Strengthening Ties with NAU
For years, Quality Connections and Northern Arizona have had a special relationship.
Both of our founders, Armando and Melissa Bernasconi, relocated to Flagstaff to attend the school. Armando shared a dorm room at NAU with Ben Sutcliffe. Ben, who had cerebral palsy, ultimately was the inspiration for Quality Connections and its first client.
NAU is a big part of our members’ musical experience. Each year, through the United Sound program, Quality Connection clients perform with the Lumberjack Marching Band.
Plus, NAU has provided interns from both the social work and psychology departments to QC’s Day Program and Group Homes. They’ve helped refine approaches to assisting individuals with developmental disabilities, hosted social events, and even done a little fundraising.
Now QC is working to continue building on this special relationship. To further promote QC Office, our social enterprise business, to university officials, we’ve created a new position, NAU Liaison, which is being filled by Kyan Bennett, who will graduate from NAU in December.
QC Office provides most of the products a business or organization needs to run efficiently, from toner cartridges and paper to break room supplies and furniture.
It also serves as a training ground for our members – about 75% of the labor at QC Office is performed by individuals with disabilities.
This spring, an NAU MBA class focused on increasing QC Office’s sales to NAU as their capstone project, said David Smith, Director of QC Office. Among other things, the class’s research revealed that only 35% of the campus was aware of QC Office, and that the organization was rated third in community engagement, after Amazon and Office Depot, despite QC Office’s role in funding nonprofit programs at Quality Connections.
“They produced a 50-page report on how to increase sales penetration at NAU, and their biggest recommendation was creating the post that Kyan now holds,” David said. “There’s just a lot of people who are unaware of our process and what sets us apart. Kyan’s job will be to get more people to understand what we do.”
It was key to have someone highly familiar with NAU – like a student – take on this role. The other thing Kyan brings to the position, David said, was that he is not by training or inclination, a salesperson.
Kyan came to Quality Connections as a psychology major. Part of his capstone project for his degree was working in both QC’s Adult Day and residence programs. He conducted research and brought an outside perspective to help QC instructors adjust their teaching methods to improve outcomes.
Melissa Bernasconi, co-founder of Quality Connections, saw early on that Kyan was passionate about QC’s mission. “I just saw all the enthusiasm and how he wanted to help,” she remembers.
Which led to approaching Kyan about applying for a new sales position that focused on the NAU market.
In his new role, Kyan will be reaching out to departments to let them know about the advantages of using QC Office as their preferred supplier, such as the aggressive co-op pricing benefits, free delivery, and free recycling services. However, David envisions holding specific non-sales events, like barbecues or recycling fairs, to help build the relationship between the two organizations.
For his part, Kyan says that making the transition from psychology student to NAU liaison is going smoothly.
“It’s definitely not psych-related, but I don’t see it as a sales job either,” he said. “I see it as being an advocate for people with disabilities. It’s not as hands-on as a psychology position would be, but I get to spread the word about QC, and I love that.”
