– Come on, think about it.

– what else?

– Great, more ideas?

– I was thinking about the young visitors – wouldn’t it be a good idea to make a calendar with important dates for science that could be connected to events in the museum…

These are the kinds of conversations you could hear at the National Polytechnic Museum back in November 2019. It is a quite lively atmosphere – a group of students have gathered to help with a few challenges that the museum faces: how to attract new audiences and visitors, how to become an attractive workplace for young experts and in general – how to be more visible and recognizable.

So far, volunteers have come on many occasions with the help of TimeHeroes’ website, mainly  for initiatives that keep the mind at rest: such as renovating the yard, helping with some of the workshops or refreshing the children’s center.

However, this occasion is different; it is a pro bono workshop to support the museum, organized by TimeHeroes and the University of National and World Economy (UNWE) as part of the BEESE Project. Its mission is twofold: first, to increase young people’s job opportunities by confronting them head-on with the problems of non-profits and making them think practically. Second, to enable places like this museum to draw inspiration from fresh and unencumbered minds.

This is happening with the help of three mentors – Deni Shiligarska, who works at VMware Bulgaria, has a degree in Urban Planning, and is keenly interested in urban spaces, Polly Zaharieva, who is one of the main drivers of the TOM Bulgaria formats, PEOPLE who usually don’t speak in front of PEOPLE (ХОРА, които обикновено не говорят пред ХОРА) and the FotoFabrika festival, as well as Metodi Terziev – director of betahaus Sofia, and a graduate of the University of Basel in Switzerland.

All of them took part in this pro bono workshop to help the museum with  developing its cause – to preserve the history of Bulgaria’s  technical and scientific development. Here, you can see cars from the beginning of the 20th century, a wooden bicycle, radios, TVs, clocks from the royal palace, the camera used to film the first TV show in Bulgaria, the first Bulgarian space device…

“Did you know that in other countries, technical museums are the most visited ones?”, asks Madlen Yaneva – the public relations expert of the team, which is the driving force of the museum.

Today, almost  two years after the workshop, we meet again to catch up. Next to her sits Vasil Makarinov, who has been working as curator of the  Polytechnic Museum for seven years. Back in 2014, he had just graduated art history and came here just for an internship, but life had other plans for him.

“We applied for the workshop with the greatest pleasure: the university students are the group we miss the most. It turned out that they were entering the museum for the first time, but their suggestions were very good. We were  impressed the most by their idea for a “polytendar” – a calendar of events aimed at young people. We took it very seriously and even started implementing some of them”, says Madlen.

Before the pandemic put life on hold, the museum managed to organize two initiatives, one in January and one in February 2020. The first was an architectural evening hosted by Vasil, and the latter – a Valentine’s Day event that combined wine and chemistry, and included some hot experiments. Literally.

But these are not the only changes here. As a result of the suggestions from the workshop, the museum also changed its presence on social networks, and started to speak more “playfully” and informally. The result: a significant amount of new followers.

The museum’s site also has its own blog, which has four categories, namely Museological Problems, History of Technology, From the Funds of NPTM, and Poly and Techno for Children.

All this gives hope to the team, which grew with two more people after the workshop: two young women who work respectively as a tour guide in the department Exposition and Work with the Public and a fund manager in the Funds department.

However, after the national state of emergency, the museums’ main work  – to welcome visitors – was put on hold. “Now, we are trying to resume our activities, but we don’t dare to plan much ahead. Still, the ideas that the students gave us are on the agenda and we keep them in mind.”

Despite the difficult period when the museum is closed, since May the team has seen a serious number of visitations. Vasil explains that this could be due to the fact that when you have been deprived of access to something for too long, you suddenly have an even greater desire to see it with your own eyes.

Fortunately, the museum manages to attract extra volunteering hands for various important tasks – to clean the garden, for the Night of Museums, to participate in summer workshops with children.

“Volunteers are our ambassadors. The last time we gave them hats with our logo, and one of the volunteers wrote to say thank you and that she would wear the hat to help with our publicity. This is the best advertisement,” Madlen tells us, adding that she is very careful about people who invest their time here and always tries to meet their expectations.

