Community Outreach

Reaching out

Many Broad School students, faculty, and staff are involved in philanthropic activities of one kind or another.

Annual Food Fight

Each year, the MBA Association participates in a national competition to gather food for hunger-relief organizations called the MBA Food Fight. Created by the University of Michigan's Global Citizenship Club in 1995, the national Food Fight event helps the American Red Cross and America's Second Harvest feed the hungry in the local communities of the competing business schools.

Food Fight facts:

• Broad competes with 20 other top MBA programs from around the country, and while we are the smallest program in the Food Fight, our MBA students consistently win it.
• This past year, we took first place in the "pounds collected per student" category, with 550 pounds of food per student collected, five times more than the second place University of Chicago's 113 pounds per student.
• Broad donated $20,020 in 2008 to the Mid-Michigan Chapter of the American Red Cross, with every dollar donated paying for the cost of seven pounds of food for families in crisis.

Charity auction to fight cancer

Since 2001, the MBA Association has continued its philanthropic commitment each spring by hosting an annual charity auction.

Charity auction items of interest:

• It is an event that MBA students connect to personally that enables them to contribute to the fight against childhood cancer.
• MBA students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to bid on items and events, purchase raffle tickets, and make personal donations.
• In 2008, the MBA Association raised more than $10,000 through this live auction.
• Proceeds go to the National Childhood Cancer Foundation to further their research.

Race for the Cure

The MBA Association joins the fight against breast cancer each spring by sponsoring the Broad MBA Team in the Susan G. Komen Greater Lansing Race for the Cure. When Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister Susan G. Komen she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever, finding a cure for this devastating disease was her goal. In 1982, her promise became Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and a global breast cancer movement was launched.

Race for the Cure report:

• The Broad MBA Team has been among the top 10 money raisers in the Greater Lansing Race for the Cure, with funds going to support national breast cancer research as well as local screening and education programs.
• In 2009, with more than 5,200 participants and close to 230 teams, the Broad MBA Team finished 8th overall, raising nearly $4,600.
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure has invested more than $1.2 billion toward achieving a world without breast cancer, a disease that will afflict 1 in 8 women in the U.S.
• An estimated 5 million Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer—and more than 1 million could die—over the next 25 years. Worldwide, an estimated 25 million women will be diagnosed with it.

A place to call home

In addition to the Food Fight and the charity auction, the MBA Association and individual students coordinate several activities that benefit the community one day per semester. Association members have also mentored local school children, spending an hour a week with a child to help with reading skills and giving extra confidence-building attention.