Ginkgo helps build local partnerships
The Hoboken Business Alliance partners with the Stevens Institute of Technology to provide assistance to small businesses.
What do you get when you combine local college students with small businesses in need of assistance during a pandemic? We’re finding out in Hoboken, but one thing is for sure — you get a lot of happy business owners who found themselves overwhelmed by the sudden changes to the local economy.
In June, the Hoboken Business Alliance (HBA) worked with the School of Business at Stevens Institute of Technology — the largest university in the city — to pair undergraduate and graduate students with local businesses. The goal was twofold — give the small businesses resources and technology to navigate the sudden challenges brought on by the pandemic, and enable students to engage with real-world business challenges right in their local brick-and-mortar retail community.
To help facilitate this partnership, the HBA worked with Ginkgo, as well as the City of Hoboken’s planning department, to organize a comprehensive directory of local businesses and contacts for these establishments. Ginkgo helped map and categorize all businesses, as well as create a custom survey for each business in the new directory.
The survey enabled both the HBA to gauge unique needs among the community of business owners and Stevens to identify students best suited to meeting these needs.
In the process, the survey also enabled the HBA to confirm the accuracy of their records on the businesses in their directory. Around 400 businesses were included in the initial outreach. And more than 20 of these businesses have now been successfully paired with Stevens students. As a result of the positive feedback and impact so far, Stevens hopes to expand on this program and partnership with the HBA in the future.
