USC Students to Advise Small Businesses in L.A.

USC’s Marshall School of Business is expected to announce today the launch of a program in which students will give free financial and managerial advice to small businesses and nonprofit groups located near its Los Angeles campus.

The effort, which is being done in partnership with the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Orfalea Family Foundation, is modeled on a program begun by former President Clinton in the Harlem area of New York in which New York University students provide counseling services to neighborhood businesses.

As in New York, the USC students will offer advice on such topics as financial analysis, accounting, marketing and business development.

The undergraduate and graduate students will receive course credit.

The program will begin in the fall with Stephen Byars, a business school professor, as executive director.

The goal is to teach the business owners how to computerize operations, manage inventories and other basics, Clinton said in an interview.

In Harlem, he said, the students found that most businesses operated on month-to-month leases, which left them vulnerable to sudden rent increases or evictions as the area slowly gentrified. The students helped the owners negotiate long-term leases.

The program also gives business owners a chance to step back from daily operations to plot long-term strategy.

“They’re working themselves to death just to keep the doors open,” Clinton said of small-business owners.

“It leaves you very little time to examine where you are and where you need to go.”

The Clinton foundation developed the original program and will offer guidance and assistance to USC.

For the students, the program, to be called USC ImpactLA, offers hands-on experience and the chance to play a role in the local business community, said Elizabeth Garrett, USC’s vice provost for academic affairs.

The Orfalea Foundation, launched by Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea, contributed $2 million to underwrite the program. Orfalea is a 1971 graduate of USC.