“We’ve had some interesting cases. For example, there was a girl in 7th grade, who was going to study at a language school, but after visiting here decided to sign up for a math class. Her mother came to us and said, “I don’t understand what happened!”. But it’s true: future engineers and scientists are sometimes formed here,” Madlen recalls.

Vasil, inevitably, immediately remembers a similar case: how Ivan, at 6, left the museum with the words: “I will become an engineer!”. 

On such days you can hardly forget about all your problems, but they remind you why you should always confront them. 

“I want to be optimistic, so I still work here and I keep doing my best to ignite someone in the cause, to attract someone,” says Madlen. When we ask her how she imagines the bright future, she admits that she doesn’t imagine it. But in life, such as in physics, there are laws: first it is important to enlighten the present. After that everything is easier.

—

Photo credit: Iliyan Ruzhin

La entrada A museum so fascinating that you lose sense of time se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

Could you introduce yourself and would you share a little bit about your background?

My name is Edward May. I’ve been an English teacher for 15 years and a number of years ago was trained as a proofreader.

Why did you decide to collaborate as proofreader of the guidebook Pro Bono at European Universities? 

A friend at work asked me to get involved in the project. When I saw what it dealt with I was very happy to collaborate as I believe that the aims and values of the BEESE project deserve to be supported. Proofreading and using my skills was a practical way for me to do this.

Did you know about pro bono before or did you have any experience as a pro bono volunteer? 

I had briefly heard of pro bono previously but hadn’t realised how far it extended. I imagined it being more a North American venture and scheme rather than European and was surprised at its growing scope and influence here in Europe.

What was the biggest challenge faced during the proofreading?

I had to standardise spelling, terminology and grammar items at times. While this and of itself was not a problem, some of the technical language around this subject was a little challenging. Not having been exposed to this previously, I had to try to make sure that the original meaning was kept intact and that I didn’t distort the ideas contained in the text.

How do you value the whole experience?

I enjoyed the experience a great deal. As mentioned earlier, I had no idea of the scope of pro bono in Europe and it was refreshing to read that it’s something that is gaining force. I think it is a wholly worthy project as it encourages the practical applications of one’s skills to help others.

As a high school teacher, do you think students should donate their skills for the nonprofits of their communities? 

I think that students should be encouraged to donate their skills to nonprofits in their communities. Doing this will support these organisations to reach out to people who may be vulnerable or not always in a position to practically help themselves. Additionally, by giving their time, young people can enrich their own skills and experiences and develop empathy for those who may be less fortunate than they are. It also promotes greater community cohesion which benefits everyone involved.

I liked the idea of using a specialism that I had. Matching people with their skillset is the best way to utilise volunteers’ time effectively; doing this I think is a good way to give a flavour of a project and supporting individuals in making more meaningful contributions.

Thank you Eddie for this interview. We are very thankful for your great work! Soon all people interested in pro bono will have free access to our Guidebook. Stay tuned!

La entrada Interview with Edward May se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

On July 1st- 2nd, 2021, the seventh transnational meeting within the framework of the Erasmus+ BEESE project, was held at Porto University in Portugal. We were very excited because it was our first physical meeting since our meeting in Paris in February 2020.

As usual, the first day of the meeting was focused on where we are and what are the things that are missing. We are approaching the end of the project and we needed to be sure about all the documents we need to finalize and the deliverables we want to publish on our website. In this sense, each coordinator presented the progress made in the implementation of each Intellectual Outputs (IO).

We also had the chance to listen to some participants of the pro bono projects pilots run at Porto University. Students could share their motivations and what they learned with their pro bono experiences.

On the second day, the project members worked on the content of the Training Activity that will be held in Paris in September and about the content of the Multiplier Events.

Additionally, all partners discussed how to gain more visibility to make the project results more accessible to all European universities.

Finally, all the Consortium talked about the sustainability of the BEESE Pro Bono Project, with the creation of a network of universities in Europe that run pro bono projects for their students.

To finish, all partners could visit the Museum of the Porto University Laboratorio. And, as a goodbye, we could attend a great performance of the “tunos” of Porto University. Thank you very Porto University for being such a good host and thanks to all partners for your great participation.

You can see more pictures in this album.

La entrada Seventh transnational meeting of the BEESE Pro Bono Project in Porto se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

Students:

Gréta Bartha, full-time student of Óbuda University, project manager of the short-term pilots in 2019 and the mid-term pilots in 2020

Afrodité Wild, full-time student at the Óbuda University, project manager of the long term pilot in 2019

MGF: What motivated you to participate?

