MC Enactus Community Service
Community Service is an important aspect of the Macklin Business Institute (MBI) experience. But MBI students don’t simply participate in regular community service activities, they utilize skills learned in the classroom to create outreach projects that educate and empower their target audience in sustainable ways. This is facilitated through another of MBI’s flagship experiences, MC Enactus.
Enactus is an international non-profit organization that challenges students around the world to develop and implement projects improve the quality of life and standard of living for people in need. The Montgomery College Enactus team is a program initiative of the Macklin Business Institute (MBI), but it is open to students in any major and on any of MC’s three campuses.
Through MC Enactus, students learn project development, management, and implementation skills, and work on both leadership and teamwork skills. In addition, we teach how to measure project impacts and outcomes using a variety of methods, all of which is used in preparation of written annual reports as well as a professional presentation to judges at regional and national competitions.
The MC Enactus chapter is part of Enactus USA, which has nearly 500 chapters on college campuses across the county, where teams ultimately compete to be named the Enactus USA champion and represent the U.S. at the Enactus World Cup. Teams first compete in one of many Enacts regional competition sites, and if successful, they move on to the Enactus USA National Exposition. The winner at Enactus nationals moves on to compete in the Enactus World Cup against the national winners from each of the 36 countries with Enactus participation.
Students not only gain and develop relevant skills for their future education and careers; they are also positively affecting their local and even global community in the process.
Current Service Learning Projects (Spring 2019)
MBI students collaborate with faculty to organize and offer the Raptor Tank business pitch competition. The students utilize project management, event planning, and public speaking skills to provide this opportunity for entrepreneurial-minded students in the MC community.
Macklin students run the MBI Café as a “business lab” to gain important management skills. Successful operation of this business creating jobs for students on our campus who might otherwise be unable to work. The students expanded the Café’s employment impact by partnering with the Jewish Social Service Agency, or JSSA, for collaboration in hiring individuals with disabilities.
This year, MBI and MC Enactus students partnered with three MCPS high school ESOL programs to implement Our Stories. This project helps improve literacy skills for ESOL students by helping them write and translate stories into English. The stories are published into books, and our student apply and teach entrepreneurial skills to sell these books to benefit ESOL programs in local high schools.
MBI and MC Enactus students use part of a grant to research and fund microloans to prospective entrepreneurs around the world through the Kiva website. The students are applying accounting, economic and financial concepts to fund a low-risk diversified portfolio of loans that will be repaid over time (without interest) so they can recycle the funds to support new loans. MBI students also teach these concepts to local high school students and other community organizations.
MBI students are taking business and entrepreneurial concepts learned through their MBI Café experience, and reaching out to help small business owners in the local community. They will be helping develop websites, teaching organizational and bookkeeping skills, and and/or helping improve the businesses’ use of social media to increase their business.
This project empowers indigenous women in Columbia to build a sustainable community. Our students apply accounting, marketing and sales skills to promote and sell the women’s handwoven products. This will improve the women’s livelihoods by increasing sales of their products, and a portion of the funds generated are dedicated to providing clean water for people in these indigenous communities in Columbia.
