I DO is run as a collaboration between RSM and the I DO Student Board, which allows us to manage the complexity of the NGO challenges as well as integrate student feedback. This arrangement therefore brings us closer to the RSM mission to be a force for positive change in the world.
Master students and bachelor students currently in Year 2 who will join Year 3 in the academic year 2022-23 can apply to become student board members. You can read an overview of the organisation and the board positions that are available on the Student Board webpage. For the student board, we welcome applicants from all studies and of all faculties of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Applications are now closed.
The Student Board is responsible for connecting students and NGOs within the I DO course and supporting them to create positive impact as they take part. The Board is a unique group of motivated third-year BA and IBA students and master students who all have a passion for social impact. They demonstrate the spirit of I DO – as a course for students run by students.
*Academic Developers, Project Managers and Strategy Managers have similar responsibilities.
At the beginning of your Student Board year, you will craft a comprehensive overview of the project’s phases with the Vice President. This will help you establish deadlines and identify key targets. After this, a typical week involved discussing the last weekly board meeting results with your Vice President and giving your insights to the departments that you are responsible for. You will discuss and plan the organisation’s steps for the week.
You will review the progress and performance of the course with the Academic Development and Operations teams by hosting update meetings with our RSM Assistant Professor Taslim Alade twice a week, which will also act as a platform of support for university technicalities and information.
There may be ad hoc sessions or meetings about various topics – ranging from preparatory work to recruitment. You will end your week by hosting a weekly wrap-up Student Board meeting to share general organisational and stakeholder updates, department weekly progress reports, issues arising from them, and feedback.
There’s also a monthly meeting with the I Do Advisory Board to talk about the I DO project's future, to propose any necessary changes, and to reflect on progress.
At the beginning of your Student Board year, you will work with the President to craft a comprehensive overview of the different phases of the project to establish deadlines and identify key targets.
A typical week starts with a discussion with the President of the results of the last weekly Student Board meeting and the activities and progress of departments you are responsible for. You might discuss general organisational matters and plan your steps for the week.
During the week, you will follow the progress and performance of I DO with the I DO strategic development and marketing department, and provide information about the status of the organisation.
You will host update meetings every two weeks about the progress of the I DO course and project with RSM Faculty who can support you in your dealings with university information and regulations. There may be ad hoc sessions or meetings according to the phase of the course – this could mean preparatory work or recruitment, as well as your ambitions for the project.
You will end your week by hosting a weekly wrap-up Student Board meeting with the President to share general organisational and stakeholder updates, and to hear and discuss each department’s weekly progress and issues.
Every month, you could be meeting the I Do Advisory Board to talk about the progress of the I DO project, propose changes, or discuss the future of the project beyond the course at RSM.
No two weeks are the same for the Head of Academic Development. During teaching periods, you will be scheduling and participating in meetings with external speakers who will be instructing students on marketing, fundraising, NGO analysis, and consultants, for example. You might have to prepare for these meetings – as well as researching potential external speakers. Not all teaching is done by external speakers. You will teach some of it and prepare workshops for students. Workshops can be in-person or online. To ensure that the whole Academic Team is moving in the same direction, most weeks you and your team will meet to establish the content of forthcoming lectures and prepare any necessary support such as designing presentation slides or researching and uploading reading materials. This can take between an hour or five hours per week, depending on the complexity of the sessions.
There will be a weekly hour-long meeting with the Student Board to review the academic department's progress.
Your responsibilities include managing the I DO Course on the Canvas platform; issuing weekly announcements, answering questions in the discussion section on Canvas, and keeping the modules updated. You will need to ensure students are kept informed of the course’s progress and updates.
Your week includes working with I DO stakeholders for scheduling, planning, and grading assignments.
No two weeks are the same for the Academic Developer. During teaching periods, you will schedule and participate in meetings with external speakers who will be giving instruction to students about marketing, fundraising, NGO analysis, and consultants, for example. You may have to prepare before these meetings as well as researching potential external speakers.
