The Majira Project seeks to build wealth in communities of color through entrepreneurship, by helping small business founders access capital and build strategic connections to advance their work. The organization pairs small business owners with consultants from Boston Consulting Group to facilitate a cohort-style experience with networking opportunities and personalized coaching. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement have increased the demand for Majira’s services. To meet this increased demand, the organization engaged a team to measure the organization’s impact, communicate its value, and develop recommendations for expanding the program to more entrepreneurs and start-ups. The team conducted a comprehensive literature review and developed a competitive landscape analysis, a communications strategy, and an impact reporting framework to help prepare Majira for future growth.

New York City Health and Hospitals (H+H) is the largest public health delivery system in America, providing services to over one million patients annually. In New York City, nearly 189,000 individuals experience deafness, 200,000 have vision difficulties, and 335,000 have cognitive difficulties. Given the diverse population that H+H serves, its Office of Diversity and Inclusion enlisted the Capstone team to identify and implement best practices to improve the quality and access of care for patients with disabilities. The team interviewed clinicians and advocacy groups, created a comprehensive literature review, worked closely with the Mayor’s Office for Patients with Disabilities to design an advocate listening session, and rolled out surveys to H+H providers and patient advocates. The team incorporated its findings—including patient experience and best practices—into a toolkit encompassing a glossary and proper etiquette guide for H+H providers’ use.

The NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA) is the nation’s largest social service department and provides food stamp benefits to 1.8 million recipients via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP loses millions of dollars annually to trafficking, fraud, and overpayments. After fraud discovery, the Investigation, Revenue and Enforcement Administration (IREA), a department within HRA, conducts extensive investigations; however, investigations are costly and the amount recovered rarely covers the expense of the investigation. The Capstone team was asked to work with the IREA to improve their external communication strategy to optimize fraud deterrence methods. The team focused on prevention strategies, researching different deterrence methods used in other states and countries, with particular attention on social welfare programs and the private sector. After analyzing IREA's current deterrence systems, the team developed an effective communication strategy based on best practices to decrease fraud, abuse, and waste in SNAP.

Effective interdisciplinary communication is associated with reduced length of stay, improved patient safety, and increased employee satisfaction. However, communi­cation breakdowns are common in com­plex hospital settings and multiple com­munication structures often exist within the same organization. The Capstone team sought to evaluate current communication systems and make recommendations for improving interdisciplinary communication in hospital settings. After conducting site visits and staff interviews at Columbia and Cornell, the team identified highly functional interdisciplinary teams at both campuses. The team also evaluated best practices in interdisciplinary communication during site visits to other organizations. Based on characteristics of the highly functional teams, detailed interviews, site visits, and research from an extensive literature review on this topic, the Capstone team developed a pilot program for implementing an effective interdisciplinary communication structure on a hospital unit. Significant components of the pilot program include greater accountability, a focus on teamwork, and strong support from leadership.