Start Center - Strategic Analysis, Research & Training Center

Brendan Amland

MBA
Senior Manager of Business Operations, Providence

Brendan Amland holds a MBA from the Foster School of Business (2021) and a BA in Global and International Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Brendan has experience teaching educational & extracurricular programs for L.A. nonprofits, teaching English as a second language in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, and leading customer experience and sales teams in the durable medical equipment field.

Brendan worked on five projects during his one-year engagement at START, acting as the Project Manager for two of them. Brendan provided his respective teams with strategic support through a business lens. Below are highlights from two of the projects Brendan worked on:

  • Voice Recognition and Development Impact: The team conducted a case study analyses of eight organizations utilizing voice recognition in Africa and India to understand market forces, business models, and customers as well as the barriers and opportunities to increasing the use of voice technology for development in these regions. Brendan was the Project Manager for this project.
  • Knowledge Management for Advocacy Successes and Learnings: The START team conducted a short literature review on knowledge management (KM), analyzed seven organizations’ KM practices by interviewing relevant employees and conducting a survey of interviewees at each organization, and provided recommendations that revolved around three themes (Culture, Processes, and Resources) to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to improve their KM system. Brendan served as Project Manager for this project.
  • Unintended Consequences of Viral Funding: The START team conducted a case study analysis of the five major viral fundraising campaigns held in recent years to understand the unintended consequences of viral fundraising. Each study investigated the cause behind the campaign virality and its impact on the non-profit recipients, as well as the common factors behind the viral fundraising campaigns and their overall impact on the non-profit sector. The team presented their recommendations of ways to increase philanthropic giving to BMGF.

Brendan is currently a Manager of Business Operations at Providence.