College of Business Administration

GROUP MEMBERS:

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Our group was very concerned with the recent budget cuts in the public school system, and for this reason we decided to choose a project that would give back in areas that are first cut in a budget crisis, such as music. We think that music should be a part of every kid's life because of all the benefits that it provides, such as improvement in learning and communication skills, and creativity. Therefore, we proposed a project that would bring together low-income kids and musicians. The musicians would donate their time to perform and introduce the children to different musical instruments, which would be an incentive to integrate music within their lives.

Our first goal was to find a school that would provide us a forum to conduct the music concert. Fortunately, that wasn't a big issue since Adriana knew a peer counselor at the Sudanese After School English Program that was really excited about our idea. This school provides African refugee kids with a program that gives care, tutoring, advising and counseling, and an opportunity to adapt better to the American society. Our second goal was to get at least 35 kids to attend the concert. We were concerned with the fact that they were going to be on Spring Break on the day we scheduled the concert, so we made flyers inviting the kids and their family to attend the concert. The third goal was to find at least 5 musicians who were willing to volunteer their time and talent to our project. The next goal was to find businesses that were interested in donating food and refreshments for the event. We thought that since the school was a non-profit organization and our project was directed to only 40 kids, they would be more willing to donate. The final goal was to get publicity for our event. Considering it was an event directly specially for a small group of children and their families, it was an issue since we were worried about finding someone to cover the story.

Although our group had persistence, finding musicians was a great challenge since we weren't able to pay them for their performances. We posted flyers in the Music department but at first we didn't get any response. We also tried contacting friends, yet most of us didn’t know that many who were musicians, other than two of our group members. Dealing with high uncertainty concerning musicians, postponing the concert twice already. We realized that we had to take charge and our solution became evident: talked to persons directly to musicians at the music department and made them contract to appear as promised. The outcome: 5 solo musicians and one group performance.

Next came trying to find a place for the performance. Since we had already went through 2 different schools. We then decided to look for less bureaucracy and no complicated permission procedures. Personal networking then came out in front. The outcome: found low-income school with 35 kids. Thirdly, we need to desperately find donations. We needed to speak to responsible managers about a project, which was not highly attractive to corporations, because of little PR. Since we were college students our approach seemed somewhat unofficial. Also, our biggest commitment from a donor, backed out, due to overabundance of other commitments. Our final outcome: Target donated beverages and snacks, Chipotle donated burritos, Vons donated baked goods, and Calcopy donated fliers for project. Our final obstacle was group coordination. Our group, like many typical students, had other courses, different schedules, work, and division of tasks (i.e. finding the different skills of the group members, finding a leader).

Our outcome: assign a leader who follows up on group progress, trust in the abilities of group members to fulfill assigned task, as well as well as setting deadlines.

Even though we had may challenges that we faced at the beginning of our project, we overcame these challenges and made our project a huge success. We noticed how teamwork prevailed on the smiling faces of the children and teachers, along with the satisfaction of introducing music to them from our musical cast members. These companies who we coordinated with, knew how important giving back to the community and those less fortunate.