180Degrees Consulting Tokyo (Eng)

■Philosophy/Guiding Principle・History

The Tokyo branch of 180 Degrees Consulting, a student organization founded in 2008 at the University of Sydney, was established in 2012 by students mainly from the University of Tokyo.
Its mission is twofold: to provide high-quality support that enables nonprofit organizations and social enterprises to maximize their impact, and to cultivate the next generation of leaders who can contribute to society.
 

■Activities

The organization focuses on two main areas:

• Providing consulting-based support to NPOs, NGOs, and other social organizations
• Developing members within the organization through training sessions, study groups, and hands-on advice during activities

Consulting projects are conducted twice a year—in the spring (early May to late July) and fall (early November to late January), each lasting about two and a half months. During the projects, teams engage in frequent discussions internally and maintain close communication with the client to develop proposals, which are presented at a final reporting session at the end of the project.

While the primary scope of the projects is to deliver proposals, in recent years, there has been a growing trend toward supporting implementation as well.
At any given time, about three projects are running simultaneously, with consultants divided among them.
Operations team members sometimes participate in the projects but primarily handle project management, client coordination, quality control of deliverables, outreach, and recruitment.

Prior to the start of each project cycle, members undergo a training session led by external professionals, allowing them to gain practical consulting knowledge.

■Member Composition

**
Number of Members
**
Operations Team: 20 members
Consultant Team: 10 members

Academic Year

From 1st-year undergraduates to master’s students

Core Leadership Year

Primarily 2nd- and 3rd-year university students

Gender Ratio

Approximately 60% male, 40% female

Recruitment Periods

Twice a year: mid-April and mid-September

Backgrounds

Members come from a wide range of universities and have diverse academic and personal backgrounds.
While many are students from liberal arts faculties, the group also includes students from STEM fields and overseas universities.
A significant number of members come from top Japanese universities such as the University of Tokyo, Hitotsubashi, Waseda, and Keio—particularly from humanities and social sciences departments including economics, political science, and languages.

• PEAK/GPEAK 　〇
  Exchage students 〇

• Language requirement:
  None

• Commitment Requirement:
  All members are free to participate in any frequency and amount of commitment

Regular Activities

• Consultant members have 1–2 meetings per week. In most weeks, there are two meetings, but during periods with heavier individual workloads, there may be only one. Even so, including meetings and individual tasks, members typically spend over 10 hours per week on activities.

• Before presentations, consultants get especially busy. It’s not just about having more meetings—rather, it involves creating presentation materials, receiving feedback from operations members, revising, and aligning or rehearsing the final presentation.

• Operations team members are required to attend a weekly general meeting. In addition, they participate in meetings within their specific departments.

During Contest / Event Periods

• The period leading up to a presentation tends to be particularly busy. The typical workflow is: individual work → feedback → individual work (revisions).