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The panel on challenges in social enterprise was titled "The Road Less Traveled." And for the audience, there was no getting away from the good news/bad news picture conveyed by the practitioners.
"For those seeking a career in social enterprise, the opportunities are tremendous," said Margot Dushin, panel moderator and associate director of Harvard Business School's Initiative on Social Enterprise. Indeed, statistics cited by Dushin from the National Center for Nonprofit Boards confirm that six percent of all U.S. organizations are nonprofits, and one of every 15 Americans works for one.
Recent research also concludes that the boom times of the past ten years have elicited a greater desire to "give back" or "do well by doing good" among those who have benefited most, particularly in the tech sector. Within just the past five years, for example, a new breed of corporate philanthropy — commonly called venture philanthropy due to its genesis in Silicon Valley — has sparked the fire of entrepreneurialism in the not-for-profit sector.
Even so, the panelists agreed there is no denying that nonprofits face greater challenges than their corporate counterparts during flush economic times. They still need to recruit and retain professionals in information technology, marketing, and fund-raising, find new funding sources in an era of diminishing federal subsidies, and struggle to do more with less.
For some, the "road less traveled" presents an entrepreneurial challenge greater than any Internet start-up.
Private sector skills, public sector needs
Laura J. Miller was one panelist who applies her for-profit corporate abilities to her work as director of marketing at New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She used the same marketing skills she acquired at American Express, she said, to build corporate relationships and leverage resources to underwrite bold exhibitions of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Armani fashions. (The Armani show was funded entirely by InStyle Magazine, noted Miller.)
Andrea Silbert (HBS MBA '92) is the founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Women & Enterprise, which provides business education and technical assistance to women entrepreneurs throughout New England. She observed that an advanced business degree is an asset, because there are fewer MBAs in the nonprofit sector.
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| "It's not a foundation in the traditional sense. We don't give money away, we look for it." | |
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| Laura Miller |
Another panelist, Inabeth Miller, is president of the JASON Foundation for Education. Founded by undersea explorer Robert Ballard, the JASON Foundation provides multimedia, exploration-based programs to three million middle-school children around the world.
"It's not a foundation in the traditional sense," Miller told the group. "We don't give money away, we look for it." The foundation's $12-million annual budget — half of it federal funds — pays for interactive television and computer programs, and ancillary print materials that bring the excitement of undersea exploration into the classroom.
In her professional history as a teacher, librarian, academic vice president, and now foundation president, Miller sees similarities between managing a business and managing an endeavor consisting of multiple efforts such as distance learning, after-school programs, publishing, and media production.
"I look at what you get from a business school education, and what you need for not-for-profits," she said. "You need to know finance, sales, and marketing, as well as creative entrepreneurship." Miller said that success in nonprofits emanates from the ability to mine unexplored territory of people and resources for wells of goodwill.
Follow your heart
Meghan Coughlin is project director of Project Connect, an organization that provides community voice mail to the homeless as a means to help them attain self-sufficiency. An original and novel idea that may be, but, Coughlin admits, the funding for it lags behind that of more traditional homeless-service organizations.
"You're not going to go into this field for the big payoff in the end," Coughlin told the audience. "You're not going to go into this field if you don't believe in the organization you're working for."
"My board of directors, they need me," Silbert observed. "They need a piece of this organization that they are not getting in their careers. I learn from them, and they learn from me, too. The nonprofit sector can bring a lot to the private sector. People work so hard because of the mission."
Glass ceilings and gender bias
Despite the knowledge that an individual has "made a difference," the trade-off of financial gain for personal satisfaction has pegged nonprofit work (including community outreach efforts by for-profit companies) as an exclusive domain of women.
This "pink collar" factor was raised by an audience member during the question-and-answer period. She expressed concern that nonprofit managers, as well as their counterparts in corporate-sector community outreach efforts, are held in such low esteem by senior management that they cannot advance to positions of greater responsibility.
Silbert acknowledged an "age and industry" issue when she visits potential corporate partners. However, she said she defuses the situation by wearing a business suit, talking about investment banking, and playing on her HBS connections. "In the first 30 seconds, I nullify the issue of not being taken seriously," Silbert said.
On the other hand, JASON Foundation's Inabeth Miller noted, " . . . I'm not always taken seriously. And it's [because of] gender."
Do the right thing
Low pay, long hours, and bouts of aggravation notwithstanding, the message these social entrepreneurs were communicating rang true with timeless wisdom: Help your neighbor, share the wealth, and remember that, sometimes, there are more important things than making money.
"If you have a passion for what you want to do, if you're a risk taker and not risk averse, you should look into this," said Inabeth Miller, adding, "Never doubt the value of your own personal contribution."
"At the end of the day, you go home, you feel good, and it brings a smile to your face," Laura Miller said.
"The world benefits from what you do," added Silbert. "It's not [just] noble. It's fun."
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