Thanks to the Fox School of Business’ Enterprise Management Consulting Practice (EMC) program, Temple students are getting a unique opportunity to harness their creative energies to solve the most critical challenges in business — right in their own backyard.

Through the EMC program, all M.B.A. students obtain real-world experience by working for clients. The clients benefit, as well: While providing a distinctive learning atmosphere for students, the EMC program has a long record of delivering actionable business results to its clients.

Students have provided professional quality market research, industry overviews, and competitive analysis for 116 clients, ranging from Fortune 500 firms to family businesses to high-technology startups to social enterprises. Student teams have helped 21 firms secure investments worth $35.5 million.

And the students have also fared well in the relationship. The program has resulted in more than 100 job offers to students directly from clients and through business networks developed during the course of projects.

In keeping with the Temple commitment to finding “diamonds in our own backyard,” last year students in the EMC program dedicated their time and knowledge to several businesses in the greater Philadelphia area that aim to yield social benefit. Here are two examples of how the teams made a difference.

Community Farm Program

More than a year ago, trustees of the Willistown Conservation Trust asked five M.B.A. students from the EMC program to study the feasibility of developing a sustainable farming venture that would benefit farmers and consumers in the Chester County area, while allowing the trust to fund care for preserved acres.

The concept of the program is simple but powerful. The program promotes a relationship between local farmers and the surrounding community, where consumers agree to buy what the farmer produces and the farmer provides a reliable source of fresh, locally grown, healthy food. The resulting business supports a farmer who, in turn, cares for the conserved land.

“Considering that most of the food we normally eat has traveled more than a thousand miles before reaching us, the food we buy at the local supermarket hardly can be described as farm fresh,” said Willistown Conservation Trust executive director Bonnie Van Alen.

Led by James Hutchin, a senior lecturer of general and strategic management, the M.B.A. students came up with an idea for a project that would not only grow fruits and vegetables, but would be a centerpiece for community education and hands-on activities that celebrate local farming.

The group then spent the next several months developing a business plan to provide a road map for the future. Throughout the study, the team also worked in conjunction with 18 community members. Together the student team and community members produced a pilot program centered on community-supported agriculture.

“We enlisted the help of the students so that they could provide us with a plan to move forward with this idea of community-based agriculture” said Betsy Block, director of development and public relations. “With their help we not only found a model that would work for our community but we were given a five-year financial plan that helped us realize that the project would become sustainable.”

The farm launched this spring using a local property, which had been managed without pesticides and herbicides. The farmer has planted a wide variety of food, from arugula to zucchini. The farm is funded by members, each of whom has purchased a “share” in advance, entitling them to a portion of the harvest each week during the season. (Visit the Willistown Community Farm in person, or online at www.wctrust.org/communityfarm/farm.html).

Group Homes Pharmacy Project

The Philadelphia nonprofit Resources for Human Development serves people in 11 states who are homeless, mentally ill, developmentally disabled or drug addicted. In an attempt to cut costs and find funding to help serve more people, it has begun initiating for-profit businesses, including SQA Pharmacy on Wissahickon Avenue.

The pharmacy delivers the monthly drug needs for clients who live in RHD group homes. These are consumers who are not able to go to a pharmacy to buy their own drugs. In order to provide this service, the pharmacy needed to study the rules and regulations of sending medication across state lines and to understand the structure of the pharmacy business.

That’s where EMC students came in. They conducted research about each state’s laws concerning pharmaceuticals and surveyed how other group homes get their medications and what drugs were most used by the residents of the group homes.

“The study was of great merit,” said Arnold Bank, director of SQA Pharmacy. “I enjoyed working closely with all of the students; they were very intelligent.”

Bank said the fruits of the students’ labor should help lead to significant growth of the pharmacy. “It has unlimited growth potential,” he said of the business. “The students’ work will be of great help not only to RHD homes, but also for us to solicit other group homes.”

Bank said 75 percent of the pharmacy’s profits will be reinvested in the community by RHD in the form of grants.

The dreams for SQA are beginning to be realized as the company has solidified its ability to serve RHD group homes and is beginning to offer its services to a wider base of customers.

—Written by Karen Shuey for the Fox School of Business