This year, seventy-eight HBS summer interns in the Harvard Business School Nonprofit and Public Management program took on diverse and far-flung projects to enhance their HBS experience and explore alternatives to more typical management jobs. The program, sponsored by the HBS Initiative on Social Enterprise, has placed over 350 interns in national and international nonprofits including The Boston Children's Museum, the International Rescue Committee, The Nature Conservancy, Ford Foundation West Africa, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, and The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
HBS Working Knowledge's Carla Tishler recently spoke via e-mail to four of this year's interns. Adam Hall worked on credit programs in Kyrgyzstan; Stephanie Holden helped develop business alliances in India with USAID; Sara Strammiello built financial models for a Boston-based IT training program for young adults; and Stefano Invernizzi planned for large-scale growth for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
Stefano Invernizzi
Working in the City of (Big) Brotherly Love
Tishler: Describe your summer internship/job and how you arrived there.
Invernizzi: Last winter I was thoroughly looking into the nonprofit arena, and found Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) to be a wonderful opportunity: I could apply what I had learned at HBS, use the skills matured before the MBA, and gain hands-on experience in the nonprofit sector. Also, people seemed very nice, so I decided to move to Philadelphia
BBBSA is the oldest and probably the best mentoring organization in the world. Ninety-nine years ago, a journalist from New York City observed that many of the boys passing through the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Courts came from fatherless homes. He believed that with a positive model of reference these kids would have better lives. With this simple idea in mind, he founded Big Brothers Big Sisters. A century later, his organization is still committed to matching adult volunteers with kids who live in troubled environments. The result? An incredible impact on both people's lives, and many new, lasting, friendships.
My tasks are related to the ambitious goal BBBSA has set for itself: providing mentors to 1,000,000 children by 2010, which means growing nearly four times in six years. I was and still am involved in several projects: I developed a reporting system aimed at analyzing the results of a pilot, and then submitted recommendations on how to proceed to roll it out nationally. I joined the marketing department to identify new ways to recruit volunteers, and cooperated with the COO to build a cost model to determine funding needs for the years to come.
Q: What made you interested in this particular job and the nonprofit sector in general?
A: I always appreciated the difference between European and American nonprofits. For a number of reasons, America seems to rely more on services provided by the third sector, and citizens are ready to give more. The nonprofit is therefore a much more developed reality, where business management practices, innovation, and performance are actively pursued. This is what really attracted me: I wanted to see what "doing well while doing good" really was.
BBBSA looked just like the right place: an organization with a long history and strong brand recognition, in the midst of a transformation process that I could help move forward. In addition to that, my profile seemed to fit with the requirements of the organization. Well, why not give it a try?
Q: What's a typical day like?
A: The good thing is that there really is a lot of variety. What I really enjoy is the daily interaction with people from all over the country. BBBSA is a network organization of nearly 500 agencies: The contact with the field is very energizing, because there is where you see the impact of what we are doing here.
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While the first half of my summer was devoted to learning about the organization and building my models, I am now busy with the follow-up phase: I answer questions, give help, collect information, write reports, take part in phone conferences, think of how we could move forward. I loved the environment and the goodwill of people here, and my analytical work on the overall reporting system of BBBSA also allowed me to further my knowledge of some IT tools I hadn't mastered yet.
The job in the marketing department was probably the most fun, since I did a lot of research and formulated some recommendations about new ways to reach out to volunteers.
Q: Who do you work with on a regular basis?
A: There are several people I interact with daily. At the national headquarters, I often meet with the COO, the Director of Program Development, the CIO and a few other people. I also have recurrent interactions with CEOs from local agencies, mainly via e-mail. What I miss most is talking with other MBA students.
Q: What did you hope to get out of this internship?
A: I wasn't, and I still am not, planning to move into the nonprofit world after graduation. Still, I wanted to develop a more thorough and direct knowledge of the nonprofit sector, and this internship has proven very relevant to my long-term career goals. In the medium-to-long term, in fact, I would like to work for or start a nonprofit organization in my home country, Italy. And I liked the fact that several people I met at BBBSA, very capable managers, came from a background in the for-profit sector. That might well be the path I will follow myself.
Q: Have any of your HBS classes or experiences been brought to bear on your job?
A: Oh yes, very much! In the first place, I would say that the mindset one matures into after one year at HBS really helped me in the day-to-day work. It is crucial to understand well what the goal is, and keep focused. People tend to get lost in minute details, losing time and energy. This is the basic Willie Sutton rule: Go where the money is. Do you think it is a coincidence that he also served time in Philadelphia prisons?
