This wasn't just about matching students with businesses—it was about maintaining the high-quality standards that earned the Foundation's education program a stellar reputation while scaling across radically different contexts. The complexity was significant: six college partners across four states, multiple internal teams, and completely different business sectors from tech startups to family restaurants. The Foundation needed to honor each college partner's local community knowledge while maintaining program consistency from Maryland to Texas.

The operational challenges required creative solutions. Enterprise software moved too slowly for effective community building, requiring digital infrastructure that could handle 3,400+ users while completing feature requests in under 24 hours. Meanwhile, building authentic corporate brand loyalty when participants worked primarily with community college partners demanded meaningful experiences and genuine value creation rather than heavy corporate messaging. Success meant creating systems flexible enough to adapt to local contexts while ensuring students felt genuinely connected to the Foundation and small businesses received real value from their matched student interns.

Over 16 months, we became the connective tissue for this complex ecosystem of community colleges, small businesses, and students. Our role wasn't just operational coordination. We created the conditions for ideas to flourish and scale.

We moved beyond traditional consulting toward something more collaborative. We shared ideas as we went, not in one big reveal at the end. Every conversation became a mini-experiment in possibility.

Community & Process Management

Ran discovery focus groups, facilitated weekly calls across all delivery partners, and documented core processes that actually worked for real people. From internship application review to professional development and training schedules to communications strategy.

Digital Platform (Fellows Connect)

Built a no-code system serving 3,400+ users that handled internship applications, student-small business matching, notifications, and dashboards. Feature requests completed in under 24 hours because community building requires speed.

Data & Insights

Designed surveys that turned data collection into community dialogue. Created actionable dashboards for decision-makers and used insights to continuously improve the participant experience.

Impact Amplification

Created systems to capture stories, sourced speakers for events, and supported national programming that built genuine connections across geographic boundaries.

The numbers tell an important story, but the real results go deeper. We created a proof of concept for how corporate social impact can create genuine value for all stakeholders. Through 16 months of ecosystem management, digital innovation, and community building, we connected small businesses with talent pipelines while students gained career clarity and professional networks.

The Corporate Foundation discovered what happens when brand affinity emerges organically from meaningful experiences rather than manufactured messaging. Eighty percent of small businesses said the student intern created value for their business, estimating 2x the value of their stipend. The program created evangelists, not just participants.