Not all teaching in the I DO course is done by external speakers. Sometimes you will have to teach or prepare workshops for students, and deliver them either in person or online.
Most weeks, you and your team will meet to ensure the whole Academic Team is moving forward in the same direction, and to establish the content of lectures and prepare any necessary support such as designing slides or researching and uploading reading materials. This can take between one to five hours per week depending on the complexity of the sessions.
You will attend a one-hour Student Board meeting every week to give an update on the academic department's progress. Meanwhile, you share the responsibility with the Head of Academic Development to manage the I DO course on the Canvas platform, send out weekly announcements, answer questions in the discussion section, and keep the modules updated. This is to ensure the students are kept updated about the course.
Your week will include working with I DO stakeholders on scheduling, planning, and grading assignments.
Every week is different and your work depends on current topics that are relevant to stakeholders, so it’s probably more accurate to describe a typical month instead. Your greatest workload will come in the first few months of the academic year because you need to recruit 13 NGOs before the start of the course. Recruiting them will require several interviews and a careful assessment against the established metric. There’s an onboarding period for students, during which you will assist the Student Operations Manager to assign 13 student consultant teams.
In a typical month after the onboarding process is complete, you will oversee work produced by four of the student consultant teams for their respective NGOs – you will closely monitor the relationship between student teams and NGOs. This is where your skills at problem solving and your quick reactions are of utmost importance, to respond to issues as they arise.
You will also be responsible for other external stakeholders in addition to the NGO stakeholders, and for maintaining a healthy relationship with them.
At the beginning of the Student Board year – and before the start of the academic year – you will review the successful student applicants and form them into teams of five. After that, every week will be different according to how the projects are going; this is why you will need good prioritisation skills to be able to focus on the most important tasks in multiple projects.
A typical week could start with planning the next social event for the I DO community, then catching up with fellow department members and discussing the feedback they have received from stakeholders such as our partner NGOs. You will review the issues raised with individual students or teams.
You are expected to attend most of the academic workshops during the week so you can follow students’ progress and keep up to date with the course itself. You will end the week with a general meeting of the Student Board to discuss progress of other departments and share information.
As a member of the strategic department of I DO, you’ll be responsible for maintaining the long-term vision and operations of I DO. You can expect to join two meetings per week; one with your strategy team and one with the whole Student Board, in addition to non-regular meetings with the I DO Advisory Board, other I DO departments, and external (non-NGO) stakeholders. You can expect to attend an average of three hours of meetings per week. Some weeks will be dedicated to bigger projects that take up all your time, for example those related to finances, legal issues, onboarding or recruitment. Other weeks will have fewer obligations, in which case you’ll have the opportunity to use your proactiveness to work on your strategic proposals and projects. Being a member of the I DO Strategy Department will give you freedom to work on projects you believe will strengthen the future of I DO, and having a proactive attitude is therefore important for succeeding in the role of Strategy Manager.
Your week might start with a general meeting with I DO Student Board members and the Vice President to discuss budget allocations for marketing and other projects. After the Board has decided on the budgets for projects, you might schedule another meeting with the I DO Strategy Department to align the vision of I DO with the various marketing initiatives that deliver these objectives. Afterwards, you will create engaging content by collaborating with the Academic Development team and the Operations team. You will ensure that all of I DO’s social media pages are updated and deliver the correct messaging. You will also keep track of what our partner NGOs are doing and what other prominent NGOs are posting on social media so you can share that. Your week might also include brainstorming ideas for potential on-campus marketing ideas to promote upcoming events.
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Prof. Lucas Meijs is professor of Strategic Philanthropy and Volunteering at RSM and has advised the Student Board since the beginning of the I DO project. He now supports Taslim Alade in actively running the I DO course in co-creation with the student board.
Dr Taslim Alade is a lecturer in the department of Business-Society Management at RSM and the coordinator of the I DO course. He also teaches, coordinates the Professional Development course, and is a thesis coach to RSM master students. Taslim is very passionate about lecturing because it aligns with his personal value of positively impacting society via the students that he teaches and coaches.