I not only draw from my classes at HBS, I used them to illustrate to BBBSA some marketing techniques "borrowed" from other fields. In particular, I built on what we learned in Social Enterprise to introduce the concept of cause-related marketing to BBBSA. Entrepreneurial Manager came into play when we started talking about a cost model: As we learned in class, fast growth requires a lot of money, and we needed to figure out how much in order to tap the resources BBBSA could count on. The model itself follows the rules of Activity Based Costing (Financial Reporting and Control), and of course a little Finance is always at stake when dealing with dollars.
Lastly, I would say that negotiation skills are crucial when working in a big organization that relies on the inputs of many people, so it was good to always be aware of my BATNA, especially when I had to interact with agencies and needed their help.
Sara Strammiello
Inner City IT: Students Make it Happen
Tishler: Describe your summer internship/job and how you arrived there.
Strammiello: This summer I worked at Year Up, an intensive one-year IT training program for urban young adults. The program provides 18- to 24-year-old high school graduates and GED recipients from the Greater Boston area with hands-on training and a paid internship. Students spend the first six months in classes learning Web development or help desk/user support skills. They also spend time learning about professional skills such as time management, communication, teamwork, and conflict resolution. After completing the technical and professional skills curriculum, students are then placed in six-month internships at one of Year Up's corporate partners. Right now Year Up interns are designing Web pages and supporting computer users in many of Boston's largest corporations and nonprofit organizations including FleetBoston Financial, Fidelity Investments, Hale & Dorr, Staples, Harvard University, and Boston Medical Center.
I arrived at Year Up after participating in an HBS Volunteer Consulting Organization project this past spring. I was on a team of five first-year students who helped Year Up think about how to broaden their outreach to prospective students. After working with Year Up for a couple of months, I was extremely impressed with the organization. The staff members are tremendously bright and passionate about their work. And the students are an inspirational group of young people who are overcoming the odds on urban young adults and pursuing their dreams. When I saw that Year Up was looking for a summer intern, I was excited at the chance to get even more involved with the organization.
Q: What made you interested in this particular job and the nonprofit sector in general?
A: I had worked in the nonprofit sector for a year before coming to school at the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC). ICIC is a research and consulting organization focused on inner-city economic development. When I arrived at ICIC after a few years of consulting and business development, I really loved the work. I loved working on projects that were trying to affect positive economic and social change. That being said, I still felt like a consultant. I still felt a few too many steps removed from the problems we were trying to solve. Nothing against consulting or the ICIC. It is all valuable and necessary work, just not exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. When I found Year Up I thought, this is it. This is where I want to be, serving people face-to-face every day. I guess for me, Year Up is the perfect combination of two of my strongest interests: entrepreneurship and education.
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Q: What's a typical day like?
A: A typical day at Year Up has been a real combination of tasks and interactions for me. I have been working on several different projects. One involves looking at Year Up's five-year financial model. For that, there have been entire days where I've sat down in front of Excel all day and gone to work. One of my other projects was helping Year Up develop a performance assessment strategy. For that one, I've spent a lot of time talking to the Year Up staff members and outside advisors about what "success" really means to Year Up. Mixed in with those projects I've had other smaller projects, taught classes to the students, helped the admissions department make phone calls to prospective students, helped Year Up alumni edit their resumes, edited grant proposals, written thank-you letters to donors, and the list goes on. Like any place with a staff of twelve people, there's a chance (and a need) to get involved in pretty much everything.
Q: Who do you work with on a regular basis
A: I've had a chance to work with every Year Up teacher and staff member this summer as well as a few board members and advisors from other nonprofit organizations. I've also had the pleasure of working with and getting to know all forty-five students in the current Year Up class.
Q: What did you hope to get out of this internship?
A: I had two main goals for this summer. One, I was hoping to get a sense for what it was like to work in a small, hands-on nonprofit. And two, I wanted to see what kind of need a small, growing nonprofit organization would have for an MBA. I definitely hit both of those goals pretty squarely. I loved working in Year Up's small, dynamic environment. And they had a much larger need for an MBA than I had expected. From financial modeling to industry research to small one-off projects, I was never at a loss for things to do.Q: Have any of your HBS classes or experiences been brought to bear on your job?
A: I think it's difficult to tie my summer experience to any particular class at HBS. It's also impossible, however, to untie my summer experience from what I learned at HBS. There are bits and pieces of LEAD that hit you in the middle of a random afternoon, little lessons from FIN1 that creep up on you as you sit down in front of Excel, even the occasional TOM lesson that helps you improve a process or two. More importantly, something about the constant cold calls and seemingly endless cases helps prepare you to take on anything that your job puts in front of you. And, given that my boss this summer was an HBS MBA '92, school prepared me quite well for his favorite question, "Sara, what would you do if you were me?"