G.B.: I came from a family where it has always been important to help people. My ancestors were health care workers who worked steadily, in all circumstances, to save lives. In addition, I went to church school, where the development of sensitization and empathy was a daily educational goal, with the principle that ​​helping is a good and basic activity. When I had the opportunity to pay homage to this at university as well, all in a way that I could use my knowledge, help with it, and learn in the meantime, it was no question for me to apply.

A.W.: Initially, it motivated me that I got free hand within the program. We contacted one of the staff members of the Volunteer Center Foundation (ÖKA), Katalin Somlai, who supported us throughout, sometimes correcting or rethinking our ideas and helping us with our work. After seeing more clearly what we wanted to achieve, what the goal of the program was, we came up with more and more ideas, negotiated with Kata, received formal background support from our Accenture mentor. We felt better and better as we to got new and new information and got new things done. 

MGF: What were your best experiences with pro bono?

G.B.: Since we were able to participate in two pilot programs, I would like to highlight a momentum from both, and an important common thing that I think all participants will learn during the project: prejudices need to be put aside. Although everyone has a helpful attitude toward the process, we have prejudices, we think in stereotypes when we hear certain words. What we’ve learned the most is how all of this is refuted by the organizations involved in the program. Perhaps this is the best, most defining experiences of the pro bono. In 2019, even before the current epidemic, we met and worked with the Equal Chanses Foundation. My best experience from this period – and I will bring it up in years to come and recommend it to anyone involved in similar work – is a field trip. One day we visited the Foundation in Csömör, by minibus, like on a class trip, and there we saw how a day passed by. I don’t think that there’s more moving and realistic experience than tracking their life on a weekday. Every minute spent there was a lesson itself. During spring of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic and the quarantine, I think my best experience was that we still managed to do it, we managed to accomplish the task. Day by day we had to look at things from a different point of view, from a different perspective, we had to find a solution, we had to work together, while we only had the online platform provided by the University. Prioritization changed day by day, week by week, we had ad hoc tasks, we had to show agility to adapt to changing problems. I think being able to do that, learning to handle the situation, is the best experience. After all, we have gone beyond our own borders.

A.W.: After working on the project for a long time, a task arose as to try to reach elderly people in nursing homes through a video. Our goal was not just to put a questionnaire in front of them, but to get them to know us and our goals. So we came up with the idea to make an introductory video to show them what we were doing. For me, it was the fondest memory of all, when we shot the video on a nice summer afternoon in the school yard. Beside this, I really enjoyed the meetings with Kata when we came up with new ideas. It was especially good that Kata supported our ideas every time and sometimes she thought them further so we were able to move forward with the project. 

MGF: What was the main benefit of your participation?

G.B.: I think it is the Organization’s job to tell, what they found useful from our work. Because we think everything was useful. That’s why we worked. I think if I had to formulate the main benefit of participation, it would be that we have seen the practical application of our knowledge. After all, the most important thing for every university student is to acquire competitive, market-based, usable knowledge at the university, and to see what he or she is capable of with the acquired knowledge in the uppercase LIFE. This can also be sold as an internship, requiring real knowledge focus. Everything we learned is usable in real life, an applicable knowledge in our hands.

A.W .: In my opinion, the main benefit was that we learned how much work an NGO, in this case ÖKA, has in this Friends of the Elderly Program. Furthermore, I believe that our suggestions were useful, as we were often able to contribute to a specific part of the project with our youthful insights or our IT background knowledge.

MGF: What was the main conclusion of your participation, what did you learn from it?

G.B.: As I mentioned before, we are all thinking in stereotypes, and luckily, they taught us how to go beyond these. Furthermore, we have also learned that we are able to cross the “lines” we imagine as our border. What we learned from it, however, is how to work together as a team. After all, this is not a university test that you can write, submit, and get a mark for it. You took responsibility here. For other members of your team, and for the people involved in the lives of the foundations. You vowed to do good. At first, it’s very hard to work together with such responsibilities on your shoulders, as you were just university buddies last week. You have to organize the tasks into a hierarchy and learn to accept that one person has to decide in the end. And then it will be as he said. It was a very difficult and very constructive task.

