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Chevy and MBAs Across America Work to Help Small Businesses

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Chevy and MBAs Across America Work to Help Small Businesses

Chevy and MBAs Across America Work to Help Small Businesses ©GM

The Chevy Volt will be recharging American small businesses this summer as part of a partnership between Chevy and MBAs Across America, a nonprofit organization meant to help local entrepreneurs improve their businesses with the help of MBA students from elite schools.

Chevy and MBAs Across America Work to Help Small Businesses

Pictured: Detroit Deputy Mayor Isaiah McKinnon (left, center) and GM CEO Mary Barra (right, center), with several Detroit business owners

MBAs Across America was started just last year when four Harvard MBA students took to the streets on an 8,000 mile journey. Along the way, they met with local businessmen and –women and offered free business counseling. Their trip proved incredibly successful, so two of the four students went on to turn the program into the nonprofit that it is today.


Related: 2014 Chevrolet Volt Offers More Value


The nonprofit has grown to include eight MBA teams from several different schools, including Babson, Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, University of California Berkeley, and University of Michigan. The eight teams will hit up 25 cities this summer, including Detroit, helping 50 small businesses in total. And thanks to the partnership between Chevy and MBAs Across America, the students will be making their trips in shocking style: behind the wheel of a Chevy Volt.

Chevy and MBAs Across America Work to Help Small Businesses

The MBA teams tour the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant that manufactures the Volt.

In total, Chevy will provide 12 Volts for use in the program, whose importance cannot go unnoted. For example, Social Club Grooming Company in Detroit participated in the program last year and has since seen revenue triple for the hair salon. The salon also recently received a $100,000 no-equity investment from a local investor.

“Detroit is the spiritual birthplace of MBAs Across America, so it is fitting that our movement enters its second year thanks to the visionary support of GM — an iconic American institution that we fundamentally believe will help lead the resurgence of Detroit in the years to come,” commented Casey Gerald, founder and chief executive of MBAs Across America. “We are inspired by GM’s work in the Motor City, and thank them for their support in powering our teams’ journeys in Chevy Volts.”

Chevy and MBAs Across America Work to Help Small Businesses

The MBA students surround a Chevy Volt
Photo by Steve Fecht for Chevrolet

In total, the team will help out seven Detroit area businesses, including Social Club Grooming Company once more, as well as Detroit Empowerment Plan, EliTea, Ellis Island Tea, Oakland Living, Social Sushi, and Sweet Potato Sensations.


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“We wanted to help enable the vision of MBA students, entrepreneurs, and catalysts coming together to make America stronger, one community at a time,” said GM CEO, Mary Barra. “We’re delighted to be a partner in this extraordinary program and we could not be more proud that Detroit is at the heart of it.”