In the Classroom

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The 10-10-10 Experiment: Student Projects in Social Entrepreneurship

by Jean Wilcox, Temple University

Marketing and entrepreneurship students are presented with a lot of information in their years in college that focus on academic rigor while exposing them to business principles and growing concerns around social responsibility.

Academically, the students are taught the fundamental marketing courses -- intro to marketing, market research, consumer behavior, strategy, and international marketing. In these classes they learn the 4P's of marketing, the methods of market research, and the importance of target marketing. They are given tools such as Porter's Five Forces, SWOT charts, and PEST analyses to help them analyze a market. They study the psychology of consumer behavior and learn about other cultures. They are taught methods to segment markets. They are told that planning and numbers are important -- they need to determine the size of a target market, a price for a product or service, and to forecast potential sales. A central part of many of these courses are market simulations and case studies.

They are also exposed to the business world through seminars, speakers, and networking sessions where they hear about the experiences of people who have built a business. Some students also participate in internships. At the Fox School, they may participate in the Temple Accelerator Program (http://esaonline.us/main/tap-program/), which provides real world learning opportunities working within high-growth firms.

The third aspect of their learning has to do with a focus on being productive citizens in their community. As a city campus, Temple encourages community outreach (http://sbm.temple.edu/community/) by its students working with local businesses, youth programs, and city initiatives. On campus, Temple's goal is to build support and inspire action that leads to a green campus culture, fosters behavioral change, and promotes environmental literacy among all campus populations. Students, in particular, play a significant role in changing the campus culture.

The Entrepreneurial Marketing at the Fox School of Business at Temple University ties all of these learning areas together in a semester-long student project called "The 10-10-10 Project™." The goal of the 10-10-10 Project is to give students an opportunity to utilize their academic learning, business connections, and social conscience to engage in a "real world" entrepreneurial marketing project. The project concept originated from a discussion with a business colleague in January 2010, about the upcoming date of October 10, 2010. The fundamental question was, "Could you develop a class project that would start a social movement that would come to a head on the date 10-10-10 and enable you to learn about the dynamics of social media at the same time?"

10-10-10 Project Definition
The 10-10-10 Project concept would be a completely different approach to the student project. In years past, the Entrepreneurial Marketing class had focused on topics in the rapidly shifting field of marketing -- how to effectively use the web, social media, guerilla marketing, brand strategy, and customer involvement. Student teams in the class were given the assignment to create an innovative but rather mundane product -- for example, a combination straw and drink mixer, aromatherapy patches, a Fried Anything™ restaurant to name a few -- and then develop a creative marketing approach for the product that incorporated new marketing tactics such as social media, building "buzz," and street marketing.

After discussion among a number of colleagues from the Marketing Department, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute, and the dean's office, the 10-10-10 Project concept was structured as:

--10 student teams per class section
--Each team receives $10 seed money
--Each team is challenged to raise at least $100.

The guidelines and constraints of the project were to be:

1. Project must focus on doing "social good."
This is the core of the project. The students are required to raise money for a charity, promote environmental or sustainability projects, or to support an enterprise that promotes social and economic development.

2. Students must use social media.
In addition to traditional marketing techniques, the students must employ social media as the core of their marketing campaign. They could use Facebook, Twitter, blogs, web pages, and any other new media or method. They are required to track and monitor each of these media. How many followers? How fast is their "friends" list growing? How many hits are they getting? How many comments?

3. The project must be sustainable.
The students are challenged to create something that would live beyond the end of the class. Can they create an organization or a movement that reached beyond the boundaries of that particular classroom? They are encouraged to build a factor of 10 into their thinking. Can they involve 10 other students in their effort? Ten other schools? Can they reach 10 other states?

The specifics assignments that the students are given include:
1. Build a sustainable business model for the project.
2. Create a marketing plan for the project including specific PR activities.
3. Create whatever "social media" is required.
4. Track finances on a weekly basis -- all money received or spent.
5. Track all marketing and PR activity.

As part of their final project paper at the end of the semester, the students are required to submit a letter or receipt from the organization they supported acknowledging their donation of money, time or goods.

The First 10-10-10 Projects, Spring Semester 2010
In Spring 2010, there were 92 students enrolled in two sections of Temple's Entrepreneurial Marketing class -- 48 in Section 1, and 44 in Section 2. Given the choice between doing the marketing plan projects as had been done in previous classes and trying the 10-10-10 project experiment, the students overwhelmingly chose the 10-10-10 project. The energy level in the classroom rose appreciably as the students discussed their potential projects. And so, both the professor and the students embarked on the first 10-10-10 project series.

The makeup of the teams was decided for the most part by student self-selection. The teams were based on working groups formed during an exercise in one of the first classes. A few people who did not stay with their original group were assigned to teams in order to achieve some balance in the number of people per team. Among the original 10-10-10 teams, there were 10 teams in Section 001 (total 48 students) and 9 teams in Section 002 (44 students). At the start, the smallest team had four people, the largest had six. During the course of the project, two of the teams in Section 1 decided to pool resources creating a team of 10 people, leaving a total of 18 functional teams during the semester.

