“You can teach somehow how to be a consultant… but you can’t teach someone to care.”
- Nick Fuchs, founder of GRC Brown
As the recruiting season ramps up for top consulting firms this fall, many students are either eager to enter the industry, unsure of what a consultant actually does, or a little of both. Many are excited by the compensation, status, and problem-solving opportunities that consulting appears to afford. Few, at least visibly so, are motivated by their potential to have positive social impact. A new chapter of the Global Research and Consulting Group (GRC) at Brown University hopes to change that. They’re looking for students who are “passionate about solving the most significant global issues of our time”.
GRC Brown is a “new student-run consulting organization and think tank on campus that provides innovative research, consulting, and analytics solutions to global NGOs and social enterprises”. GRC currently has around 20 chapters across leading academic institutions around the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Oxford, Cambridge, and SciencesPo. Past clients have included UNESCO, the World Bank, the WWF, and Access Health International.
I spoke with Nick Fuchs, fellow junior at Brown University and founder of GRC Brown. Nick is studying International and Public Affairs, with a focus on global development and the role of technological innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging markets. Like many student founders, he came across the opportunity largely by accident, after seeing a post about GRC while scrolling through LinkedIn.
A native of London, Nick has also lived in Hong Kong, Seoul, and Frankfurt and is especially excited about GRC’s global dimension. I was curious to learn more about the motivations for starting GRC Brown, any concerns or challenges Nick and the team have faced so far, and his vision for social impact consulting on campus.
GRC & Novel Hand: Turning Activism into Impact
Novel Hand has a vision for not only learning about global humanitarian issues, but also for empowering students to start doing something tangible about them. I was excited to interview Nick because I felt that the founders of GRC Brown share a similar vision of bridging education and positive impact through consulting.
GRC Brown is kicking off its first round of client-provided projects, each of which begins with an onboarding and training process to acclimate newcomers to the central values and skills they will develop over the next few months. One of the three clients they’re working with this semester, for example, is looking for a 5-year strategy to grow and scale their operations. The students will follow a rigorous process of research and synthesis to ultimately provide the organization with a strategic plan for accomplishing these goals. While the final deliverable may be highly specific and contextualized to the client’s needs, Nick emphasized that the Insights Research arm of GRC aims to make the results and best practice conclusions of these client-based projects accessible to any NGO or social impact startup that might benefit from them.
Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Consulting
Like finance or big tech, consulting is often seen on college campuses as a gateway to success. Unfortunately, these communities are often competitive and exclusive, tending to favor students who appear to already demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in traditional consulting roles.
“The desire to do good… it’s the first thing we look for in an application.”
GRC Brown
While GRC required an application for its first round of projects this semester, the leadership team encouraged students with little to no professional experience to apply, especially freshmen and sophomores, whom they believe can bring as fresh and insightful of perspectives as upperclassmen.
Nick emphasized his vision for GRC’s inclusivity and distinct culture, reiterating that, “You can teach somehow how to be a consultant, you can give them the proper toolkit to tackle these challenges, but you can’t teach someone to care about social impact.” He emphasized that desire to make a positive impact is a primary focus in reviewing applications.
Connecting communities of impact on campus
GRC is not the first social impact consulting group on campus. Brown also has a chapter of 180 degrees, the world’s largest consultancy for non-profits & social enterprises. While Nick was initially concerned about how GRC might contribute unique value to the campus consulting landscape, he learned that Brown’s chapter of 180 degrees works specifically with non-profits and social enterprises within the local Providence community. GRC, on the other hand, has a more global focus, both geographically and in terms of perspective. While the geographic diversity of their members is certainly important, they’re seeking to develop a culture of students that are “global in terms of people coming from all walks of life”.
Social impact communities on campus are on the rise in exciting ways: GRC Brown is in community with the recently-formed Effective Altruism group at Brown, who held their inaugural virtual fellowship this summer (see my recent post, “Is simply “doing good” good enough?”). Students are also organizing to start a chapter of the Good Food Institute at Brown, focusing on alternative protein projects for more sustainable, socially-responsible food systems.
Novel Hand is excited to support and connect student entrepreneurs and campus groups committed to creating positive social impact, during our college years and beyond. If you know or are involved with a university community that we should feature, let me know! erika_bussmann@brown.edu
Interested in learning more about GRC Brown? Reach out at brown@grcglobalgroup.com
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