Wins for Mission-Driven Enterprises in the Arts, Mental Health and Justice

UCLA Anderson is home to an award-winning chapter of Net Impact, a global movement of students and emerging leaders committed to purpose-driven work for a more just and sustainable world. In 2022, the Center for Impact hosted the 18th annual Net Impact Consulting Challenge (NICC), a three-week pro bono consulting engagement that matches teams of 4 to 6 UCLA Anderson students with a nonprofit or social enterprise.

NICC represents just one of the ways the Center for Impact helps strengthen UCLA’s ties with the Los Angeles community. While students broaden their management skill set, mission-driven organizations benefit. The challenge also affords Anderson students the opportunity to team up with classmates across the full-time MBA, fully employed MBA and executive MBA programs.

Student consultants focus on understanding their client’s need for support in areas such as fiscal management, operations, marketing, and leadership and governance. The teams’ resources and allies at the Center for Impact include Gayle Northrop, who teaches social entrepreneurship and social impact consulting across Anderson’s MBA programs and serves as faculty advisor to the center. She leads a global immersion course in South Africa titled Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, as well as the executive MBA Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation course in Rwanda.

“Despite the tight program timeline, students participating in NICC are encouraged to invest themselves in deeply understanding their clients’ context and challenges,” says Northrop. “We’ve found this to be key to teams’ ability to propose solutions that are relevant, feasible and implementable, and that ultimately will lead to the impact the client seeks to achieve.”

The 2022 teams advised eight organizations: Human-I-T, Center for Restorative Justice Works, City Year Los Angeles, the YMCA of Burbank, Neococo, Recycle Santa Fe, Maternal Mental Health NOW, and the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families. Guest judges challenged NICC finalists to analyze their organizations at a deeper level and think through the recommendations they were advising clients to adopt. The judges assessed each team on organizational understanding, quality of analysis, strategic options and recommendations, feasibility of implementation and presentation.

After careful deliberation, judges determined the winners:

1st Place ($5,000): Recycle Santa Fe

An organization that promotes artists making work with upcycled materials

Team: Cheddy Matthews (EMBA ’24), Laura Calvo (EMBA ’24), Michelle Lin (EMBA ’24), Peggy Sin (EMBA ’24), Elizabeth-Ann Moss (EMBA ’24)

2nd Place ($3,000): Center for Restorative Justice Works

A nonprofit that connects women in prison with their families and communities

Team: Bradley Blackburn (EMBA ’24), Jonathan Andritsh (FEMBA ’23), Andrea Piazza (FEMBA ’25), Stephanie Rosales (EMBA ’24), Venkatramana Pegadaraju (FEMBA ’24)

3rd Place ($2,000): Maternal Mental Health NOW

A volunteer network that helps prepare families for the mental and emotional experience of welcoming a baby

Team: Joshua Goldman (FEMBA ’25), Justin Shapiro (FEMBA’25), David Curtis (’24), Kevin Eskander (FEMBA ’25), Ankur Chugh (FEMBA ’25)

The Center for Impact congratulates the winning teams and recognizes the NICC planning committee: Evan Greer (’23), Michael Koenig (’23), Eric Tian (’23), Lindsay Wildt (FEMBA ’23) and Rita G. Aboujaoude (’24).

UCLA Anderson extends special thanks to the alumni who served as judges: Bill Bedecarre (’86), Emily Bestwick (’20), Terri Bullock (’80), Marcus Castain (’98), Steve Gilison (’06), Joanne Haase (’84), Asha Joshi (’85), Will Lee (’07), Cindy Lin (Ph.D. ’02), Kapil Mathur (’05), Constanza Pachon (’11), Jenna Sonenshein (’05), Lara Vu and Dilip Wagle (’91).

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Contact the Center for Impact: impact@anderson.ucla.edu