Adam Hall
Fighting Government Battles in Kyrgyzstan
Tishler: Describe your summer internship/job and how you arrived there.
Hall: My summer internship was with Mercy Corps in Kyrgyzstan. Mercy Corps is an international humanitarian aid organization that provides emergency relief services to assist people affected by conflict or disaster, and also develops sustainable communities. In Kyrgyzstan, I was originally going to be overseeing two credit programs: a micro-credit program that provided group loans to regional Kyrgyz; and a small business credit fund that provided individual loans to growing businesses in urban areas. Both groups were chronically underfinanced as the Kyrgyz banking system had been through numerous crises and is not yet willing or able to provide adequate service to small businesses and the poor. My specific assignments were to create a path to sustainability for the credit program targeted at the rural poor and to launch a marketing plan for the small business credit program.
However, I was soon drawn into assisting Mercy Corps Kyrgyzstan resist a campaign of harassment by elements within the Kyrgyz government. Mercy Corps had been subject to an excessive number of inspections attempts across the preceding twelve months. The officials attempting these inspections seemed more interested in gaining access to Mercy Corps resources than in ensuring compliance with legislation.
In early July, the harassment climaxed with Mercy Corps Kyrgyzstan's Country Director being placed under criminal investigation. Most of the expatriate staff left the country, including myself. After a few days, I returned to Kyrgyzstan. As one of two expat staff in the country, the final month of the internship was largely spent negotiating with the Kyrgyz government and our lawyers, seeking assistance from the U.S. and brainstorming strategies to resist the harassmentwithout Mercy Corps Kyrgyzstan operations being shut down. It was a little hectic at times trying to keep up the work on the credit programs while this was going on.
Q: What made you interested in this particular job and the nonprofit sector in general?
A: I had previously worked in Mongolia with a local savings and credit union, laying out a strategic plan to enable its rapid growth to be sustainable, and had done consulting work in Thailand and Indonesia. Those experiences got me interested in working in the developing world, and I've had an interest in the nonprofit sector since high school.
For the summer, I wanted to see what working with a large international nongovernmental organization (NGO) would be like, rather than a local organization. In particular I am considering a career as a country director of an international humanitarian NGO and the internship was an ideal way to see the role of country director up close. I got in touch with some senior people at Mercy Corps thanks to the help of Audrey Choi (MBA '04), and Dan Curran, the director of the HBS Humanitarian Leadership Program.
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Q: What's a typical day like?
A: A typical day would start with a pickup at 7:30 a.m., driving to the office and checking the overnight e-mails from HQ responding to my update on the unfolding inspection dramas from the night before. I'd meet with the acting country director and we'd plan what we were going to do that day to keep the operations going. I'd generally try to sneak in an hour or two with the micro-credit program before lunch, and then a credit committee meeting of the small business credit program after lunch for a couple of hours. Generally, there would be an afternoon meeting with the lawyers for a few hours and at some point during the day government agents would arrive and make some sort of new demand. Eventually, Id' get home around 6:30 and draft the update on the day's legal events for Mercy Corps headquarters in Portland. I'd bounce the draft off the country director, and then e-mail it off around 7:30 p.m. or so.
Q: Who do you work with on a regular basis?
A: On the micro-credit program, I worked a lot with the senior management and boards of the four NGOs carrying out the program, and the Mercy Corps staff that continue to work with them on a daily basis. It was especially rewarding to help local staff develop strategic planning skillsMercy Corps Kyrgyzsztan have some great local staff.
With the small business program, I worked with the executive director and the loan officers, although I got to visit a couple of clients as well. The credit committee was a great venue to develop the business analysis skills of the loan officers who had generated the loan application the committee was considering.
On the harassment issues, I worked with lawyers, U.S. embassy staff and the Kyrgyzstan country director. I also had a lot of e-mail contact with Mercy Corps' lawyers and executive vice-president in the U.S. as we brainstormed the best way to respond to the Kyrgyz government.
Q: What did you hope to get out of this internship?
A: My central goal in the internship was to examine the role of a humanitarian NGO country director as a potential future career. Although the balance between the work tasks was unexpected and not what I would have initially chosen, working intensely with the Mercy Corps Kyrgyzstan country director in a crisis situation did allow me to see the operations through her eyes, and to develop a strong understanding of the position. In addition, being able to complete most of the credit program goals and contributing to the development of sustainable financial institutions in Kyrgyzstan was great.
Q: Have any of your HBS classes or experiences been brought to bear on your job?