A.W.: The most important thing we have learned is that money is not absolutely necessary for everything. Sometimes it is enough if a few people with different views and mindsets come together to share ideas and take the time to work out everything properly. For us, perhaps the biggest challenge was when we had to visit the municipalities and nursing homes, and we had to collect the services of the institutions. It was hard work, but the helpful people (municipal clerks, clerks of social institutions) often contributed to getting certain things in hand.

MGF: What would you say to motivate the next group to participate?

A.W.: I think it’s worth helping such organizations, or participating in programs like this, because you get to know more and more programs you’ve never heard of before. Also as I’ve mentioned several times before (perhaps because money is not at the center) participants are able to let go of their imagination on how they could help organizations who are thankful for young people’s form-breaking ideas. For me, it was the best feeling that I was able to add some value to the project as well.

G.B.: It takes inner motivation to embark on this path. But if the idea is already in you, then the words of Tamás Csitáry-Hock can really show what the University gives with this opportunity:

“You are waiting in vain. That it will get better. That it will be different. That one day things will change. That someone is knocking on your door with a huge opportunity. That one day your future will come to you. Because your future is not far away. Not kilometers, not months, not years away. It does not come. It’s here. In you.” You can get to know yourself, your opportunities, and your hidden abilities, your future goals from a new side that you could never discover elsewhere, at another time, in another program. If you are selected for the program, seize your opportunity. Live with it because you will never regret it!

La entrada Interview with Dr. Mónika Garai-Fodor and students of Obuda University (Hungary) se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

With the participation of the 5 countries involved in this Consortium, the event was an interesting debate on volunteering at universities, social innovation in the Academia, and how pro bono projects can improve students skills, among a lot of other things.

You can see the whole event in this video:

After the summer the rest of the countries will organise their own local events to promote our work. We will keep you posted!

La entrada BEESE Pro Bono Project event in Porto se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

Despite all complications following the pandemic and the nation-wide lockdown, on May 8th, 2020, TimeHeroes and UNWE gave a start of the last part of the Campus Pro Bono Project – long-term pro bono pilot in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The pilot was focused on creating a handbook covering the essentials of fundraising, to be used by a wide network of NGOs in the country. “During the pandemic almost every non-profit organization in the country was struggling for survival and we wanted to help somehow” said the organizers. Within 20 hours, spread over two and a half months, 4 students, 2 teachers and 1 mentor worked together to create the comprehensive document.

The pilot was held in several consecutive virtual meetings and each student was responsible for specific topics to be covered during each of the meetings. They had various assignments – to research what is the current situation in Bulgaria, what are the main sources of funding, as well as to present fresh ideas on sources of alternative revenue streams. The mentor who was invited, Iva Koleva, is a C-level manager, running the CSR core team at Telus International Bulgaria.

The created handbook will be available on the BEESE website.

La entrada Long-term campus pro bono pilot in Bulgaria se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

This meeting allowed us to see the progress of each Intellectual Output (IO). We were happy to see that IO1 (research on students’ motivations to do pro bono) and IO2 (methodologies to implement pro bono in universities) are almost finished. 

Regarding IO3, we set deadlines for finishing the Guide Book and the online course. Denitsa Gorchilova is in charge of the edition of the Guide Book, and all the consortium members are the authors and contributors. Edward May, a native English speaker volunteer, will help us by proofreading the document. Professor Luis Mendoca and a group of students of the University of Porto will be in charge of the graphic design. 

We also have started talking about the dissemination events that will take place this year in five countries. These events should gather people interested in pro bono, youth volunteering, service-learning, and student volunteering. The first event will be in Porto in July under the coordination of the University of Porto.  

Finally, we have planned to meet physically in Porto before the summer holidays, and we expect to have a closing meeting in Sofia before the end of the project. 

*Transnational project meetings are official meetings. All project partners participate in these meetings to talk about management and financial issues. It includes project implementation, producing synergy for outcomes, and discussing and evaluating our work, among others.

