Net Impact Boston member Melissa Bates, who spearheaded “Project 15K” knew the event on January 30th had been a success when the event planner assisting NIB with the event looked at the crowd in Revolution Rock Bar and told her that NIB would need to find a bigger venue for its next event. Thanks to the incredible time and dedication by the Net Impact Boston-MBAs Without Borders team working on this initiative, over 250 people came to NIB’s largest event in history.
Volunteer Power: Marc Breslow, Melissa Bates, Devon Long-Lytle and Josh Grob
Quoting Mark Twain, “Action speaks louder than words but not as often,” Melissa describes the team’s efforts as “action speaking.” For Melissa, the best part of the experience has been working with such a committed group of Boston professionals who, at crunch time, were volunteering 3-4 hours a day to make the project a success.
How did Melissa get involved in this initiative? When the collaboration between MBAs Without Borders and NIB was in its early stages, she was drawn to its international scope and emailed NIB’s president to learn more about the project. In true NIB fashion of tapping into the passion and talents of its members, Melissa was encouraged to take the reigns of the MWB-NIB collaboration…
In about two months’ time the fundraising goal of $15,000 has been reached, so what happens next? The MWB-NIB team is in the process of drafting a best practices document based on its fundraising experience for Net Impact Central. Then, as soon as the project details are finalized, they will support the MWB consultant during her six months in the field via monthly conference calls and more-frequent email exchanges. The team is excited to switch gears from fundraising to consulting!
