How would a professor go about teaching millennial students something about the social Web that they don’t already know? For Dr. Diane S. McNulty in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, the answer is easy: Immerse these social natives in a community service project that allows them to combine their collaborative content-creation skills with a meaningful cause.
McNulty’s Business Ethics course focuses in part on corporate social responsibility. Since she also happens to be the associate dean for external affairs and corporate development in the Jindal School, her students benefit from her connections in the Dallas-Fort Worth community, including those she has developed with the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and Deloitte LLP.
“In order to understand why corporations have initiatives that are based on social responsibility, students need to understand them from the ground up,” McNulty said.
United Way’s innovative GroundFloor program sources funding for startup organizations that operate within the social-venture space to improve North Texans’ lives. The program’s most recent initiative, OneUpTheVote, had a competitive aspect to it that not only raised funds but also offered participating social entrepreneurs prizes for competing. Since it coincided with McNulty’s class this semester, she decided to enter her students into the competition.
“I’m hoping that my students are going to gain some insight into the good things that are going on in the community from a nonprofit and social good perspective,” McNulty said.
McNulty, having cultivated a long-term relationship with Skip Moore, a partner at Deloitte Services LLP’s Dallas office and past chairman and ongoing member of the Jindal School’s advisory council, learned about the initiative from him. This prompted her enroll the Jindal School as a co-sponsor.
United Way, in return, offered her class a one-day workshop. It showcased videos of some of the fellows, 14 new nonprofit companies chosen to compete in the social fundraising campaign. The workshop offered students coaching on effective methods to promote the nonprofits.
Angela Lang and Kate Knight of United Way gave the students an overview of the initiative, answered students’ questions and then guided them through the process of adding the proper hashtags essential to gaining a wider audience for their chosen cause — the one among the 14 new ventures they decided to endorse.
The students who participated learned firsthand about social entrepreneurship. More specifically, they got to watch how representatives from a social innovation fund and impact acceleration program like GroundFloor launch an initiative that has a direct impact on social, cultural and environmental issues. They also became eligible for cash prizes and had an opportunity to help one of the fellows receive funding of up to $100,000.
“The great thing about this is that regardless of what you’re interested in, you can get behind a cause that you’re really passionate about, because you have 14 options,” Lang said.
When it came time for the hands-on portion of the workshop, students sprang into action, creating buzz-generation videos and uploading them within minutes — with hopes of having them go viral.
David Napier, a senior business administration major, attended the workshop and found it to be an enjoyable and worthwhile part of the class.
“They’re all really good causes,” he said. “Since we are an ethics class, community service is something that the new age of corporate structure is trying to get more involved in. Introducing the class to that is directly linked to ethics.”
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