La entrada Sixth transnational meeting of the BEESE Pro Bono project se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

 
What did the volunteers think?Nikita (student): “I was very happy to participate in this mission. It was my first time. I find it very interesting to see the difference between our two visions. I hope your project will continue to grow. It was exciting and I was very happy to meet you.”Menekse (professional): “It was very rewarding. It allowed me to get out of my retail sector and see that there are such important projects coming to fruition. It allowed me to realize that working in a group makes it possible to move forward quickly. The progress between sessions was very interesting. I talked about it around me because it’s a beautiful association.”Nevena (professional): “A great new experience with Pro Bono Lab. It was a great new meeting with the association and I think we worked well together. I enjoyed seeing how much progress we can all make together. You have all the right ingredients to make it a beautiful project.”Pierre (student): “This is one of my first experiences. There are a lot of exchanges and it allows us to learn a lot of things about the project, which is very rich. Each session allows us to discuss different subjects and to confront our different ideas.”

What has become of the association since April? What has been the impact of the mission?In September, Pro Bono Lab got back in touch with Action Real to exchange about its progress following the mission and any difficulties encountered.

The NGO has taken into account all the recommendations made on social networks: more publications, especially on their concrete actions, and the creation of an Instagram account, which I invite you to follow. Due to lack of time, they could not advance on the website but they keep it in mind and Margarita will follow a training in December on the subject. They also reworked the logos of the association Action Real and the Real project. Finally, the virtual courses during COVID allowed them to gain visibility and they have therefore decided to maintain this format at the beginning of the school year.

La entrada Long-term campus pro bono in France se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

This week we share the interview with Miglena Angelova, PhD. She is chief assistant of the Business Administration department of University of National and World Economy (Bulgaria). She teaches Change Management and Creative and Recreative Business Management. 

Denitsa Gorchalova: How do you perceive the idea of pro bono activities to become part of the curriculum at UNWE? What are the pros and cons?

Strengths:

– real study cases with strong practical orientation – this could support students` motivation;

– the possibility of participation in new and different initiatives – this is very strong motivation for me as (not the same things each year, semester etc.);

– overall idea behind the initiative will bring more academic spirit, which personally I consider as even so important as the acquired at the university knowledge and skills 

Weaknesses:

– may be not all courses are suitable for such type of work, but generally it depends on the lecturer’s opinion and approach.

Denitsa Gorchalova: Would you make pro bono activities a part of the final grade of the students and why? 

Miglena Angelova: The programme design of the Creative and Recreative Business Management allows including such types of activities. At present, my initial opinion is that these activities could be successfully integrated in some of the lectures such as: Management of decision making process in creative environment; Management of creative teams; Methods for improvement effectiveness of organization in Creative and Recreative Sectors etc.

Denitsa Gorchalova: Would you make pro bono activities a part of the final grade of the students and why? 

Miglena Angelova: Yes, I will. These practical cases allow in fact understanding the real thinking of students, their interpretation of the circumstances of the current situation, to assume the next steps and consequences. These skills are very helpful in future real working environment and therefore it is better if we could lay their basis at the university.

Denitsa Gorchalova: What are the problematic areas you envision if pro bono would become a part of the teaching? 

Miglena Angelova: Bottlenecks (in my opinion) may arise in the process of selection of specific activities within the pro bono initiative. These activities have to be suitable to the course subject. Therefore the lecturer has to have the possibility and freedom to choose the proper activities within the pro bono initiative.

La entrada Interview with Professor Miglena Angelova, from UNWE (Bulgaria) se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.

AFT: Why did you decide to participate as a mentor in the BEESE student pro bono pilot projects?

VV: The reason I wanted to participate was mainly that when I was a master student at Corvinus university I did many of these pro bono projects as a student. There we also tried to help NGO-s to enhance their communication strategy and got help from mentors from another consulting company. They helped us to find the best solutions, reviewed our work. This time, I wanted to give something back to the students. 

AK: I simply enjoy helping students and professionals so every time I hear about a pro bono initiative, I’m always happy to help. 

AFT: What was your task? How did the cooperation work?

AK: I was mentoring four students. Despite they have already been taking part in similar events they still did not have enough experience in advising NGO-s, especially not foundations. At the beginning I started to give them strategic advices but later I realized it was not enough so we were deep diving into the issues of the foundation, had brainstorming sessions and I helped them to create real value for the customer. In the diagnose phase I helped them to raise the proper questions, to understand the issues of Perinatus Foundation. Then we saw a lot of challenges and I helped them how to structure them. Before the marathon, I always asked students to prepare for the next session as we were broken down into three different topics and separate locations. In the preparation phase I always asked them to send their proposals, which I reviewed and added my comments to them then we re-worked it so basically, I participated in the operational work as well. 

