Past Clients

Spring 2010: Rising Sun Energy Center

Rising Sun Energy Center is a non-profit organization dedicated promoting responsible, equitable, and sustainable energy and water use. RSE provides workforce development training and employment that creates green career pathways for youth and for adults with barriers to employment, offers low-to-no cost residential retrofits and services, and educates local communities about sustainable behaviors and technologies. ABC worked with two branches of RSE: California Youth Energy Services (CYES) and Green Energy Training Services (GETS). CYES is a program aimed at providing free retrofitting and energy consultation services to residents in the San Francisco Bay Area. The project involved formulating marketing strategies for new channels of residential client recruitment. The two channels we focused on were through Universities/Colleges and Small Businesses. The team researched the local colleges and small businesses and compiled demographic information on the areas to recommend the best avenues and methods of reaching the communities to provide free retrofitting services. GETS is a program which provides entry level training in the Green Construction Industry to Individuals with barriers to employment. GETS sought to collaborate with labor unions on the training opportunities offered from GETS to meet the prospective expansion of the home performance industry. The team was responsible for researching the Home Star Retrofit Bill recently passed in Congress and how labor unions fit into this development. They were able to compile a list of labor unions which would be potential partners and which programs under which labor unions GETS should target.

Fall 2009: ACCESS

ACCESS is a non profit in India whose vision is to foster rural communities through microfinance, consolidation of local staple crops (ginger), and providing farmers with resources and tools to develop best practices in agriculture. The ABC team drafted a business plan to assist ACCESS in meeting its objectives in organizing a consolidated ginger production company, polishing the governance structure, budget, and operations across three years and over a Rs. 16,000,000 budget.

Spring 2009: Berkeley Food & Housing Project

Founded in 1970, the Berkeley Food and Housing Project provides emergency food and shelter, transitional housing and assistance, and long-term housing placement with support services to homeless individuals and families with the goal of easing and ending the crisis of homelessness for men, women, and children in the Berkeley community. ABC worked on two projects with BFHP. The first was to design and compose a formal business plan for the organization to use as an informative tool for the public community and investors. The second was to create a one-year revenue growth projection based on external research, strategic analysis, and statistics.

Fall 2008: Old Skool Cafe

Old Skool Cafe is a local San Francisco nonprofit which trains and rehabilitates at-risk youth by operating and directing a youth-run supper club. ABC developed a comprehensive investment strategy for Old Skool Cafe which provided additional funds for the organization to fund its own independent restaurant. ABC also provided additional strategic and operational business tactics to further help the efficiency of the organization.

Spring 2008: Meals on Wheels in San Francisco

Meals on Wheels in San Francisco is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing 1300 elderly in the Bay Area with two meal options daily as well as services to its clients in need. ABC projected the MOWSF clientele over a five year period due to the growing concern of the retirement of the baby boomer population. In addition, ABC researched any relevant adjustments that may need to be implemented into MOWSF's current business plan to accommodate these retired baby boomers.

Fall 2007: Habitat for Humanity East Bay

Habitat for Humanity East Bay's mission is "to create successful homeownership opportunities for families with limited incomes by building sustainable housing and revitalizing neighborhoods." The first project involved creating a survey for HfH to measure and evaluate the success of its affordable homeownership programs. The second project involved ReStore, which is a HfH-run store that sells recycled construction and home improvement materials to the community. All of the profit made from the store is used to supplement the funding for HfH's programs. ABC helped ReStore reevaluate its business plan and outline steps to improve and expand its current operations.

Spring 2007: Indochinese Housing Development Corporation

IHDC provides affordable housing to the Southeast Asian immigrant community and offers programs such as after school care, field trips, and youth leadership projects. ABC assisted IHDC management in improving operating efficiency through knowledge transfer and creation of an internal document outlining general business practices. ABC also developed a 50-year low-risk investment plan with $450,000 in IHDC resources.

Fall 2006: Trans-Fair

Transfair is an organization that promotes and certifies Fair Trade products within the United States and abroad. ABC worked on two projects with Transfair, one involving market research and the other involving fundraiser strategies. The first group researched and analyzed important market and business information for the coffee trade which was eventually translated into different languages to be distributed to coffee farmers in developing countries such as Columbia, Guatemala, and Ecuador. The second group produced a toolkit which introduced new and effective fundraising strategies for Transfair to utilize in the near future.

Fall 2005 - Spring 2006: A New America

Developed loan packages and evaluation criteria for loans up to $25,000 and discussed further projects to eventually develop a micro-lending program. See the full description here (pdf)

Spring 2005: Center for the Education of Infant Death

Performed break even analysis, analyzed possible partnerships, evaluated the feasibility of implementing audiology tests for infants in Oakland.

Fall 2004: Rebuilding Together Oakland

Evaluated potential low-income neighborhoods for Rebuilding Oakland’s annual homebuilding project.

Spring 2003: Building Opportunity for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS)

Aided this community-empowerment organization with annual operation budgets of about $11 million, to develop a gardening project’s business plan and manage its sponsor relationship with the Cal basketball team.

Spring 2002: First Resort

Helped First Resort in securing a $50,000 corporate sponsorship from a leading supermarket chain. See the full description here (pdf).