DNEP

Recruiting Now! DNEP Adds New Classes, Expands Community Tech Consulting Services for 2025-2026 Year
August 6, 2025September 4, 2025

You have a vision. We’ll Help You Multiply It.
Since 2016, the University of Michigan’s Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project (DNEP) has matched 900+ businesses with faculty-supervised teams, in succession, at multiple U-M schools to provide Detroit businesses with wrap-around, long-term support via what is now known as its Motor City Multipliers program. Working under faculty supervision, students conduct research, analyze data, and provide business owners with recommendations to address business’ legal, financial, marketing, operational, design, and technological needs. DNEP is NOW RECRUITING for the 2025-2026 academic year.
How it Works: University of Michigan students enroll in various “action-based learning” or “practical …

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Getting My Hands Dirty: Impact Edition
November 19, 2024August 6, 2025

Inside my 3 Months of Summer with DNEP
Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project. If you asked me before the summer of 2024, I would have never heard of DNEP. Little did I know that later on, this single acronym would carry memorable outcomes, valued experiences, and pride in its mission. I joined DNEP with a curiosity to dive deeper into the intersection between Business + Impact. As a result, I left with my first comprehensive hands-on consulting experience, strong professional and personal connections with my peers from various schools, and invaluable skills gained from our work with local clients.
DNEP has a …

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DNEP’s Community Tech Worker Project Expands to Live6 with National Science Foundation Grant
October 29, 2024November 30, 2024

The University of Michigan School of Information was awarded a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to expand the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project’s Community Tech Worker (CTW) program from the eastside to Detroit’s northwest side by partnering with Live6 Alliance.
Started in 2022 as a partnership between the University of Michigan and Jefferson East Inc. (JEI), the CTW program began with the dual mission of bridging the digital divide and providing access to good jobs for local community members. Detroit residents are trained on different business technologies (website platforms, social media, and point of sale systems) to become community tech …

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U-M students put skills to work through summer internship program, helping Detroit communities
August 23, 2022August 20, 2024

Each summer many students scramble for the chance to gain work experience through an internship, happy to get even one company or business to bite. But for Samantha Lang, a junior in the Ford School of Public Policy, the summer was rich with opportunities. Through her involvement with The Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project she worked with Detroit small businesses like Fit4Life, Sister Pie, Pink Poodle Dress Lounge and Bags to Butterflies, all the while supporting and strengthening the local community.
The Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project connects small businesses with University of Michigan students and staff to help solve the issues they …

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U-M awarded grant to support Detroit entrepreneurs in bridging digital divide
September 7, 2021August 20, 2024

An interdisciplinary team from the University of Michigan was awarded $300,000 from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to train local residents and U-M students to provide one-on-one technology support to Detroit entrepreneurs. The project aims to better understand the types and complexity of technology support that small businesses need, along with preferences around timing and delivery.
The researchers will work with U-M alum Lutalo Sanifu (MURP ‘18) and his colleagues at Jefferson East, Inc, a nonprofit community organization committed to developing work for Detroiters and reducing barriers to small business growth and expansion.
The university project team includes Kristin Seefeldt, associate director …

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Detroit’s small business owners see summer boost through entrepreneurs project
August 22, 2021August 20, 2024

Working through a pandemic has been stressful enough for Detroit’s small-business community. Finding enough time, energy and talent to expand their companies through innovative programs, social media or new strategy has been doubly difficult. But a group of business owners got fresh insights into how to grow thanks to some uniquely talented University of Michigan student consultants.
These students in the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project, their advisors and community participants recently met on Zoom to outline the work seven student teams did for Detroit small businesses such as Ivy Kitchen + Cocktails, recapping problems Detroit business owners asked students to address …

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First person: Learning from Detroit businesses and fellow students
August 12, 2021August 20, 2024

This article was written by Michael Willard, BBA Ross School of Business/BA LSA ’23
This summer, I am one of 31 interns working in the University of Michigan Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project +Impact Studio for Local Business.
The interns come from the Ross School of Business, Ford School of Public Policy, Stamps School of Art & Design, and School of Information. The program began last year, with interns focused on creating tools for ecosystem-level problems in Detroit small businesses.
This year, we are working directly with small-business owners to solve the unique issues that affect multiple companies. To maximize our impact, each team is focusing on one …

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Applying academic skills to real-world business challenges
June 29, 2021August 20, 2024

Small businesses in Detroit, as across the country, have had to make major adjustments to survive the COVID-19 pandemic economic downturn. A cadre of students from U-M have been able to work with many of these businesses through an internship program coordinated by the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project (DNEP) at the Ford School of Public Policy and +Impact Studio for Local Business (ISLB) at the Ross School of Business.
I have been fortunate to be a part of one of the multidisciplinary teams, collaborating with students from Ford and Ross as well as the Stamps School of Art & Design, the …

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Michigan Ross and Ford Students Work with the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project
July 15, 2020August 20, 2024

COVID-19 changed everything for small businesses in Detroit. Now business owners have dozens of new issues to think through as they pivot business models, weigh costs & benefits, and figure out when and how to re-open. Thanks to the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, they have almost 40 Michigan Ross and Ford students on hand to help.

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Ford students assist Detroit small business owners with re-opening challenges
June 29, 2020August 20, 2024

The economic havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially disruptive to small businesses, which often depend on foot traffic and operate on smaller profit margins than their larger counterparts. As Michigan prepares to reopen its economy, small business owners are struggling with the financial viability of their businesses, the concerns of their families and their employees’ families, the needs of their customers, and the risks COVID-19 poses to their communities.
The University of Michigan’s Center on Finance, Law, and Policy, housed in the Ford School of Public Policy, has been awarded an $80,000 grant from the Ralph C. Wilson, …

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