April Edition 2010 - New York Nonprofit Press

April 2010 New York Nonprofit Press www.nynp.biz 15
EDUCATION
Got Issues Students in Milano’s Issues Lab Can Help!
Does your agency have some thorny
issue that needs a resolution Why not assign
a team of consultants to work on it for
a month!
Haven’t got a spare $50,000 in the budget
Not to worry! Just call Milano The New
School for Management and Urban Policy!
For more than 30 years, Milano’s Urban
Policy Analysis and Management program
has been assigning graduate students to work
with clients in government and the nonprofit
sector as part of a highly structured “Laboratory
in Issues Analysis”. In addition to being a
tremendous learning experience for students,
the Lab can serve as a valuable resource for
cash strapped nonprofits. During February
and March, a total of 16 organizations took
advantage of the opportunity during the first
round of this year’s Issues Lab projects.
Milano students brief NYC Councilmember Gale Brewer on their
research into tri-state food distribution.
“It was very helpful,” says Ben Esner,
Senior Vice President for Programs at the
Brooklyn Community Foundation (BCF).
BCF had engaged a team of students to
help determine how the foundation could
best assist various community groups interested
in starting up food co-ops.
“The students have done a terrific job,”
says Peter Kostmayer, CEO at Citizens
Committee for New York City (CCNYC).
“I frankly was bowled over by the research
and analysis they did.” CCNYC was looking
for ways that community organizations
could combat vehicular noise pollution.
“I always tell clients that we cannot
guarantee the project will be successful,”
says Andrew French, Director of the Issues
Analysis Lab. “But, I have never known a
client who didn’t find something that was
useful in the final report. Many go on to
use the recommendations in their policy
making or incorporate the research findings
in their own advocacy work.”
The Lab focuses on a single policy
question and is designed to introduce students
to qualitative and quantitative techniques
that can be applied to a broad range
of problems. Students are divided into
teams of five, given a mandate to analyze
a particular issue as identified by the client,
and a time frame of four to five weeks
within which they must complete their
analysis.
For BCF, the students researched the
history of successful food co-ops in New
York City and elsewhere, contacted groups
interested in starting up, and looked at examples
of co-ops that had failed. The team
conducted their own survey of the buying
habits of Brooklyn consumers and price
comparisons for various food outlets. “We
had about 100 respondents,” said Aryn
Bloodworth, a student on the BCF team.
“Our results showed us that there is a need
for fresh, affordable food in Brooklyn that
is not currently being met.”
Ultimately, they developed a model
outlining the various stages of development
for emerging co-ops, e.g., organizing, feasibility
research, incorporation, member recruitment,
finance, and the ultimate launch.
Then, they made recommendations on how
BCF could help groups
at each of the various
stages.
“They showed us
a clear process for getting
from ‘a’ to ‘b’,”
says Esner. “They
gave us a way to talk
to groups about where
they are on this road
map. What have they
done What do they
need to do They
showed that if groups
did certain things in
step one, their chances
in step two were that
much better in step
two, and so forth.”
Students in the
CCNYC team began by narrowing down
their issue. “We had to zero in on what a
group of private citizens, with no money
other than a grant from CCNYC, could do
to combat vehicular noise,” says Chandler
Griffin. The answer, at least in part, was to
band together with other groups concerned
about the same issue. “Ultimately we
wound up recommending a social network-
ing site as a way to reach as many people as
possible on the smallest budget.”
The team envisioned a site on which
concerned citizens could continually update
information on vehicular noise problems,
even posting pictures and videos. The students
identified IPhone applications that allow
users to record a noise, determine the
decibel level, take a photo and post it to the
net. “I might hear a motorcycle or a loud
truck every morning at 7:00 a.m.,” says
Griffin. “Through this site, I might learn
that someone else a few blocks away hears
the same thing at 6:50. Now we have an
idea of the route it is taking.”
In a high tech take-off on the traditional
“Neighborhood Watch”, the Milano team
dubbed their site “Neighborhood Listen”.
Both BCF and CCNYC plan to put the
students’ findings to good use. Peter Kostmayer
is hopeful that some of the students
may be able to stay with the project. “I
would like to see some of them sign up to
work with us and get credit,” he says. Esner
believes BCF will use the analysis as it
builds partnerships with the Brooklyn Food
Coalition and the Park Slope Food Co-op.
While the Milano students work on issues
at no cost, there are commitments that
client organizations must make. They have
to develop a written “mandate” outlining
their issue, meet with the team during the first
week of the project, and attend the final briefing.
“The students were very professional in
the sense that they were committed to what
they were doing and very respectful of our
time,” says BCF’s Esner.
The ultimate beneficiary of the students’
hard work, however, is likely to be the students
themselves. “The Lab is one of the
reasons why I chose Milano originally,” says
Chandler Griffin. “It is not just theory. It is
theory in practice.”
“Having a project like this is extremely
valuable,” says Aryn Bloodworth. “We get
thrown right into a real policy problem. We
have to come up with a way to do the research
and get people to talk to us. We have
to develop a series of recommendations and
develop a final presentation. It is exciting
to know that what we are working on is not
just an assignment but a real project that will
serve a purpose and help a group achieve
their mission.”
Andrew French believes that nonprofits
get more than just help with their issues
when they work with the students at Milano.
“They are helping to train the next generation
of leaders for their sector.”
For information about participating in
the “Laboratory in Issues Analysis” at Milano,
contact Andrew French at frencha@
newschool.edu.
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