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Strategy Challenge

Strategy Challenge

Morgan Stanley's flagship pro bono program brings together our rising talent to help nonprofits solve strategic challenges.

Our Impact

195 Nonprofits Served

195

Nonprofits Served

159K Hours Volunteered

159K

Hours Volunteered

$28M* Value of Hours Volunteered

$28M*

Value of Hours Volunteered

15 Years of Impact

15 Years

of Impact

What’s the Challenge

Launched in 2009, the Strategy Challenge is our annual signature pro bono program, when cross-divisional teams of Morgan Stanley employees help nonprofit organizations in the New York metro area and London address key strategic questions.

  1. Program Focus

    The program focuses on challenges that have a meaningful impact on an organization’s ability to deliver on its mission.

     

    Over an eight-to-ten-week engagement, employee teams leverage their expertise to provide customized analysis and implementable action plans, along with tools for future assessments and decision-making.

  2. Expert Leadership

    The program culminates in a day-long event, during which teams present their recommendations to senior firm leadership, a panel of nonprofit sector experts, and the current year’s cohort of nonprofit leaders.

     

    Team recommendations have led to more effective business models, expanded services, productivity improvements, and more—all in service of the nonprofit's mission.

  3. Participants: Nonprofit Organizations

    Nonprofit organizations in the New York metro area and London are invited to apply; applicants are assessed through a rigorous and competitive selection process.

     

    Selected nonprofits demonstrate the mission-critical nature of their strategic question and will have conducted preliminary research to support a consulting engagement.

  4. Participants: Morgan Stanley Employees

    Business units nominate select rising talent who are then chosen for teams through a competitive selection process.

     

    Each team encompasses employees with diverse skillsets and competencies to ensure they are capable of addressing the nonprofit’s unique challenge.

     

    The Firm’s senior leaders serve as advisors to guide and support each team.

Latest Stories

2024 Participants
UK Strategy Challenge
AllChild
AllChild, formerly West London Zone, supports communities in underserved neighbourhoods across the UK to help children and young people build the social, emotional, and academic skills they need to flourish.
UK Strategy Challenge
Anthony Nolan
Anthony Nolan is a charity dedicated to unlocking the potential of human cells. Over the last 50 years, they’ve led the way in stem cell donation for transplants and cell and gene therapies. By uniting people and science, they’re growing a world-leading stem cell register, so everyone who needs a transplant can find their lifesaving match.
US Strategy Challenge
Bottom Line
Bottom Line partners with degree-aspiring students of color from under-resourced communities to get into and through college and successfully launch a career.
US Strategy Challenge
Counseling in Schools, Inc.
The mission of Counseling in Schools (CIS) is to enhance children’s mental, social and emotional well-being, supporting their success in school and life.
US Strategy Challenge
India Home, Inc
India Home is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the needs of and empowering the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean senior immigrant community in New York City through culturally competent services.
US Strategy Challenge
PACT
PACT protects every child’s right to grow up free from child sexual exploitation and trafficking through education, legislative advocacy and partnerships.
US Strategy Challenge
PFLAG NYC
PFLAG NYC provides programs, services and resources that keep the parents, family members, and friends of LGBTQ+ people close and loving, schools safe, and communities and workplaces inclusive.
UK Strategy Challenge
Place2Be
Place2Be is a children’s mental health charity with over 25 years’ experience working with pupils, families and staff in UK schools. The charity provides mental health support in schools through one-to-one and group counselling, expert training and professional qualifications.
US Strategy Challenge
Prospect Schools
Prospect Schools is a K-12 college preparatory community where excellent teachers prepare a diverse student body to have a positive impact on society and a lifelong passion for learning.
US Strategy Challenge
Rising Ground
Driven by the belief that each of us can thrive when life has hope and opportunity, Rising Ground provides caring support and proven paths to positive change, helping children, adults, and families rise above adversity.
US Strategy Challenge
Sakhi for South Asian Survivors
Sakhi for South Asian Survivors exists to represent the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean diaspora living in America in a survivor-led movement for gender-justice by providing culturally competent direct services such as a helpline, counseling, advocacy, housing assistance, economic empowerment, food justice, elder abuse intervention, and youth programs that honor the collective and inherent power of all survivors of violence.
UK Strategy Challenge
Save the Children
In the UK and around the world, Save the Children makes sure children keep safe, healthy and learning. They have helped 45 million children worldwide get the medicine, good food, and education they need. With children, for children, they change the future for good.
UK Strategy Challenge
The Felix Project
The Felix Project believes in a vision of London where no-one goes hungry and good food is never wasted. They collect fresh, nutritious food that cannot be sold and deliver this surplus food to charities and schools so they can provide healthy meals and help the most vulnerable in our society.
US Strategy Challenge
The New York Women’s Foundation
The New York Women’s Foundation creates an equitable and just future for women and families by uniting a cross-cultural alliance that ignites action and invests in bold, community-led solutions across the city.  
UK Strategy Challenge
YoungMinds
YoungMinds is the UK’s leading charity fighting for children and young people's mental health. They want to see a world where no young person feels alone with their mental health, and all young people get the mental health support they need, when they need it, no matter what.

Recent Strategy Challenge Participants

Learn about the nonprofits that received pro bono strategic advice through our program.
Recent Participants
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*According to standards developed by the Taproot Foundation.

Data are as of June 2024 and are subject to change without notice.

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CRC 3745957  09/2024