DEEP Service Magazine Spring/Summer 2014 | Page 17

UNDERGRADUATENEWS

“NEXT Fellows, faculty, and
administrators have partnered with
seven community organizations with the
goal to build a vibrant, solutionoriented, and sustainable nonprofit
sector across the Capital Region.”
As NEXT Consulting Services heads for its
first year anniversary, it is clear it has
already made great strides. NEXT, an
acronym for Nonprofit EXcellence and
Transformation, is a campus-based, fullservice consulting firm that focuses exclusively on the
business and performance challenges facing nonprofits.
Since the start of operations in September 2013, NEXT
Fellows, faculty, and administrators have partnered with
seven community organizations with the goal to build a
vibrant, solution-oriented, and sustainable nonprofit sector
across the Capital Region.

management,
marketing, and accounting,” says Lauren. “ It has definitely
made me a more well-rounded person.”

An especially exciting development for NEXT in this vein is
the approval of a new Community Consulting Certificate
that qualifying students will be able to receive upon
graduation. In addition to the two semesters of consulting
already required of NEXT Fellows,
candidates for this certificate will
“NEXT, an acronym for Nonprofit
take a management course being
EXcellence and Transformation, is a offered this fall in conjunction with
Siena’s School of Business entitled
campus-based, full-service
“Consulting for Nonprofits.”  
consulting firm that focuses
Additionally, NEXT is building out
exclusively on the business and
its leadership development program
performance challenges facing
for those Fellows choosing to stay on
for a 3rd or 4th semester and run a
nonprofits.”
client project team themselves.

NEXT Fellows have engaged in
providing a great variety of services
and deliverables already. These
include: the collection, analysis, and
presentation of relevant
organizational data used to make
strategic and operational decisions;
the creation and distribution of
surveys about services, reach and
impact; a mapping of community services to help clients
identify service gaps; the creation and presentation of a stepby-step guide to best practices in shared services and
collaborations; the planning and facilitation of a long term
strategic planning retreat; marketing and strategic
communications planning, and financial analysis.
The diversity of projects, hands-on experience, and colearning with other students, faculty and community
partners means strong academic outcomes for the NEXT
Fellows who receive full course credit for their work. Says
NEXT Fellow Lauren Whitman, “I’m a sociology major but
because of working with people of such diverse
backgrounds, I’ve learned a lot about different fields such as

NEXT is a learning experience that goes beyond short-term
impact for both students and partners. “Students have an
opportunity to immerse themselves in long-term projects;
partnering with community organizations through the
design and development of multiple project phases,
experiencing the real life challenges of implementation, and
discovering the eventual satisfaction of sustainable impact,”
says Pamela Skripak, Director of NEXT. “Community
partners, in return, benefit from our unwavering focus on
their needs.”
By Syed Hussnain ’15, NEXT Fellow

DEEP Service Magazine | Page 17