Consulting for a Cause 2022 Recap

By: Madeleine Castiglione - Communications Director

“We hope that you are all excited for a great day!” QSIA’s co-chairs, Clara and Nicole, announced to the executive team prior to enabling delegates to join the C4C zoom call. And excited we were; after two years of hosting online events, our team was confident in its ability to organize a virtual case competition. The minute that the delegates joined the call the zoom chat was filled with welcoming messages from our executive team, and even through a computer screen, you could tell that it was going to be a great day.

Every year QSIA (formerly known as QNP) hosts a case competition in partnership with a socially-oriented organization based in the Kingston area. This year, we had the opportunity to work with Sustainable Kingston, a non-profit organization that aims to support the Kingston community in achieving its vision of becoming Canada's most sustainable city. Sustainable Kingston is attempting to accomplish this goal through a variety of programs and events including the Kingston Community Climate Action Fund, the Sustainability.eco program, and more. However, there are several barriers that are currently preventing the organization from creating the impact it desires, primarily in the areas of marketing, finance, and operations. Consequently, we designed this year’s case with these issues in mind, with the hope that our delegates would be able to develop creative and affordable solutions for the organization to employ.

And they definitely delivered.

The event’s 50 delegates were split into 9 teams and each group presented an original solution to Sustainable Kingston’s problems. Some suggested that Sustainable Kingston should work with local Queen’s and high school students to increase the organization’s manpower, while others developed new and innovative promotional campaigns. Ultimately, the case competition was an incredible success for both the delegates and Sustainable Kingston, who were each able to find value in the experience.

“C4C was an amazing experience for me to work with industry professionals and my fellow students! I learned to think critically about real-life problems and discovered my passion for cases.” - Miki Tang, Comm’ 25

QSIA would like to thank Sustainable Kingston, our judges, and our delegates for making this our largest C4C event to date! Despite being online, we were all able to learn something and have fun throughout the day, and even had a few dance parties (courtesy of Kirsten, our Marketing Director)! 

And, I can confidently say that our team is already excited for Consulting for a Cause 2023.