Call for College Partners: MicroServe Philadelphia

Posted by on November 07, 2010

MicroServe Philadelphia

CALL FOR PARTNERS
ATTENTION: Higher Education Faculty and Community Services Offices

MicroServe Philadelphia is an initiative of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND) and Entrepreneur Works (formerly Philadelphia Development Partnership) established to connect university students and Philadelphia-area microenterprise development organizations with capacity-building, service-learning volunteer opportunities.

Our priority is to develop mutually beneficial volunteer-based relationships that suit students’ career, academic or community service interests while helping microenterprise-focused nonprofit organizations.

Now we are seeking interested university faculty and coordinators at community service offices who are interested in participating in this program.  Our volunteer coordinator will work with you to discuss projects for your courses that will engage your students in work to help build capacity for microenterprise development organizations.

This past semester, Entrepreneur Works kicked off the pilot round of this program with students from various universities. Some resulting MicroServe projects underway are:

•    Dr. Eric Malm’s market research class at Cabrini College conducted secondary data research for Entrepreneur Works’ target clients in the five-county regions served.
•    Villanova’s Business Without Borders student group is researching business resources for microentrepreneurs to be placed on Entrepreneur Works’ website
•    Penn Microfinance Club is in discussion with Entrepreneur Works’ loan officer to develop consulting projects specifically for our loan fund
•    Professor Dave Woods of DeSales University was connected with Community Action Center of Lehigh Valley to develop projects for his students

The nature of each activity vary based on the organization, tasks and commitment for each project.  Other possible service activities include, but are not limited to, event coordination, reporting and data compilation and analysis, marketing and outreach, public relations and research.  Students may commit to stand alone events, such as annual fundraisers; short-term tasks or ongoing long-term projects.  Some volunteers will work on-site at events, a few hours per week at the office, or work remotely from their own computers.  It’s all up to the organization and the students.

If interested or for more information, please contact Sarah Ban at sban@pdp-inc.org or call (215) 545-3100 ext. 225.

[Ed note: this project is funded, in part, by PHENND’s Learn and Serve grant, Higher Education as Guides to the Credit Path.]