There can be a beneficial relationship between a university and its students and the community. Students gain valuable experience from working on real-world projects while organizations can receive the expertise they need from faculty and students to accomplish goals when they have limited resources….a win-win situation for the organization and students.

Here is an example of how one executive graduate class in organization development was able to work closely with a local non-profit organization and help it to achieve its goals. This summer, a cohort of students in Dr. Deborah O'Neil's Executive Master of Organization Development class - ORGD6070X (Mastering Change) – worked on an extensive assignment for Crime Victim Services (CVS) of Allen and Putnam Counties. This organization was selected out of a group of 16 organizations who submitted requests for assistance based on its mission, vision, and values to grow and help victims in need.

For this EMOD capstone project, students served as consultants and collected information by reviewing documents, conducting interviews by telephone, and researching the organization. CVS was requesting assistance in obtaining organization development and change strategies related to:

• Organization design and structure
• Integration of outcomes, outputs, work activities, and staff development
• Balanced scorecard ("dashboard") development
• Strategic planning guidance

The outcome of the project was to allow CVS to be a best practice organization using both victim service and non-profit management tools in its organizational integration, structure, and staff development for continued improvement and sustainability. The recommendations that came out of this assignment included funding, human resource development, dashboard metrics, board recruitment, and increased awareness in the community.

A number of the EMOD students who graduated from the program this summer were so engaged with this non-profit's project that they continue to work pro-bono on board development and strategic planning which were two of the cohort's recommendations in the final report.

CVS was founded in 1981 by local church volunteers in Lima, Ohio, who provided victims and offenders of felony property crimes the chance to meet each other and understand the crime's personal impact. At that time, about 200 victims and offenders were helped. Today, this organization now assists approximately 3,000 victims annually, including victims who seek help but never call the police. CVS assists victims in misdemeanor, juvenile, felony, and post-conviction problems, including minor property crimes to homicide. Recently CVS earned a grant to start rape crisis lines and train forensic nurses in Northwest Ohio.

Dr. O'Neil noted that Crime Victim Services was an exceptional client with which to work. "The executive director, David Voth, and his staff provided the students with unlimited access to constituents and stakeholders of the organization, and gave freely of their time and organizational knowledge to assist students in conducting an organizational assessment." She noted that "the students were motivated and inspired by the important work that Crime Victim Services does in the community, and that working with this organization in their capstone class was a high note on which to end their EMOD curriculum."