How do teachers, students and organisations collaborate to drive social impact?
This mission has been at the heart of my teaching practice as lecturer and subject coordinator on a large subject: Business and Social Impact. This is a core subject of the Bachelor of Business and enrols more than 2,000 students per year.
In this subject, students learn how to generate positive social impact by drawing from multiple disciplinary perspectives and Indigenous business knowledge. Early in the subject, students are introduced to major social and environmental problems such as climate change, gender inequality and labour exploitation. They are guided by teaching staff to develop their skills in crafting business solutions for positive social impact as future business leaders.
Through partnerships and collaborations, benefits also flow to organisations who are involved in the subject in developing innovative assessment and bespoke curriculum resources for students. In this article, I share my experience in two collaborations with partner organisations to drive social impact.
‘Hacking’ it for The Heart Foundation
I embedded an innovative hackathon challenge in the subject, where students were immersed in the experience of ‘hacking’ a real-world social problem in small groups and designing creative solutions to address the problem.
This came about through a partnership with Communiteer in early 2024. Communiteer is a social enterprise focused on facilitating volunteering experiences to lift student engagement and generate social change. Together, we co-designed and embedded work-integrated learning through a ‘hackathon’ assessment task. It mapped skill development of students to course learning outcomes and brought industry partners directly into the classroom.
In the assessment, students ‘hacked’ a real-world social challenge for charity organisation The Heart Foundation in a fast-paced, structured workshop across 6 hours. Students were tasked with designing a community fundraiser campaign for young people, then pitched their ideas to the industry partner. They were supported by mentors from corporate organisations who coached students in their creative problem-solving and used Miro to ideate solutions.
Through measuring change, this innovative assessment showed evidence of improvements in students’ skills in communication, collaboration, problem-solving and teamwork. The majority of students reported that the program allowed them to make professional connections, improved their employability, inspired them to volunteer in the future and engaged them in the ‘real world’ beyond university.
By engaging in the hackathon, I was able to gain a better understanding of the needs of local communities, individuals and the challenges that the organization faces.
Student feedback
The Heart Foundation said they were “overwhelmed by the outstanding quality and ideas that were generated” by UTS students from this initiative. There was anticipation for these novel ideas to feed into their future campaign strategy to engage young people.
Co-designing curriculum with Story Factory
My collaborations with industry in the subject have also focused on building students’ foundational knowledge of social impact through developing new curriculum resources. Students learn about the social impact activities of real organisations and the challenges faced in their work.
In 2023, I led a Business School grant to co-design teaching content for social impact in collaboration with other academics in the Management Discipline Group, including Dr Najmeh Hassanli, Dr Simone Faulkner and Dr Adam Cohen.
We partnered with Story Factory, a not-for-profit organization aimed at building the writing and literacy skills of young people from under-resourced communities. In this partnership, we produced a suite of bespoke concept videos that were recorded in short interviews with the partner organization. We embedded these concept videos in Canvas learning modules for the subject, linked to key topics.
Through the direct voice of the partner organisation, students learnt:
- how this not-for-profit organisation measures social impact using real-life examples
- how to effectively engage stakeholders in social impact processes
- how to work with and learn from Indigenous communities in business contexts
I also co-designed a group assessment task with Story Factory which embedded authentic problem-solving of a social problem. Students were tasked with designing their own businesses to develop the writing skills of young people in under-resourced communities. They drew inspiration from the work of the partner organisation, enabling them to apply subject concepts and develop recommendations. Select groups were invited to present their solutions to the partner organization in an end-of-semester Social Impact Challenge.
Hackathon winners 
Social Impact Challenge winners
Leading social change
UTS business students are future leaders of social change. Through collaborating with different organisations for social impact, undergraduate students have:
- better understood real-life complex social problems
- developed the capacity to ideate solutions
- connected directly with industry and community
- built their skills to enact personal, professional and social responsibility
Collaborating on different teaching and learning initiatives also offers value for partner organisations in hearing the innovative ideas of students on ways to tackle social problems and support the social impact sector.