HBS Profs To Discuss Nonprofits

Harvard Business School faculty members and affiliates, as well as top nonprofit leaders, will gather in Philadelphia on November 13th for the fifth annual Social Enterprise Conference to discuss implementation of nonprofit strategy.

The conference will help mark the conclusion of the Business School’s centennial celebration, which saw business leaders from around the world, including Bill Gates and former Ebay CEO Meg Whitman, gather on the HBS campus last weekend.

The HBS Club of Philadelphia will host the annual conference at the newly built Comcast Center and will feature a keynote address by HBS alum and Comcast Chief Operating Officer Stephen Burke.

Business School lecturer Stacey M. Childress, whose work focuses on leadership and management in public education, will be leading a case study called “Fulton County School System: Implementing the Balanced Scorecard.”

“The case is about how an organization can develop a strategy to create social value and then monitor its implementation over time,” said Childress, who in 2000 was the first alumna of the Business School to give its Class Day address.

According to Childress, the case, which was written by fellow HBS Professor Robert S. Kaplan, begins several years into an existing strategy that has already produced strong results.

The Fulton County School System, which is located in Atlanta, Ga., has over 11,000 employees and $700 million in revenues, according to the case.

But the district’s leadership wants to tweak its strategy and accelerate its progress by setting more aggressive benchmarks.

“The case centers on the tension this creates with the board of directors who wonder why the team would want to change things when they seem to be working well,” Childress said. “Under the current measures they look very successful. Why make the goals more aggressive and risk creating the perception that they are not as good as the public thinks they are?”

Following the conference, the HBS Club of Philadelphia will be hosting a dinner at the Comcast Center, where Childress will be speaking about current and future plans for teaching social enterprise at the Business School.

In addition to the conference, the club also conducts a nonprofit speaker series throughout the year and sponsors MBA students who seek summer internships at nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia area.

“I think it’s terrific that the club decided to combine the annual Social Enterprise Conference with their Centennial celebration,” Childress said. “Given their involvement in nonprofit activities over the years, it makes perfect sense.”

—Staff Writer Prateek Kumar can be reached at kumar@fas.harvard.edu.