A $5,000 grant was awarded to the American River Marketing Innovations Club on Nov. 2 for a research project that will connect California community colleges by virtually consulting for small businesses.

In 2012, the AMI club was awarded its first $5,000 grant from the Business Education Statewide Advisory Board (BSAB), and now it has secured its second grant, this time from the California community college Chancellor’s Office.

The AMI club will be visiting other community colleges in the surrounding area and asking marketing and business students to join them in its project where it will be split into teams and each assigned a small business to consult for.

Each individual group will perform virtual marketing tasks such as website creation and social networking all while communicating through virtual platforms like email, skype, conference calls, etc.

“The business world is going virtual in a huge way,” said club president Lydia Burkhard.

Whichever method of virtual communication proves to be most successful for each individual group will be recorded.

“This is valuable research for young people entering the business field,” said Burkhard.

Research will begin right away and a project write up will be available at theamiclub.com on June 1.

“We just want to show people how valuable this (virtual communication) is now-a-days with the way people take on so many projects at once,” said club treasurer Daniel Valencia.

In addition to spending the grant money to finance research, the club has hopes to travel to New Orleans to attend the American Marketing Association International Collegiate Conference in 2015.

One student will be chosen from the research project groups to attend the National AMA conference with the AMI club.

The club is also currently nominating faculty advisor Ron Morris, who dedicated a lot of time to the grant project, for the 2014 Hugh G. Wales Faculty Advisor award.