Business Students Raised over £1050 for Charity Helped by IoD Members

Business Students Raised over £1050 for Charity Helped by IoD Members

By Dr John Phillips MBE FIoD

First year students arriving at the University of Wolverhampton’s Business School were set a new and exciting induction week challenge to raise money for a local charity.   The entire first year intake of Business School students (starting in Sept 2022) took part in a special IoD challenge meeting each other for the first time and working together in small groups of 6.  This was a great way for them to make new friends at the start of the semester and acted as a great ice breaker.   The IoD gave each group a £10 note with the task of designing and implementing business plans to create a profit.    Each group were asked to appoint a managing director to lead and a finance director to produce a set of accounts to be presented to IoD judges at the end of the project.   They were given just 3 days to complete this project.  The students were supported by a fantastic group of IoD Members (pictured) who acted as group mentors; encouraging, supporting, and giving advice where necessary.

The students came up with a range of great ideas some of which were buying and selling prepacked products, used academic books, some sponsored leg waxing, portrait drawing and various fun games to play with an entry fee.   One group had the clever idea of explaining their task to our neighbours Wolverhampton Wanderers FC.  WWFC gave them  a signed shirt which they successfully raffled, winning the prize for the most amount of money generated (winning group pictured with their goodie bags and certificates of achievement).  At the end of the third day, students were invited to share their learning in a short presentation to the IoD mentors and the tutors who had supported them. There was a huge amount of learning shared including the importance of knowing who your customer is and where to find them, how best to recognise and build on the strengths in your team, and the art of communication. All this learning before even a lesson has started!  

I have to admit that I was a little sceptical that it would be possible for them all to complete the task in just the three days allocated but our  students rose to the occasion and outperformed my expectations.   I must thank Paul Wood, Chairman of our IoD Black Country Branch who agreed to give the £10s and never doubted.  

Our chosen charity was the Good Shepherd in Wolverhampton https://www.gsmwolverhampton.org.uk/; a wonderful organisation providing meals, showers, accommodation, and support programmes for people with very genuine needs.  

None of this would  have been possible without the support of the University of Wolverhampton Business school and all our IoD Mentors who gave so much to make this £10 challenge project a huge success.