VV: To be honest, my cooperation with the students had its happy moments as well as its own challenges. When I was a student myself, I was much more motivated to take part in these projects. Students wanted to work with the NGO-s, which is great, but they were not fully aware of what they wanted to learn from the cooperation and how they could improve both personally and professionally. I think, universities should have the responsibility to prepare them, teach them how to approach a problem, how to work with corporate partners, third parties or NGO-s. Whenever I had these tasks at the university, I was given guidelines on what to do. Obviously, mentors should also have an important role in this, but during this project I experienced that tasks and roles were not clearly defined 

AK: I had the same feeling. Students didn’t know how they could use the help of a mentor. At the beginning they were shy, didn’t want to ask anything. I had to be proactive to move things forward. However, in my case, they were really engaged and motivated. The reason might be that Perinatus Foundation had real empathic goals which were easy to engage with, so students could easily put their heart and soul into the project because they felt it was important and they loved to help. They rather had technical issues as it was hard to find a platform for online conversation with the NGO and they didn’t know how to handle the upcoming issues. My question to Viki is if it’s possible the main issue was that students couldn’t engage with the NGO.

VV: I think they were engaged and the marketing suggestions they came up with were creative and practical. However, from organisational or project management perspective they were lacking the skill of organising or involving all stakeholders. For example, I always got to know last minute when the meetings with the NGO-s were. Whenever they sent me their deliverables, I added my comments and shared with them some tips on how to further align with the client and other stakeholders. This is the area where we as Mastercard could provide our support to them. This was proven to be helpful for the project team, but there were occasions when I did not hear from the team on time. 

AFT: What are the most important elements of success for you in these projects?

VV: I think the most important factor for success is engagement. If all parties, including NGO-s, students, university teachers and mentors are engaged then it can work. If it is missing, we can easily run into challenges. NGO-s need to give a problem that they want to find a solution for, students need to be motivated, not only to pass the given class but also to learn and get something from the project. It is also true for the universities; however, the impact is not so big on them. 

AFT: What were the biggest challenges and failures in the work of the students? Could you find solutions?

AK: The team faced several challenges. The first one was when our cooperation started, which was also the beginning of the pandemic. Since the students had a similar advisory project in the previous year, they wanted to follow the same steps. This time, it was quite shocking when they couldn’t visit the foundations, couldn’t meet in person and they didn’t know how to proceed online as it was not easy to find an online platform. Here, the bottleneck was rather the NGO, as the universities had several platforms available and students were familiar with IT while the NGO community consisted of elderly people who weren’t IT experts and had old laptops. The second problem I faced was something similar to what Viki already mentioned. Students were not well organised and we usually had logistic issues, time scheduling was always a problem so we set up recurring calls both with them and the NGO-s. After that, the cooperation was much more structured and we could plan ahead more easily. Just like Viki mentioned, we also had the problem that students were unable to structure the handling of issues but I could help them in this area. One problem on the NGO side was that they were sceptical about people dealing with marketing because they had bad experiences with aggressive advertising campaigns. They couldn’t imagine other type of campaigns existed where being aggressive is not a necessity in order to reach clients. The students were empathetic with the NGO colleagues which helped them find common grounds. And the last problem was that when we previously planned to start a pro bono, we imagined we’d meet in person and use whiteboards and paper charts that everyone could see. Being forced to online marathon meetings we had to do more prework and had to make the documentations before the sessions, so it required a lot more efforts in advance. 

VV: I totally agree with András on the online challenges, this is something we all have to cope with nowadays. Obviously, it is easier to have a brainstorming and have sessions in person. I don’t know the best solution for this, I guess, finding the right platform is the key. The other problem I had was with the key roles and responsibilities. It should be either the responsibility of mentors or universities to define who is in charge of what. It’d be useful from the mentor’s perspective as well to receive guidance on how to work with students. When I was a student myself, we always reached out to our mentors proactively. As a mentor, if students don’t contact me, I assume they don’t need help.  Timig was also a challenge, since the project started later in their semester and the students were in rush to finish all the work before their exam period. 

