Marcel Digital & Tutoring Chicago: 2025 Digital Marketing Summer Program

At Marcel Digital, our mission to support philanthropic organizations is more than a corporate value - it’s part of who we are. For over two decades, we’ve paired our digital expertise with causes that matter, but in recent years, we’ve asked ourselves how we can make an even more direct, more impactful, and more lasting impact?

That question sparked an ambitious idea: to create a summer program that would empower the next generation with real-world skills in digital marketing.

Turning Ideas into Action

In 2024, we launched our first Digital Marketing Summer Program in partnership with Tutoring Chicago, aiming to open new doors for students traditionally underserved in the digital space. Instead of simply building a website or donating hours, we committed to building a complete educational experience rooted in our team’s deep knowledge of marketing, analytics, UX, and data.

Why digital marketing? It’s an industry that is rarely formally taught in traditional classrooms, especially at high school level. Our goal: to give students an inside look at the tools, strategies, and career paths available to them and to spark interest in futures they may never have considered.

A Curriculum with Impact

We anchored the program on a proven foundation: Marcel Digital University - our internal training platform designed for onboarding and continuous learning. We adapted this robust professional level program to meet the needs of younger learners, reimagining it into a hands-on, student-first curriculum.

The program covers:

• Core concepts of SEO, Paid Media, UX, Analytics, and content strategy
• Exploration of real-world job roles in the digital space
• Career-building advice for turning classroom learnings into personal projects and internships
• Team-based exercises to simulate agency-client relationships

This year, each student group selected a fictional B2B company from a curated list we provided, and throughout the program, student teams applied what they learned each session - SEO fundamentals, paid media strategy, and analytics best practices - to create deliverables tailored to their assigned company. This structure gave them the chance to solve practical marketing problems in a realistic, low-pressure environment. On the final day, each group presented their strategic plan to instructors, simulating a real client pitch.

Partnership with Tutoring Chicago

The success of this program wouldn’t be possible without our partner, Tutoring Chicago. With a shared belief in educational equity, this collaboration was a natural fit. Marcel Digital CEO Ben Swartz, who has direct experience as a tutor with the organization, led the effort to build a curriculum that complemented the mission of Tutoring Chicago while giving students the tools to enter this lucrative field.

Looking Ahead

We’re proud to say that the 2025 program was a huge success and an exciting evolution of our program - with 24 student participants and outstanding engagement from start to finish. The energy, curiosity, and creativity these students brought to the classroom reaffirmed our belief in the value of this initiative

With the foundation now in place, we’ve refined the curriculum, added more speakers, integrated interactive tech tools, and expanded mentorship opportunities. We’re working to make this program more accessible, more dynamic, and more impactful - year after year.

This isn’t just a summer camp. It’s a pathway to a career. It’s about creating future digital marketers, analysts, and strategists who see themselves reflected in industries that often overlook them. And for us at Marcel Digital, it’s one of the most meaningful ways we can give back to the community that has supported us for so long.