Chicago Booth School to Help GiGi’s Playhouse

GiGi’s Playhouse has officially been chosen by the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business for two separate projects!

The first initiative is a 10-week consulting project as part of their Social Enterprise Initiative. This project is part of a project within the MBA program called the Social Enterprise Lab that works on a handful of carefully selected projects and we were chosen!!! The project runs from January 5 to March 11, and GiGi’s was chosen based on 3 key factors:

• They LOVE our mission!
• The project scope is aligned with class goals, student skills and what can reasonably be achieved in a 10-week course.
• A Booth alumni will host the project and help manage the students’ efforts.

Our project is centered around GiGi’s retail model, and it will focus on new revenue and marketing opportunities. The project will also focus on variations in scope and scale for the retail model that can accommodate Playhouses who want to embark on a career training program for their adult participants, but do not have the square footage and/or bandwidth to take on full retail store operations and expenses. This initiative can result in a slimmed-down retail option that could be leveraged within existing Playhouse spaces.

To help accomplish this goal, the project team will also interview contacts from several locations looking to roll out a retail and/or career training model in 2016, and clearly define 3-4 different options for scalable execution. Each option will need to be able to exemplify common brand elements and objectives, but must provide variation in terms of the level of depth, investment and available space.

All of these efforts will allow our Playhouse network to leverage learnings from the project and make an informed decision about how best to launch career training programs and/or retail operations in their community.

The second initiative is rooted in our educational programs. A team from BoothEd who will build a model for adult programming that outlines “life after the internship program”. They will specifically focus on student engagement goals through avenues of externship opportunities, job placements, volunteer opportunities and continued education (possibly in the form of career workshops at the Playhouse). They’ll also build a model partnership strategy that targets potential employers and “sells” our programs in the best way possible.

THANK YOU to the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business for believing in our mission and our ability to help more people achieve their Best of All!!!