founding in June 2008, the Market engaged a group of students to create a two-year business plan.  Since then, a number of factors have changed, resulting in that business plan being obsolete. Our team of volunteers will develop a new business plan for the famers’ market working closely with Collective Roots, a nonprofit which provides financial and logistics supports to the East Palo Alto Community Farmers’ Market.

The mission of Collective Roots is to educate and engage youth and communities in food system change through sustainable programs that impact health, education, and the environment. Collective Roots achieves its mission through the innovative integration and implementation of two key program areas: garden-based education and food systems change.

Project Objectives: The goal is to develop a new business plan that will help the market to stabilize and continue to operate in East Palo Alto. The business plan will determine the number of   vendors, stall fees, customers and other variables required for a financially sustainable market (including some consistent yearly private funding).

Project Duration: 5 months starting from October 2009

Valuable Skills and Knowledge:

· Business planning
· Marketing
· Community programs
· Nonprofit Management

Project B

Emerge Loan Employer Survey and Interview Project for Rubicon National Social Innovations (RNSI)

The Emerge Loan product is a social innovation that Rubicon National created in response to predatory payday loans.  The Pay Day Loan industry in the United States has grown into a multi-billion dollar business, primarily at the expense of hard working lower income workers who are forced to pay what amounts to 400% interest rates to borrow money in emergencies. The Emerge Loan is marketed as employer benefit program through payroll service providers. Using a voluntary payroll deduction, loans can be originated and underwritten at reasonable interest rates and at faster speeds than payday advance alternatives. Borrowers also build credit through using this product. Emerge Loan will significantly replace predatory payday loans and solve the severe liquidity problem faced by borrowers of small dollar loans.

Our team of volunteers will work with Rubicon National to assess the feasibility of large employers offering the Emerge Loan product as an employee benefit. The team will create a survey tool and distribute it to a list of large Northern California employers that Rubicon National has compiled. The team would additionally interview employers to gain additional insight. Based on the results of the survey and interviews the team would make recommendations about adjustments that would make the Emerge Loan program more attractive to employers and form a marketing strategy to gain adoption by employers.

Rubicon National Social Innovations is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that aims at creating nationally-scaled social enterprises that have the primary purpose of improving the economic well being of low income people and communities. These social businesses achieve its mission by creating jobs for the “hardest to employ”, and by creating businesses that provide better value and thus help low income people save money compared to current predatory business practices in low income communities. Rubicon National Social Innovations believes that for social enterprise to have a significant impact on poverty and jobs in America; it must be re-imagined on a much greater scale.

Project Objectives: The goal is to make recommendations that would make the Emerge Loan product appealing for large employer adoptions according to the results of the survey and interviews.

Project Duration: 4 months starting from October 2009

Valuable Skills and Knowledge:

· Survey Instruments
· Marketing
· Strategic Analysis
· Interpersonal skills

More information about the program: http://rubiconnational.org/our-projects/emerge-loan-program/