Student firm consults local non-profit organizations

The Kelley Group, a student-run consulting firm, completed its first engagement Friday, financially and organizationally restructuring a non-profit organization in Bloomington.\nDue to a confidentiality agreement, the name of the group's first client cannot be released. \nThe Kelley Group is one of only two firms in the country of its type on the university level, said junior Mark Hanson, a senior member.\n"The firm was founded for students, by students, to serve the non-profit community in Bloomington and Indiana," Hanson said.\nThe three services it offers the local non-profit community are management, financial strategy and information technology consulting, he said.\nHanson, who originally had the idea for the group, said he looked for the best business students to form TKG.\nFour senior partners -- three undergraduates and one second-year graduate student -- guide the rest of the company, which is made up of two junior partners, one associate and one specialist. \n"Each one of them brings a unique skills set to the engagement as well as being well-rounded business students," said junior Blair Greenberg, a TKG senior partner.\nThe company is completely non-profit, but has received grants from IBM and the IU Student Association. \nIBM granted the group a $30,000 software package, which includes all Lotus programs and its enterprise server software. TKG also recieved a $2000 grant from IUSA that was approved by IUSA Congress through the Grass Roots Initiative Foundation.\nAndrew Ellul, one of the group's faculty advisers, described the group as having shown a lot of creativity and being very entrepreneurial.\nCurrently, TKG can only manage one engagement at a time. Its senior partners hope to expand the firm's membership to 15 to 20 members for the upcoming year, and they will then be able to handle three commitments simultaneously. \nThough TKG was founded for IU's local non-profit community, its senior partners are very much looking forward to the possibility of international work for the near future. It is currently planning engagements in Honduras and the Dominican Republic.\nTKG's advisers include Goldman Sachs, Fortune 1000 companies and professors from the Kelley School of Business.\nTheir faculty adviser is Helen Ingersoll, who provides the group with advising and connections to the non-profit community, said senior partner Daraius Dubash, a senior at IU. \nHanson said the group's advisers act as a sounding board from which they can brainstorm and voice their concerns, as well as get advice in their specific fields. \nHanson said he came up with the idea for the firm last spring.\n"I saw the need for a collaboration between undergraduate and graduate students and I realized that there was a need for this within the non-for-profit community," he said.