Innovative funding idea for UNICEF, designed by FEB Corporate Master Programme students

Students of the Corporate Master Programme (CMP) of the Faculty of Economics and Business have come up with a new funding initiative for UNICEF, called ‘Children for Children’ and UNICEF is very enthusiastic to implement this. Graduate Iris Kerstens who participated in the CMP, is now hired by UNICEF to work on the project.

UNICEF is one of the participants in FEB’s corporate master traineeship programme in which selected top students are linked to top organisations after completing their MSc courses. Next to their individual placements at organisations like ING, Gasunie and Conference Board, the students get a team assignment to develop a corporate social responsibility initiative. The first cohort of ten students have come up with a new funding initiative for UNICEF, ‘Children for Children’. Both FEB and of the FEB Alumni Network rewarded an amount of seed capital to this project, each donating 5.000 euros.

Engage parents and children

The idea of the FEB students, ‘Children for children’, uses existing members to attract younger donors, preferable within their family. Thereby, older members can be seen as ‘parents’, that recruit new members of the UNICEF ‘family’. Targeting new members as part of existing donor’s families is valuable, since parents often pass their values on to their children, meaning that these new donors are likely to support UNICEF in the long term. Moreover, it is difficult for UNICEF to attract younger donors, since it lacks a database of possible donors, and because younger generations and especially students are hard to reach. The students have developed several strategies to engage parents and children in the format.

Former CMP student Iris Kerstens: “Unicef is very enthusiastic about the concept we have developed and grateful about the contribution of FEB and the Alumni Network”. Since Iris is now appointed as project manager at UNICEF she can help to further develop the project and also include the students of the next cohort of the CMP programme in new projects.

CMP, next edition

The next cohort will start in September with additional placements in new companies. Students can apply for this until 1 April.

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