AFT: Do you think students should receive guidelines? There are individual cases and at Óbuda University we cannot make general conclusions on student pro bono programs so I’m wondering what additional steps should be taken. Should they take part in a project management or communication trainings? I’m getting the feeling they are lacking basic knowledge around these topics which are fundamental for a successful project. So how can we ensure their readiness?

VV: I think a guideline would be useful, nothing major just have it written who is the students’ team leader and what their roles and responsibilities are. It should also include that they are in charge of delivering everything on time, of planning the meetings and of being in touch with the mentors. A list like this would help them to know what is expected from them. 

AK: A guideline could be useful, but I was also missing some documentation on how this advisory type of work can be performed successfully. Students didn’t know how to do things, how to ask the proper questions, how to set common goals and how to manage the project. As I saw, they wanted to give advices but without understanding the problem of the customer. They tried to follow previous year’s experiences when they created a donation site, which they wanted to reproduce in this new project as well.  Unfortunately, the NGO said it was not a burning issue for them, still students insisted on doing it. It was hard to explain to them how important it is to first understand the customer’s needs and that the primary focus shouldn’t be on what they can do.  

AFT: What were the outcomes and achievements of the program? Were the projects successful?

VV: Yes, absolutely. As far as I have seen, students were really creative, they deep dived into the NGO’s current communication practices, checked websites and social media posts and did a great job on the so-called ‘as is’ analysis. At the end, they came up with constructive advices, not only commenting on what they’ve done but came up with ideas that were actionable for the NGO-s. 

AK: My project had a happy ending as everybody was satisfied with the end results. With the students we’ve provided a marketing concept on how to attract new clients to Perinatus Foundation. Students gave ready-made sales materials that are sharable on social media sites, created a nice advertisement-like video spot and shared ideas on how to seek donations. At the end, together we recommended a repositioning due to the pandemic. Previously this foundation organised classroom discussions with new parents which we recommended to be online now. It was a new approach for the foundation and they appreciated that they received more than expected. But I think, the best proof of success was that students offered their voluntary support for the foundation after our project. On the other hand, students were able to learn marketing practices during the cooperation, so it was a win-win situation. 

AFT: Do you think the student pro bono projects were useful for the NGO-s? 

AK: I am absolutely sure it was useful for the NGO-s we worked with, they were satisfied with the end results, they got plenty of new ideas from the students and received useful marketing and sales materials. Even the students managed to gain experiences in the fields of marketing.

AFT: Do you think pro bono is a good tool for the students to learn? 

AK: Yes, absolutely. I would recommend it to all students because they can learn a lot from these projects, even if they are failing. 

AFT: What are your most important advices (4-5) for students to maximise the success of pro bono projects?

AK: My first advise is not to be shy to use the help of mentors. The second one is to find a communication platform as early as possible, which is especially relevant in the online space. Also, I think it is essential to set up regular conversations, for example weekly calls, to have the framework and to have intensive discussions both with the mentors and the NGO-s. I offered the students to use me for pre-testing, to check their ideas first with me before presenting them to the customers so it was useful for them that they could practice presentation skills. Finally, it is good that students are preparing different documentations, for example question and issue lists or even written proposals, where they could practice in writing as well. 

VV: Take your time to understand and break down the problem of the NGO – It is not a problem if the students don’t know the solution from the beginning. Use your support smartly – don’t hesitate to reach out to your mentor when in doubt. Practice to prepare top-quality documentations (It would be also nice to consider this as a part of the evaluation in the end) e.g. discovery question list, workshop material, management summary about the key recommendations, practical guide to NGOs. Practice project management skills – create deadlines for yourself, distribute task among your team, review each other’s work to drive better client value.

AT: Anything else you’d like to mention in this topic that we didn’t touch before?

AK: I think my only comment would be that if I had the opportunity to take part in a similar programme, I’d be happy to act as a mentor again. I really enjoyed it before and would like to do it again. I think it is useful for mentors as well, especially for young professionals who don’t have experiences with guiding people. If someone wants to be a line manager this mentorship is a good chance for them to practice people management skills. And as I mentioned before, I’d involve as many students as possible in these projects.

La entrada Interview with Viktória Vatamány and András Keller from Mastercard (Hungary) se publicó primero en BEESE Pro Bono Project.