What We Offer
Our services
LACI has engaged in a variety of engagements over the years for nonprofits, social enterprises, and impact-oriented businesses. A few of our common project types are shown here, but this list is by no means exhaustive. We would love to work with your organization on scopes that extend beyond this list. Click on a category to explore.
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CLIENT APPLICATION PROCESS
Organizations interested in LACI’s consulting services must submit a client application to be considered for the upcoming project cycle. The application includes information about your organization and the proposed project. We recommend including the following information to give LACI the most comprehensive understanding and fair evaluation of your proposal.
scope
LACI’s ideal project has a well-defined scope that articulates the current difficulties and challenges hindering the organization’s social impact. Clients are encouraged to specify their scope; while the LACI team will refine the scope, a vaguely-worded scope can weaken a project proposal. The key question is importaant for LACI to assess your project’s vision.
Communication
Clients must demonstrate a commitment to the LACI team and agree to routine communication with the LACI team throughout the semester. At a minimum, clients should expect to meet with the team in-person twice, to have weekly hour phone calls with their team, and to be able to respond to team emails/requests within 48 hours.
impact
Proposals should articulate how the LACI team will assist the client in achieving its overall mission and vision for social impact. While we accept applications from both nonprofits and social-minded for-profit ventures, we expect all projects to further the organization’s social impact, not just fixing an organizational issue.
FREQUENTly asked questions
+ What is a key question?
The key questions you provide us in section four will provide us insight both into your problem and the research that will be necessary to complete. Examples:
- “How should we communicate with our volunteers to increase our retention rate?”
- “What schools/outside parties should we partner with to expand our reach in the community?”
- “Would it be financially sustainable to bring out after-school program in-house or continue to use tutors to lead the workshops?
- “How do other organizations market their professional development services to their employees and how can we utilize this knowledge to develop our own services?”
- “How do we grow our program to increase revenue received while maintaining our impact in the community?”
+ What Documents and Information are required?
We recommend you detail any information you have that would benefit the LACI team’s research. For example, if you are looking into employee retention, you might outline some of the materials to which the LACI team would have access.
+ How should we describe our project in the application?
Although it is easy to use buzzwords to describe the problem and the project, describe what you mean when you use broader terms like “strategic analysis”, “marketing plan”, “infrastructure”, etc. By describing these terms, you are providing us context as to what these ideas mean for your organization.
+ What kind of project should we Prioritize?
We understand that at any one time, your organization might face many problems. With this in mind, you should submit a project that speaks to a single crucial problem you are looking to overcome. Should you have multiple projects in mind, submit multiple distinct applications with the expectation that only one project will be considered should you advance through to our interviews.
+ What is the project time frame?
The work the LACI team can complete is limited to around 10 weeks. Therefore, the scope of work should be suitable for the length of the project.
+ What should the Scope of the project be?
Your project should focus on describing a problem that will allow the LACI team to provide research-backed recommendations. Marketing plans, compilation of internal data, grant writing, or other similar materials fall outside of LACI’s scope of work. Therefore, you should not propose a project that expects these as guidelines.