Non-Profit Leaders Offer Advice at HBS

Over 900 professors, professionals and well-coiffed business students gathered at Harvard Business School (HBS) Saturday to hear social enterprise leaders speak on how to apply business strategies to non-profit work.

HBS and the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) hosted the fifth Social Enterprise Conference, which was run by the Business School’s Social Enterprise Club.

The day kicked off with an introduction by James E. Austin, Snider professor of business administration.

Ten years ago, Austin—who introduced Thomas J. Tierney, the event’s first speaker—founded the Harvard Social Enterprise Initiative.

Tierney founded and runs the Bridgespan Group, which offers consulting services to non-profits as an independent branch of the consulting firm Bain & Company.

Tierney urged the packed Burden Auditorium crowd not to be lured by the seductive path of corporate ascendancy and stellar earnings that lead many to leave dreams deferred until middle age.

Noting that “writing checks” doesn’t count as non-profit work, Tierney added that the most qualified people in the business sector might not be able to survive in a non-profit world where the stakes and the challenges are far greater.

The conference then broke into a fast-pace that would continue for the rest of the day.

Four rounds of panel discussions were interspersed among three keynote talks.

As they ate their sandwiches and chips from their bag “power-lunch”, participants could choose to network in the lavish dining hall, float around a social enterprise career fair or watch a number of films on social enterprise topics.

Panel discussions often spilled over into the halls and ranged from more traditional sessions on topics like micro-finance to newer issues such as social marketing—in both non-profit and for-profit sectors.

Frank Dixon, whose company Innovest strives to create a “green” Moody’s to measure the social and environmental impact of business, saw tremendous potential for market mechanisms which incorporate externalities into business models. He challenged businesses to look beyond dollars and cents when defining their bottom line, urging Americans to use “societal wellness” as a broader measure of success.

Later in the day former Sen. Bill Bradley and Paul Jansen, both of whom guide McKinsey & Company’s non-profit consulting branch, expressed their deep commitment to the values of social service work, and their high expectations for those striving to improve society.

They noted how more transparency and better standards of measuring effectiveness will increase donations, help prevent redundancy that needlessly stretches resources and bring government and non-profits better in line with their common goal of improving social service.

Bradley also called for reform of the IRS “990” form, on which all non-profits must now disclose basic information about their financial operations.

He said that any organization which provided such limited information to donors would never raise money in an actual non-profit setting.

Bradley joked that he has been pushing this initiative since a few years after his time in a New York Knicks uniform in the 1970s.

Nancy Barry, president of Women’s World Banking since 1990, offered reflections on changing the financial industry to better incorporate the poor.

She advocated the implementation of micro-loans—programs that extend credit to the poor who are unable to provide banks the collateral they demand.

Barry, whose micro-credit programs empower women through entrepreneurial opportunities, noted how the traditional standards of banking cannot simply by reapplied on a “micro” scale to create an effective micro-finance industry.

But she also echoed the theme that more traditional investors are beginning to recognize the opportunities of loaning to the poor.

Bhakti R. Mirchandani, a KSG student, closed the session with a call to one of the “giants” of social change.

“Be the change you want to see in this world,” she said, echoing the words of Mahatma Ghandi.