What does 180 Degrees Consulting really do?

Author: Aleksei Smirnov

For years, consulting has been a privilege given to the wealthiest of companies. However, as some of the largest enterprises grew, non-profit organizations fell behind. Perhaps the biggest factor in this divide is the difference in quality and amount of resources available to each. As the most successful of companies pay top dollar for the best consulting services, non-profits are left to their own devices. Here at 180 Degrees Consulting, we believe that everyone deserves quality advice. Therefore, we are dedicated to hiring top students at UofT from diverse disciplines and walks of life. For example, our consultants come from 15 different majors and close to ten percent of our new hires are PhD students.

At 180, we pursue two goals. We provide industry knowledge to hungry students and deliver excellent consulting services to our clients. As students, it is extremely hard to gain necessary experience to differentiate oneself in front of recruiters. Our consultants can do just that. We select ambitious students, provide them with the necessary training, develop their public speaking skills, and put them in front of our clients to deliver solutions with impacts on the real world. Our clients, on the other hand, will have access to professional consulting services at an affordable price. 

It is important to ensure the organizations we help will bring positive social impact just as it is to provide flawless service. Therefore, we work with companies that aim to make the world a better place. As we work with these organizations, 180 Degrees Consulting at the University of Toronto must also demonstrate its positive impact. Our first measure of social influence is focused on our consultants. We look at whether our associates changed career paths to become more socially focused, whether their charitable contributions have changed in size or compositions, and whether they enhanced their leadership ability after working with us. As our consultants develop, we closely track how our clients benefit. As we measure the value delivered through our services, we mainly focus on the changes to the KPI metric after six and 18 months, measuring the value of outputs of our clients, and calculate labor hours of our consultants to estimate the cost of these services if they were performed by for-profit firms. To this date, we have provided over nine thousand hours of consulting services to our clients; services that can be valued at millions of dollars if they were performed by for-profit consulting firms. 

A lot of our clients are those who are overlooked by sponsors and fall through the cracks of federal grants programs. Because of this, the most relevant and the most frequent service we provide is the optimization of our clients’ funding strategies, and recommendations on optimal preparation of sponsorship packages. After the required services are done, we are often overjoyed by the enthusiasm that our clients express when implementing proposed changes; and are glad to be building a stronger relationship with organizations that make the world a better place. As our network of clients grows, student consultants often find more work, resulting in the greater recognition of their personal brand and acquisition of much needed work experience. This way, 180 can build economies of scale that greatly benefit our consultants in the long run.

Out of more than 20 organizations that we worked with during our 4-year history at the University of Toronto, Dancing with Parkinson’s (DWP) has been one of our most influential clients. DWP helps seniors with Parkinson’s live a fuller life by bringing them into an artistic community where they can dance and connect with others. This organization currently offers free daily classes, has hundreds of active members, and brings its mission into the masses. 180 DC helped DWP develop a strong go-to-market strategy, marketing strategy, and a better UX design. As we see the success of this organization and others that we work with, we are once again reinforced in our belief of the importance of 180 DC UofT.

Over our 4-year history, we hired hundreds of consultants and helped 20 non-profits. Each person and organization we helped went on to make a difference in the world. However, our journey is just beginning. Year after year we train more people, take on more challenging and interesting projects, and develop more meaningful partnerships. The upcoming year is shaping out to be the most eventful of all. As we prepare to help more clients than ever before, we want you to follow our achievements by staying informed of our work and, perhaps, joining 180 Degrees Consulting in the future. 

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A lot of our clients are those who are overlooked by sponsors and fall through the cracks of federal grants programs. Because of this, the most relevant and the most frequent service we provide is the optimization of our clients’ funding strategies, and recommendations on optimal preparation of sponsorship packages. After the required services are done, we are often overjoyed by the enthusiasm that our clients express when implementing proposed changes; and are glad to be building a stronger relationship with organizations that make the world a better place. As our network of clients grows, student consultants often find more work, resulting in the greater recognition of their personal brand and acquisition of much needed work experience. This way, 180 can build economies of scale that greatly benefit our consultants in the long run.

Out of more than 20 organizations that we worked with during our 4-year history at the University of Toronto, Dancing with Parkinson’s (DWP) has been one of our most influential clients. DWP helps seniors with Parkinson’s live a fuller life by bringing them into an artistic community where they can dance and connect with others. 180 DC helped DWP develop a strong go-to-market strategy, marketing strategy, and a better UX design. Now this organization offers free daily classes, has hundreds of members, and brings its mission into the masses. As we see the success of this organization and others that we work with, we are once again reinforced in our belief of the importance of 180 DC UofT.

Over our 4-year history, we hired hundreds of consultants and helped 20 non-profits. Each person and organization we helped went on to make a difference in the world. However, our journey is just beginning. Year after year we train more people, take on more challenging and interesting projects, and develop more meaningful partnerships. The upcoming year is shaping out to be the most eventful of all. As we prepare to help more clients than ever before, we want you to follow our achievements by staying informed of our work and, perhaps, joining 180 Degrees Consulting in the future.