The students chose a wide variety of charities and community service activities. These can be grouped by the following categories:

--Charities for disease research
--Charities for social support services
--Charities for disaster relief
--Activities focused on environmental awareness
--Activities in support of education or scholarship
--Charity for animal welfare.

When turned loose with the project, the students had ambitious goals. Each team determined its own approach to fundraising. Methods ranged from selling T-shirts, wristbands, cupcakes, or water, to hosting game nights or producing concerts. The specific charities and the fund raising method for each team are listed in Table 1.

Expectations, based on the "10 times 10" metric were that the teams would raise about $2,000 among them. However, as the semester progressed and results started coming in, it was obvious that the students were going to exceed everyone's expectations. The final tally for all the teams was a total of $5,365 in donations passed directly to the charities, in addition to over 100 hours of volunteer hours in conjunction with the Philadelphia "unLitter us" campaign.

Feedback
The feedback at the end of the semester indicated that the first 10-10-10 experiment had been a success in more ways than monetary. In addition to the academic content of the course, the students got real-world experience in running a business venture.

"There was no fictional company, fictional product, or problem to solve," said Mandi Focht, a junior marketing major. "We had an actual problem that we needed to find objectives and strategies to overcome. In this case, we felt like we were marketers -- and not just students. It was a wonderful eye-opening experience, and I would participate again in a heartbeat."

It also was an opportunity for the students to connect with something about which they were passionate. "This was our chance to give back to the community, and we had total control over it," said Colleen Hollawell, a senior marketing major whose group raised $557.20 for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network -- a cause close to Hollawell, whose father had pancreatic cancer. "[My father's] determination, strength, and faith are what inspired me to raise as much money as I possibly could and to be passionate about my cause," Hollawell said. "I felt as if I was doing this in honor of my dad. My dad is my hero in so many ways."

And it was an opportunity for them to connect with the community. One of the most moving moments in the final team presentations came when a young man, whose team had bought supplies and equipment for an orphanage, teared up when talking about how it felt to actually deliver the goods to the children.

Ongoing 10-10-10 Projects, Fall 2010
Based on the success of the first projects during the spring semester, the decision was made to continue doing 10-10-10 projects in the next session of the entrepreneurial marketing class. Students were given the option of continuing with one of the 10-10-10 projects from the spring semester or starting a new venture. The 20 teams that came together for the fall semester are listed in Table 2.

Six of the final twenty teams were based on previous projects in some way. The PanCan team picked up where the students in the previous semester had left off. Beers for Tears and Sippadelphia were based on the original Beers for Tears project, although each implemented them in a different way. If not exactly the same project, several teams focused on similar issues such as animal welfare or saving music education. Many of the projects were brand new. The absence of efforts focused on disaster relief (e.g., Haiti) in the fall session is an indication of what happens when the disaster falls out of the news, even though relief efforts are still needed.

One phenomenon that was observed at the beginning of the semester was that a significant amount of word-of-mouth had been generated by the success of the spring projects. Many of the students came into the fall session prepared to take on a particular project. Some had already recruited team members. As a result, these students' teams were able to put their projects in motion earlier in the semester. The administration and faculty experience of having been through the process once before also helped pave the way for a faster start.

The results of the fall session were even more extraordinary than the spring projects. The student teams raised over $17,000 in monetary donations for a wide variety of charities ranging from the local -- such as the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra and Mural Arts Program -- to well-known nonprofits, including Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Live Aid, and international organizations such as Freeset Global, a company that helps women escape from forced prostitution in India by giving them a job and education. In addition to monetary donations, these teams also raised $4,200 in in-kind donations, and had sponsor donations (gift cards, autographed memorabilia, etc) valued over $1,500.

Feedback
The top-earning student team was Broadcast for Vince, a scholarship fund in honor of the late father of senior marketing major Mark Raimondo. Vince Raimondo, a Haverford High School and Temple graduate who worked in radio for more than three decades, died last summer (2010) from colon cancer.

Through online donations, CD sales and events, including guest bartending and a benefit concert, the group netted $4,700 for the scholarship, which will benefit Haverford High School students who demonstrate financial need and who plan to pursue careers in broadcasting or communications.

Like Raimondo, the 10-10-10 project was deeply personal for Brian Tomczuk, whose group, Phil-Lea Phoundation, raised money and donated supplies to benefit his sister, Jamie, a first-year middle school teacher at Henry C. Lea School in West Philadelphia.

Tomczuk, a local hip-hop artist known as Tom Charles, held a fundraiser at a DJ event while a teammate, who is a massage therapist, offered free sessions with all tips going to their charity.

The team raised nearly $1,300, in addition to boxes of paper and other supplies. They visited the classroom of Tomczuk's sister on December 1 to present final donations and participate in class activities.

