Robin Hood fights poverty in NYC by providing 200 of the highest performing nonprofits with financial and management support each year. I served as a consultant on several projects for both Robin Hood and some of its grantees.

I conducted a feasibility study on starting a worker cooperative, including industry, market, and financial analysis. Three primary goals formed the foundation of my project: 1) filling a gap in the market by providing a meaningful service for a currently unmet community need, 2) providing good jobs defined as providing stability, dignity, and living wages, and 3) participating in the solidarity economy through democratic workplaces and worker empowerment.

I also conducted a landscape analysis into the current utilization of social media and messaging apps as communication tools between nonprofit staff members and the communities their organizations serve. I then developed in-depth guidelines for using social media and messaging apps for nonprofit service delivery that will be disseminated to all of Robin Hood’s grantees through an online toolkit. The guidelines aim to balance organizational efficiency and effectiveness with considerations around organizational risk by providing organizations with a comprehensive, practical blueprint for policy development.

I also sat on one of Robin Hood’s internal strategic planning committees governing partnerships, community engagement, and thought leadership, helping to develop recommendations for Robin Hood’s organizational strategy across these three pillars. Lastly, I helped develop a grant as part of Robin Hood’s immigration portfolio to provide funding for child advocates for separated immigrant children in NYC.

When analyzing the creation of a worker cooperative, I needed to think through how it could be made into a viable business and fill a gap in the market before thinking about any of the more mission-driven elements of the enterprise. I conducted market analysis including market sizing and potential, created financial projections and costs, developed the worker cooperative equivalent of a “minimum viable product,” interviewed key players in the chosen market as well as in the worker cooperative space, and conducted appropriate due diligence on all aspects of the endeavor.

When creating social media policy guidelines, I needed to think about balancing organizational efficiency and effectiveness with organizational risk. Throughout the guideline development phase, I had to ensure that I was considering all potential issues and outcomes, weighing them, and providing appropriate recommendations. I also needed to think through the challenge of implementing new policies and change at the organizational level and recommend the practices that should be employed throughout the process.

The initial hypothesis of which market would be best to enter as a new worker cooperative provided to be infeasible due to recent changes in the regulatory environment in New York State. I was already a month into the project and had to figure out how to quickly pivot, explore new industries and markets, and best utilize the remaining time I had left to complete the project.

While many companies have social media policies governing company branding and marketing, there are no industry-wide standards for using social media and messaging apps to deliver nonprofit services to clients in need. This meant that there wasn’t much guidance going into the project, and I needed to figure out how to build policy guidelines from the ground up.

I learned a great deal over the summer and appreciated all the opportunities I was given while at Robin Hood. Every day was filled with new, exciting ideas, interesting challenges, and intelligent, mission-driven people.