Sweet Success

The undergraduate chapter of Net Impact, a new Carlson School student organization focused on social responsibility, organized a Cookie Challenge day in December to help raise money for the Cookie Cart, a Twin Cities-area nonprofit. Amanda Donohue-Hansen, Fall 2009 co-president of Net Impact (pictured above), organized the Cookie Challenge event with fellow co-president, Tommy DeMarco.

For one day, students from Net Impact, the Entrepreneurship Club, and Truth in Business took over operations of the Cookie Cart with the goal of selling more than 2,000 cookies across campus. Carlson School students, led by Net Impact members, planned and implemented various selling techniques, including preorders by University of Minnesota faculty, campus-wide bake sales, and holiday cookie preordering. 

Cookie Cart provides Minneapolis youth with the opportunity to develop life, leadership, and employment skills through the operation of a retail/commercial bakery. Some of the youth participants arrived on campus to sell cookies alongside Carlson School students (pictured below). 

They met the challenge, selling more than 2,100 cookies. Net Impact plans to work with the Cookie Cart again in the future and further its aim of giving students the experience and opportunities to apply and improve their business knowledge through business-focused community service.