The business of giving back

Deirdre Newman

Since Frank and Faye Clarke founded Educate the Children -- a

nonprofit organization in Huntington Beach that donates books, computers

and software to impoverished schools around the country -- they have

mostly relied on word of mouth, media exposure and a dollop of divine

intervention to market their company.

“We have looked up into the stars and said, ‘Heaven help us,”’ joked

Frank Clarke.

Now the Clarkes are armed with a more earthly strategy that relies on

both old-fashioned and high-tech efforts, courtesy of three UC Irvine

business students from the Graduate School of Management.

The collaboration enabled the company to receive bona fide marketing

strategies while the students gave back to their community. The school

encourages students to work with nonprofit groups as part of its Social

Responsibility Initiative.

“The main goal is to provide students with a sense of personal and

corporate responsibility to the community,” Director Shaheen Husain said.

“They need to be aware of this, so even when they go back and start

working in a private, for-profit company, they can institute programs

there for corporate social responsibility.”

Students on the Social Responsibility Initiative committee visit

classes throughout the business school, letting students know what kind

of nonprofit projects are available.

Beau Schindler, Dobin Yim and Michael Goldberg chose to focus on

Educate the Children for an assignment about marketing strategies because

of the challenges it presented.

“It’s not your standard run-of-the-mill marketing plan for an American

corporation,” Schindler said. “It is certainly unique, and I think the

opportunity for an emotional reward was greater with this plan than with

a for-profit organization.”

The students visited Educate the Children’s headquarters in Huntington

Beach and applied marketing strategies they had learned in professor Mary

Gilly’s class.

“It’s very hard to do a lot with a little,” Goldberg said. “You can’t

tell a nonprofit to do a huge marketing campaign. You have to be

extremely creative.”

Because of the company’s limited financial resources, the students

recommended an integrated marketing plan that included enhancing the

Internet content and streamlining the donation process.

The students presented the outline of their marketing plan to the rest

of Gilly’s marketing class last week and are now writing a formal plan.

The Clarkes were delighted with the students’ suggestions.

“The concept of using the Web site as a marketing tool is fantastic

because we’ve had it for a long time and never used it for that,” Frank

Clarke said. “We’re going to take the plan and run with it, hopefully for

a touchdown.”

The students also intend to follow up with the Clarkes to help them

implement their marketing plan and facilitate its success.

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Deirdre Newman visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa area and writes

about her experience.