A: One particularly tough moment was sitting across the table from an irate Senior Inspector of the Kyrgyzstan Financial Police, and refusing to permit an illegal inspection, while knowing that he had the power to interrogate any person for three days without charges. The Negotiations practice and some of the work in LEAD gave me more confidence in responding to that scenario.
The Section B experience helped me make some difficult decisions. At one point, I had to leave Kyrgyzstan and head to Istanbul for a few days at the peak of the harassment. While there, I had the opportunity to conclude the internship immediately or return to Kyrgyzstan to hold the operations together, while at the same time trying to make the credit programs work. By this stage, I was tired of the continual harassment of Mercy Corps by the Kyrgyz government, and I was very tempted to leave the internship right away. I thought back to some of the Section B discussions, and how many amazing things my Section mates had done. In a way, I felt quitting early would be letting the section down. With the Section experience in mind, I returned to Kyrgyzstan, which proved to be the right decision.
Stephanie Holden
Business and NGOs in India: Making the Connection
Tishler: Describe your summer internship/job and how you arrived there.
Holden: I am currently a joint degree student with HBS and the Kennedy School. When I was a banker at Merrill Lynch in Singapore, I had traveled to India a few times on business; however, I had never really seen the poverty that 35 percent of the population lives in (that is $1 a day for roughly 400 million people). Before I started at HBS I was either going to volunteer in India or in the Middle East. I fortunately was able to work with the United Nations in Beirut, Lebanon, in Palestinian refugee camps focusing on micro-finance lending to women. Therefore, I still had a desire to work in India in hopes of making a difference in a few lives. After a year at HBS and the Kennedy School, I realized that anything was possible and that there was a demand in the social enterprise/NGO world for someone with business skills. Fortunately, I landed a summer internship with USAID in New Delhi, India, working with their contracting department to form alliances between businesses and the NGO field in India.
Q: What made you interested in this particular job and the nonprofit sector in general?
During my junior year in high school, I was an exchange student living in Hong Kong with a Chinese family. The family I lived with was very poor and resided in the densely populated area of Mong Kok in Kowloon. From that introduction to life overseas, I have always sought to live and travel around the world. I pursued a joint degree with the Kennedy School because my long-term career ambition is to become Secretary of State. I hoped by an in-depth understanding of many different vibrant cultures and people, I would be better equipped to relate to many diverse people in the world. Therefore, the opportunity to work in India and help some of the world's poorest was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. After walking through the streets of Calcutta, one sees how desperate some of these people are for economic growth and hope. I just wanted to give back a little to the world and India seemed like the perfect place.
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Q: What's a typical day like?
A: While in India, I am living with my boss and his wife in a beautiful three-story villa in Vasant Vihar, New Delhi. I generally arrive at the Embassy Compound at 8:15 (USAID is located at the U.S. Embassy) to begin my day. I take an auto-rickshaw to work in the morning (an open-air scooter that is level with the exhaust pipes and pollution in New Delhi). On the road to work, you must contend with a myriad of cows (sacred in the Hindu religion, so they have free run of the roads), cars, buses, lorries, motorcycles, bikes, people, and the auto-rickshaws. After a harrying ride into work at the lovely U.S. Embassy (looks like the Kennedy Center in D.C.), I usually have tea and masala dosa with some of the local staff at the office. Then I work on new business initiatives to garner the support of the business community to co-invest with USAID in nonprofit organizations to help economic growth. For instance, I am working with GE to put in $100,000 and USAID will put in $100,000 to begin an environmental training program. Most of my day is spent looking for opportunities to make investments in nonprofits to help economic development in India in terms of micro-finance lending or assistance. Likewise, I go to some of the poorer areas of New Delhi to look at successful aid programs such as giving money to a mandrasa in the Muslim area to provide computer training for the young women in the area. I generally leave work around 5:30 and either attend yoga at a local ashram or go on a walk through Old Delhi.
Q: Who do you work with on a regular basis?
A: I work with the Mission Director, Walter North, and the entire American and local staff at the USAID office in New Delhi. Likewise, I interact with local NGOs in India and foreign businesses that have invested in India. Once a week, I attend the country meeting with the ambassador at the embassy to get a better understanding of the U.S.-India relationship.
Q: What did you hope to get out of this internship?
A: I hoped to learn about India, to gain an understanding of the role of the IT industry in India and its role in development, and to put some of my skills to work to help some of the less fortunate in this vast country.
Q: Have any of your HBS classes or experiences been brought to bear on your job?
A: All of my HBS classes were very valuable just in making me confident to embark on a new adventure, to be able to listen to different points of view and to be able to dissect a problem and hopefully come up with a new and creative solution. There wasn't one class that really stood out and made a difference, but a combination of all of my fantastic HBS classes.