Non-profit leadership program broadens Wharton experience
Erica D. Coleman & Sadaf Kazmi, WG'05 & WG'06
Issue date: 10/3/05 Section: News
Wharton is often associated with words such as finance, accounting, strategy, and marketing. As a business school, those associations certainly make sense. However, as Wharton grows as an institution and our understanding of what it means to develop business leaders evolves, words such as civic leadership, social entrepreneurship and philanthropy become more and more fitting.
Nonprofit organizations in the U.S. are facing a real challenge in finding and attracting new Board Members with a breadth of talents. In the wake of this leadership challenge, many business schools have developed an innovative solution to help organizations find new leaders with strong business acumen while simultaneously offering their students an additional training ground on which to hone their leadership skills. In April, Wharton joined these business schools when the Social Impact Management (SIM) Initiative launched the pilot year of the Nonprofit Board Leadership Program (NPBLP).
Through a unique partnership with the Nonprofit Center at LaSalle University, the NPBLP has selected, trained, and placed ten Wharton students on the Board of Directors of Philadelphia nonprofit organizations. This placement process takes into account the interests of both the students and organizations to ensure a good fit.. These students will serve as "visiting board members" for the 2005-2006 academic year and will work on one of a variety of strategic initiatives in areas such as accounting, finance, marketing, and human capital. Participants were selected last semester from an application pool of over 50 rising second year students and were chosen on the basis of their demonstrated commitment to community service, background, professional experience, and clear vision for what they hope to gain from the NPBLP.
In addition to attending regular board meetings, each program participant will be placed on a board sub-committee and receive one-on-one mentorship from a senior board member. NPBLP participants will also take part in quarterly development sessions where they will learn about a topic relevant to Board service by a subject matter expert and have an opportunity to discuss challenges they are facing in their board roles and potential solutions. Finally, in addition to leveraging the expertise of the Nonprofit Center, the NPBLP will be collaborating with the Leadership Program to structure the overall development program for participants and with Leadership Lectures to bring a nonprofit leader to campus.
We hope that these partnerships will help increase the visibility of NPBLP within Wharton and around Philadelphia while benefiting organizations and communities that typically do not have access to MBA talent. We are excited about our pilot year and look forward to opening up the program to a larger number of students in the class of 2007 and eventually to other graduate students within the University.
Please join me in congratulating this year's Nonprofit Board Leadership Program participants: Nicole Casciello: Alice Paul Institute, Sung-Min Chung: The Food Trust, Christopher Donohue: Empowerment Group, Bryce Goodwin: Mazzoni Center, Marina Hervy: Metropolitan Career Center, Alan Hsu: White-Williams Scholars, Gautam Mishra: Arts & Spirituality Center, Yogesh Patel: Strings for Schools, Due Quach: Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Franco Tapia: Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania, For more information on the Nonprofit Board Leadership Program please e-mail Sadaf Kazmi (skazmi@wharton.upennn.edu) or visit www.whartonNPBLP.com.
Nonprofit organizations in the U.S. are facing a real challenge in finding and attracting new Board Members with a breadth of talents. In the wake of this leadership challenge, many business schools have developed an innovative solution to help organizations find new leaders with strong business acumen while simultaneously offering their students an additional training ground on which to hone their leadership skills. In April, Wharton joined these business schools when the Social Impact Management (SIM) Initiative launched the pilot year of the Nonprofit Board Leadership Program (NPBLP).
Through a unique partnership with the Nonprofit Center at LaSalle University, the NPBLP has selected, trained, and placed ten Wharton students on the Board of Directors of Philadelphia nonprofit organizations. This placement process takes into account the interests of both the students and organizations to ensure a good fit.. These students will serve as "visiting board members" for the 2005-2006 academic year and will work on one of a variety of strategic initiatives in areas such as accounting, finance, marketing, and human capital. Participants were selected last semester from an application pool of over 50 rising second year students and were chosen on the basis of their demonstrated commitment to community service, background, professional experience, and clear vision for what they hope to gain from the NPBLP.
In addition to attending regular board meetings, each program participant will be placed on a board sub-committee and receive one-on-one mentorship from a senior board member. NPBLP participants will also take part in quarterly development sessions where they will learn about a topic relevant to Board service by a subject matter expert and have an opportunity to discuss challenges they are facing in their board roles and potential solutions. Finally, in addition to leveraging the expertise of the Nonprofit Center, the NPBLP will be collaborating with the Leadership Program to structure the overall development program for participants and with Leadership Lectures to bring a nonprofit leader to campus.
We hope that these partnerships will help increase the visibility of NPBLP within Wharton and around Philadelphia while benefiting organizations and communities that typically do not have access to MBA talent. We are excited about our pilot year and look forward to opening up the program to a larger number of students in the class of 2007 and eventually to other graduate students within the University.
Please join me in congratulating this year's Nonprofit Board Leadership Program participants: Nicole Casciello: Alice Paul Institute, Sung-Min Chung: The Food Trust, Christopher Donohue: Empowerment Group, Bryce Goodwin: Mazzoni Center, Marina Hervy: Metropolitan Career Center, Alan Hsu: White-Williams Scholars, Gautam Mishra: Arts & Spirituality Center, Yogesh Patel: Strings for Schools, Due Quach: Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Franco Tapia: Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania, For more information on the Nonprofit Board Leadership Program please e-mail Sadaf Kazmi (skazmi@wharton.upennn.edu) or visit www.whartonNPBLP.com.