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New York, Boston Alumni Volunteer to Boost Small Businesses
When the HBS Club of New York (HBSCNY) launched its Small Business Partnership Initiative (SBPI) in 2020, its goal was to simply help small businesses survive the COVID pandemic with guidance from a small group of volunteer alumni advisors. Now, nearly five years on, more than 350 alumni volunteers have stepped up to provide free coaching to 500 small businesses in the Greater New York region.
“We’d been offering alumni community service opportunities within HBSCNY for about 30 years—exclusively in the form of pro bono consulting for nonprofits,” says SBPI cofounder Richard Kane (MBA 1968). “But we had never thought about trying to serve for-profit businesses prior to the pandemic.”

Priscilla Jiminian, Founder of Skinergy Beauty LLC, a skin care and cosmetics line designed specifically for hyperpigmentation. She says the SBPI at HBSNY helped her strengthen her business plan and strategy.
Bruce Bockmann (MBA 1967), a board member at the time, suggested the club help New York- area small businesses that “were in serious trouble” due to COVID. Kane and Bockmann quickly pulled together a plan, formed a leadership team, recruited about 60 alumni volunteers, and set up virtual coaching sessions that initially focused on helping clients with COVID-related assistance applications.
“A couple of years later, we realized we were dealing with ongoing issues in the community which would not end with the pandemic,” says Kane. “We went back to the board and proposed that SBPI become a permanent part of the club’s work.”
Now Kane works closely with William J. Meurer (MBA 1990), one of seven alumni on the SBPI’s leadership team, to administer the program on a regular basis. This entails recruiting alumni volunteers, promoting the program to the business community, organizing volunteer training, and tracking every interaction between the alumni coaches and their clients.
“There wasn’t really a scalable model when we started,” says Meurer. “It was just like, let’s help these small businesses, and we jumped in.”
With time, Meurer says the SBPI evolved into simple, effective program. “We match alumni volunteers with experienced mentors to prepare them to coach clients,” he says. “We offer a short online tutorial as well, and they can also opt to partner with another coach for their sessions with clients.”
Each client engagement consists of up to three virtual coaching sessions, which are between 30 and 45 minutes long. Meurer says clients have asked for help on a wide array of issues, including revising business plans, scaling operations, marketing, finance, human resources, and more.
“For HBS alumni, this is an opportunity to give back to the community by volunteering their time and expertise to help New York area small businesses thrive,” he says. “This is chance to meet other alumni, to engage with appreciative entrepreneurs, and to have fun.”
Finding small business clients that want free expert business advice has not been a problem. “Currently, we have a good pipeline of potential clients,” says Meurer. “We work with local small business organizations and advocates like the New York City Department of Small Business Services, nonprofits that support small businesses, and the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program, a national effort to nurture small businesses.”
As the program grows, Meurer says the club is slowly developing systems to automate some processes, such as creating an online dashboard for volunteer coaches that lets them sign up, select a client, add notes about the engagement, and give feedback about the experience. Clients are also surveyed after their experience with the SBPI. All of the data is collected, says Meurer, in order to constantly improve the program. To date, the overall client experience, on average, is very good or excellent.
For Kane, that feedback just confirms that the SBPI was a good idea. “We’re serving a large group of wonderful people who are running small businesses and are incredibly grateful for our help,” he says. “I am very proud of what we have accomplished in almost five years.”
In addition to Kane and Meurer, the SBPI Leadership Team includes Doreen Collins (MBA 1985), Yasmin Ibrahim (MBA 2007), Vineet Kumar (AMP 187, 2014), Bentley Ritter (MBA 1996), and Randal V. Stephenson (MBA 1990).
Like the HBS Club of New York, the HBS Alumni Association of Boston (HBSAB) has launched the Small Business Partners (SMB) program to offer New England-based small businesses the same free consulting services it offers entrepreneurs through its Startup Partners (SUP) program. Through the SUP, entrepreneurs get free expert business consultations with knowledgeable alumni volunteers.
“There are a lot of resources out there for startups,” says the program’s volunteer leader, Rodelaire Octavius. “And there are resources for established businesses, but for small businesses, sometimes people are so busy that they aren’t aware. We have 10,000 alumni in New England, and we asked ourselves how we could leverage their expertise, their networks, and their connection, to give back to local business owners in the community.”

Alumni volunteer advisors from the HBSAB's Small Business Partners program coach the founders of a small textile company.
The answer is the Small Business Partners program, a free virtual consulting service for established New England businesses that are owner-managed with a minimum of $1 million in revenue, have been operating for at least two years, and have solid plans to grow or expand.
Instead of one-on-one consultations, SBP clients meet virtually with a small team of four or five alumni.
“It’s like an advisory board for small businesses,” says Octavius. “They get access to top CEOs. They have multiple sessions with us. The first is to present issues they want help with. We want to know what’s really keeping them up at night. We use that information to match them with the coaches that have relevant expertise. The next session—the main one—is where the coaches give advice. That one is typically a two-hour session. We have a final session after that for feedback.”
So far, the SMB has worked with five small businesses from a range of sectors including health care, beauty, and textiles.
“Often these businesses are growing faster than their skills allow,” says Octavius. “We help them with any aspect—planning, sales, accounting, organizational design, operations, supply chain management, and more.”
With a year under its belt, the SMB is focused on boosting its client pipeline. “A lot of small business owners don’t realize our service is free,” Octavius says. “We have to educate them and find different ways to reach out. We’re working with the city of Boston’s Business Development office and similar development programs in smaller cities and towns.”
Octavius adds that the program has had no problem finding alumni to volunteer as coaches.
“Our alumni do this because they like giving back and helping businesses in our community get stronger,” he says. “Some are coming out of retirement to share their expertise. It helps them stay connected to HBS while helping businesses and their communities thrive. It’s a win-win situation for both sides.”
To learn more about HBS Club of New York Small Business Partnership Initiative, click here.
To learn more about the HBS Association of Boston Small Business Partners program, click here.
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