Business Schools

Business schools and social impact community projects

Innovative experiential learning

Our social impact projects integrate innovative experiential learning into Business School programmes and are ideal for students on MBA / MIM / MIF / Master’s courses, or as part of Executive Education programmes.

With years of proven experience working with world-class business schools, our projects are created bespoke to each educational establishment and tailored to the curriculum following consultation with your faculty.

Each project challenges students regardless of age or experience and provides a demanding but fun environment to challenge each cohort, and individual, beyond their perceived limits.

Participants learn invaluable team, leadership and project management skills while improving their self-confidence and personal effectiveness. The experience brings about real social impact and is life-changing, enabling participants to put into practice the learning as part of their studies.

Splash Projects continued to run Covid-safe programmes during the pandemic. Our work with MBA students at IE Business School in Madrid in 2020 demonstrated first-hand the students’ desire to move away from online learning and reconnect physically with their fellow students and come together to make a real difference within their local community.

These real-life challenges provide a platform to take students out of their comfort zones and into environments where students can develop exponentially.

Skills gained

  • Practice working as a high-performance team
  • Explore different leadership styles
  • Experience VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) conditions
  • Acquire a common team history that can be used back in the classroom
  • Gain a better understanding of the course programme objectives and behaviours required in business
  • Gain experience that will embed Social Responsibility into the DNA of future leaders and demonstrate the importance of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

Options

Team Challenges

Team Challenges give students the opportunity to develop as part of a self-aware, highly effective team. They are an invaluable way for a new cohort of students to bond.

Leadership Challenges

Leadership Challenges build on Team Challenges, giving Business School students the opportunity to use skills learnt in the classroom in a real-life environment over a period of time. Splash experts mentor the student management team over the months leading up to the project delivery, allowing the student management team to practice key skills including, stakeholder management, project management, resourcing, planning, fundraising and communications.

Strategic Management Projects / Immersive experiences

Strategic Management Projects give students the opportunity to work in small teams on a four – eight-week real-life project. Splash sources interesting projects for Business Schools, which could take place anywhere in the world, and have a charity / community impact / Sustainable Development Goals focus. Students will have a strategic impact on an organisation that would otherwise be unable to afford management consultancy services. Work can be supported by a Business School tutor and earn students credits towards their academic courses.

Study / Field trips

Study / Field Trips offer experiential learning expeditions to locations that would otherwise be inaccessible to students. Various activities can be included such as meeting local entrepreneurs, reviewing local business processes, developing business plans and improving infrastructure.

Rapid Response

Rapid Response command tasks provide students with a series of challenges / disaster relief scenarios to work through. Every student will have the chance to lead at some point in the day, testing strategic thinking, communication and problem-solving skills. Rapid Response command tasks introduce global issues and Sustainable Development Goals, helping students understand how to contribute to society and make a difference.

In addition to these projects, Splash Projects also provide several services, which can be bolted on to our projects or purchased separately.

Bolt-on services

Return on Learning workshops

Our workshops involve taking the project learnings back into the lecture room with the aim of improving performance longer term. Participants reflect on behaviours during the project and take part in a deep-dive discussion about how the project went in order to learn from mistakes and make improvements.

Coaching

During a Splash Project, our academic experts and coaches observe the participants as they work through their challenge. Then, on completion, they will assist with specific further development, either on a one-to-one basis or with small teams of participants. As a result, individuals have demonstrated improved work performance, more effective communication and increased self-confidence, while companies have frequently extolled the virtue of this service, reporting that they ‘more than recoup their investment’.

Media Services

We can provide professional videography and written and photographic coverage of your project for your internal and external PR, including press releases, magazine articles and social media content.

If you would like to discuss any of these projects or services with a member of the Splash team, or get a quote, please contact us.

Testimonial

It has been a long time since I’ve been impressed like this – the experience blew my mind! It was perfect symphony. It was the best learning experience I have seen in such a short period of time. Just wow!

Muriel Barnier, Programme Director, CEDEP, France

The impact a Splash Project has at the beginning of an MBA programme, in and out of the classroom, is really quite extraordinary. In the classroom, it brings a very early reflection on behaviours in teams and individually. It also brings a different perspective on studying business. The impact out of the classroom of doing good cannot be over-emphasised. There is a feel-good factor that allows students to get in the right spirit early in the programme.

Stephanie Villemane, Associate Dean (Masters in Management and Masters in Finance), IE Business School, Madrid

During the summer of 2021, Splash delivered five projects involving 1,000 MIM students at the same time, located in five different regions of France including Bordeaux, Paris and Angers. The organisation and the staff were wonderful – Simon and the team really listened to us and worked so well with our students. In such a short time Splash enabled our students to do something amazingly professional and they were really able to bond with one another.

Marie Courtois, director of student experiences, ESSCA, France

Splash Projects are all sweaty, all different, and all real. On the one hand, students learn so much about collaboration, teamwork, cohesion, leading with impact and overcoming challenges. And then, on the other, it’s heart-warming for them to see they’re having such an impact on people in need.

Thomas Hellwig, Adjunct Professor of Leadership, INSEAD, France

Splash Projects inspire participants to use their humanity and morality to do what’s right in business. The Splash team is hugely engaged and very focused on supporting the students and maintaining safety. Splash projects have taught me that having a real purpose builds resilience, and enthusiasm is contagious.

Loïc Sadoulet, Professor of Economics, INSEAD, France

The MBA programme consists of a lot of clever minds that tend to think that solutions come from complex analysis. The Splash Project taught us that basic common sense is just as important. The Splash team forced us to work together in ways that revealed our personalities. This helped us to better work together in our groups back in the classroom.

Hesse McKechnie, MBA student, INSEAD, France

Can we help with your team building project?