These initiatives will provide the project management knowledge needed for ICDC worthy PM papers.

Students will have 1:1 mentoring from the Go For Glass founder who has a ~90% track record of mentees qualifying for ICDC.  She has judged at both state and ICDC levels (and likely will do so again this year), so she knows what to look for.

She will also offer more general workshops and guidance to other students that are assisting with the events.

Grant amounts will depend on negotiated scope. 

CONFIDENCE CLOSET:

For the PMCA portion, the base grant would be $4k-$5k, but there will be optional tasks for another ~$2k.

I have estimated time costs of the labor, and I don’t expect student effort (after training) to be less than $30/hr.  If tasks turn out to be more work than expected, we can renegotiate the scope.

For the Confidence Closet PMCG side, there will be a minimum $500 grant, and the rest will depend on effectiveness and need.  For a hardworking, high needs student, we are willing to contribute the majority of their ICDC costs.

CLOTHING FUNDRAISER:

Profits will be driven by your effectiveness in both marketing and the event itself.  For a well-run event, the current inventory should bring in $10k.  This includes sorting out the high-end pieces (such as the like-new Ralph Lauren boots selling for $70 on ebay) and pricing accordingly.  

There are currently 1,000 curated pieces, and I could continue to add to that.  There is also the possibility of scaling down the Confidence Closet scope and providing another ~1500 slightly dressier items. 

In addition to selling items, I have some additional ideas for upselling customizations that we can discuss.

For the PMSP fundraiser and the PMCA Confidence Closet event, we are looking for chapters with fewer resources, newer advisors, or students facing financial barriers.

For the PMCG project, it should take place in a more affluent area where there is a higher chance of success for clothing drives and similar.

GFG will prioritize teams based on need, student enthusiasm, advisor support, logistical feasibility, location, and local market.

The initial idea was for popup clothing events that were more of a boutique environment, focusing on higher brands.

The idea grew from first-hand experiences of shopping patterns as a teen growing up in underserved communities, particularly in rural areas that did not have the more expensive retail markets supplying the local thrift stores. In addition, recent sourcing of items for the Confidence Closet has provided familiarity with the current second-hand market and the ability to identify quality items with resale potential.

Hosting the boutique at an easily accessible, shared location will also benefit from ‘herd' shopping. Feedback from others greatly reduces uncertainty about buying particular items, and they will often suggest other pieces for you to try as well. We saw a lot of this joint shopping behavior during the Confidence Closet pilot, even among students that otherwise wouldn’t have planned shopping trips together.

But come to us with your ideas!

No financial investment is required from chapters. GFG provides starting clothing inventory, on-loan racks and setup materials, boutique planning guidance, project management mentorship, and free workshops connected to the Confidence Closet or fundraiser.

These projects are currently being self-funded by Go For Glass board members. Once details are set in stone, we do hope to advertise for clothing donations in the Seattle area to offset spending.

There is no catch, other than wanting to find a chapter where students treat this as an opportunity versus a charity. Two of the GFG board members grew up in disadvantaged situations so know first hand the additional struggles compared to students in well funded, affluent areas. These projects could be compared to that of Running Start in which, yes, you are receiving monetary value, but you will need to work hard to properly benefit from it.

A win at DECA can greatly change a student’s trajectory. A previous mentee went on to be the first Alabama student to win 1st place in his event, and he has since been courted by multiple Ivy league schools.

Most of the Go For Glass resources exist to help everyone to a certain point, whereas the goal for this project is to truly change the lives for a handful of students.

Chapters are responsible for school approval, facilities requests, student coordination, and money handling through school-approved processes. Advisors need to sign off on logistics and financial oversight, but students should expect to lead most of the work.

We currently have ~1,000 pieces of non-business clothing that could be used in a fundraiser, ~1500 pieces of business-casual clothing that could be used for either event, and ~1,000 pieces of business professional clothing for the Confidence Closet.

Grant money or money raised from the fundraiser will go through the chapter or school’s approved financial process. Go For Glass is not in the pipeline for incoming money for the fundraiser.

The goal is for funds to help students reduce DECA-related costs, such as conference registration, travel, lodging, meals, or other approved chapter expenses.

Go For Glass is a support organization that has no official partnership with DECA. That said, the founder performing the mentoring is heavily involved in DECA, and has been an official judge at both state and ICDC levels.

Yes! We are open to tweaks to this vision, or other ideas completely, if they fit within our time and budget constraints.

Every adult on the Go For Glass side that will come into contact with the students either in person or online will apply as a volunteer with the chapter’s school and go through standard verification

We will implement other processes as needed to satisfy other school requirements.

Smaller chapters often have less purchasing power, resulting in higher travel costs for students compared to larger chapters. This challenge is then compounded by many of these schools being less funded overall.

While costs are not within the scope of this particular project, if time allows, we would like to explore this issue from the lens of a retired Program Manager that has dealt with process inefficiencies. Potential improvements may be possible merely by understanding in depth the strategies used by larger chapters and how to apply them on a smaller scale. Or, perhaps, there is a way to group smaller chapters together without exponential overhead.

It is possible that previous attempts of this have already failed, but we may be able to help if advisor time constraints have mostly prevented investigations.

If you are from an affluent area and believe you can help, then we would love to have you! If you find a DECA category to map your effort to, it may also qualify for 1:1 mentoring.