"They're underprivileged, and to contribute to their education, to contribute to their learning experience, is the best feeling ever," Tomczuk said.

Lessons Learned from the 10-10-10 Projects
At the end of the semester, each team submitted a group paper and each student submitted an individual paper that addresses the goals and objectives of the project, the marketing strategy and implementation, sustainability, and competition. In particular, the students were asked to discuss the main issues they encountered and the lessons they learned. The key lessons can be grouped according to academic, business, and social involvement, as well as life in general.

Academic
1. You need a marketing plan. It gives you a road map to follow and helps keep a team on track. Students who thought they would just set up tables and ask for donations were quite surprised when they weren't making progress.

2. You need a back-up plan. Things don't always go as you expect them to. For example, one team has a plan for an environmentally friendly coffee stand . . . until they found out that university rules and policies were going to make that impossible. They had a backup plan to raise money for an environmental cause by other methods and were able to be successful meeting their goal.

3. You need to be flexible. If an opportunity comes your way, you need to be able to jump on it. Students raising money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation were discouraged when their fundraising events weren't generating as much money as they had hoped. Through a friend of a friend they had an opportunity to host an event at a local watering hole where the establishment would share the revenue with them. The funds they received that evening helped put them over their goal.

4. Don't put all your marketing eggs in one medium. Part of the premise of the project was to see how effective and how fast Facebook and other social media would generate word-of-mouth for a social project, if it would! Across the board, the teams learned that putting up a Facebook page is not enough. You need the plan and the strategy for how you are going to promote your project through social media. You need to incorporate it into a larger marketing plan that uses a variety of marketing methods. According to one student, "We learned that we needed to be proactive in our marketing. Setting up a table or a Facebook page wasn't going to be enough. People didn't just come to us!"

5. A corollary to #4 is don't count on one event to make your goal. We had arranged for exhibit tables at Temple's "Spring Fling" -- an outdoors, campus-wide exhibition by student organizations. On the day it was scheduled, it poured rain. Teams that had counted on traffic that day were sorely disappointed.

6. People don't always do what they say they are going to do. Just because people "like" your Facebook page doesn't mean they are going to do anything for you. Just because they sign up for an event on Facebook doesn't mean they are going to come to it. The turnout of people who were positive Facebook responders was as low as 5% and only as high as 50%.

Business
7. You can't just "do" things. Organizations, institutions, and businesses have policies and procedures that have to be followed. For example, the Fox School only allows two student organizations a day to have tables promoting themselves in the lobby. Since these teams were not official student organizations, they were on the bottom of the priority list. Also, local establishments that are part of a national business chain usually can't make donation or sponsorship decisions on their own.

8. You need to have contracts with suppliers. Several teams planned concerts, one a fashion show. Without a firm contract, the bands, models, DJs frequently found other, paying gigs for the same evening the students had their events planned. The students had to scramble to make something happen.

9. Events are hard and advance ticket sales a must. Most of the teams plan to do some kind of event as part of their marketing plan without realizing all the logistics that go in to hosting a successful event from date and venue selection, through contracts with establishments and performers, to actually getting people there. The best example of this lesson was learned by a team that scheduled a concert on a Saturday during spring break. About 50 of their friends had said, "Sure, we'll be there!" On the day of the event, there was monsoon-like weather. Only five people showed up. Advance tickets may have encouraged people to come, or at least put some money in their pocket.

10. It never hurts to ask. The worse that can happen is someone will say "No." One student talked to everyone she met about her project. She wound up with signed balls and jerseys from major sports teams to include in a raffle.

11. Networking outside your immediate circle of friends is critically important. You never know who can help you or where leads might come from.

Social involvement
12. There is a lot of competition for people's charity dollars. The teams realized very quickly that they were all competing for the same dollars on Temple's campus. Those who reached beyond the Temple environment were the most successful.

13. Just because you are passionate about something doesn't mean other people will be. You really need to develop a story that resonates with people and gives them a reason to care about what you are doing. The most successful teams were ones that had a real personal story to tell about their involvement in the cause.

Life
14. It's not always a good idea to go in to business with your friends. To quote a student, "You always want to give them another chance or cut them a break." And from another point of view, "I joined the team because they were my friends, not because I was passionate about the project. My lack of interest hampered my efforts."

15. The most important lesson most of the students learned: "You don't have to be rich to give." Small teams doing small projects can have a huge impact on local communities, near and far.

Follow on
So the experiment has been a success. The third series of 10-10-10 Projects has begun in this spring 2011 semester. We are continuing to build on the previous semesters' experience by adding additional dimensions to the projects. As part of their individual assignments this semester, students are contributing to the 10-10-10 Foundation blog (www.101010foundation.com), which will document their experiences and progress throughout the semester.

Also, the teams in the current class have been challenged not only to raise funds and in-kind donations but also to find sponsors for their activities and people and organizations who will provide matching funds. These students have ambitious goals. They want to exceed the previous semester's results. We hope that they do.

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