Draft:180 Degrees Consulting

180 Degrees Consulting (180DC) is a worldwide non-profit organization with branches throughout the world, which are associated with universities, colleges and higher education institutions. It aims to bring consultancy services to social impact organizations so they can improve their services and/or products. Unlike the Big Three (management consultancies) or other management consultancy firms, the projects are solely delivered by students at the various associated higher education institutions.

The students deliver the project on a pro-bono basis, although often the client organizations receiving the consultancy services pay a small fee to cover the operating expenses of the branch which delivers the project. With these incomes, the branch also aims to train their students running the projects, by helping them to improve their problem-solving skills needed for these projects. The branch can also assist in training their students for solving consultancy cases, which are often a key part in applying for a job in the management consultancy industry.

History

The first branch of 180 Degrees Consulting was founded in September of 2007 by Nat Ware. He had previously undertaken charity work in Mozambique where he became convinced of the importance of social impact. After this charity work, he led a pilot consultancy project with university students for the Crossroads Foundation in Hong Kong. It was after the succes with this project that he decided to establish 180 Degrees Consulting, based out of Australia.

By 2014, the organization had expanded to the entirety of Oceania, Asia, Europe and North-America, through taking a branch-based approach. This means that 180DC branches operate independently from each other, but with a common branding, strategy and reporting. This allows for a trusted impactful local presence, all the while having a uniform image. Branches get established entirely voluntary by the initiative of a local group of students who engage themselves to set it up. They are however guided by the global team in the starting phase.

By October of 2018, the 100th branch worldwide was established while being present in 32 different countries. By the end of 2019, the number of branches had grown to 140. In 2023, the number of branches is over 160, while also having expanded in to South-America and Africa.

Social Impact

With the main goal of 180 Degrees Consulting being the creation of social impact, branches call on students from their local higher education institutions to guide these projects. Each project has to screened on contributing towards the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, while student are typically screened on their pledge to contribute to such a project. In return, students get the chance to prepare with other 180DC members for their management consultancy interviews, are trained professionally by former members or by partner firms and get the chance to network with other members or employees from consultancy firms.

Another added benefit of working in such a way is to deliver consulting services and to create impact locally, meaning that the results of the work are often very quickly visible.

The most important goal for students however is, by working in teams coached by partner firms, to deliver a successful project to the non-profit client, by employing their academic knowledge. The delivery of such a project typically consists of a slidedeck with key recommendation, a plan of action and, depending on the type of project, some sort of original research based on primary or secondary data.

Typical project topics faced by 180DC include the following:

• Market Entry & Growth
• Operation & Process Design
• Partnerships & Stakeholder Management
• Organizational Design
• Marketing & Social Media
• Human Resources Strategy

By the end of 2022, 180 Degrees Consulting claimed of delivering more than 4 million hours of voluntary-based consultancy work for 983 different clients, with 7757 volunteers being active globally for 180DC in 2022.