As a part of the Shopfront Community Program, UTS Management Consulting students have helped Climate Action Burwood and Canada Bay (CABCB) improve engagement and expand their outreach in the ethnically diverse electorate of Reid.
CABCB is a member-run organisation whose goals include: educating those in their community about the climate crisis, encouraging people to act to tackle this issue, lobbying local government to make change and more.
Ken Enderby, CABCB President, approached UTS Shopfront for advice on how they could better raise climate awareness in the community and increase community engagement with these issues.
Students taking part in the Shopfront Community Coursework Program were introduced to Ken and briefed on the issues that CABCB faced. Students were then divided into groups, each focusing on a specific area within the organisation that needed improving, including marketing and social media engagement, partnership and revenue streams, internal management systems, and more.
The students developed and delivered the following to assist CABCB:
- suburb segmentation analysis of key dimensions, including ethnicity, linguistics, educational attainment, and political engagement
- analysis of the internal and external constraints on Climate Action's growth
- identified new collaborations and revenue streams
- advice on how to improve operational processes
- risk management assessment
- implementation issues and mitigation plans
- recommendations on how to improve social media engagement.
"The students provided us with significant insights," Enderby said.
"The outcomes from the [Shopfront] program will vitally support us. Our organisation has operated in a non-professional way, with inadequate systems, poor recruitment strategies, and very little money. Once the recommendations are implemented, these problems will be solved – or, at the very least, significantly improved."
As a result, the CABCB hope to achieve greater community engagement across demographics –contributing to better environmental outcomes and alignment with CABCB's environmental goals.
The Shopfront program is designed on reciprocity. UTS students reported benefitting from working on a fundamental issue facing the organisation and being able to help their clients genuinely.
"Seeing how thankful the client was made me feel like I had made a difference in something important, like climate change. It helped me apply my degree to work professionally with an entire organisation, which benefits me."
Shopfront links the community sector to university expertise through pro bono projects completed by students as part of their studies, supervised by academic experts in their field. We aim to create mutual value, supporting community organisations while engaging students in important social justice issues. Find out more.