In Search of San Francisco’s Best Nonprofit MBA Programs
Even though San Francisco may be thought of as the place to be for entrepreneurship and technology, the city is home to a diverse community of organizations both private and public, both for and not-for-profit.
Business professionals in the city can apply their business acumen and education in a number of ways, whether helping a new venture get on its feet, contributing to some of the largest tech firms in the world, or supporting a mission they’re passionate about. And though such mission-driven organizations center around the cause and not of profit-making, having a strong business leader at the helm is crucial in helping these organizations to achieve their mission.
Students interested in gaining critical operations and management skills to apply in the nonprofit sector may be interested in pursuing an MBA in Nonprofit Management. Professionals with this degree have moved on into major leadership roles in the nonprofit field, whether working as a Nonprofit Program Director, Development Director, or Community Outreach Coordinator. Nonprofit managers are able to flex their muscles in finance, marketing and a number of other areas of business while still focusing their passion on a broader mission of change or aide.
A few business schools in the San Francisco metro area offer the chance for students to focus their MBA in the field of Nonprofit Management, offering a diverse skill set of nonprofit experience combined with a strong business foundation. Below, you can explore the San Francisco MBAs in Nonprofit Management.
San Francisco Nonprofit MBA Programs You Need To Know
Haas School of Business – UC Berkeley
The Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley offers an MBA concentration in Social Sector Leadership through the university’s Center for Social Sector Leadership. Ranked second overall among business schools with a nonprofit focus by U.S. News & World Report, the Haas program trains up-and-coming business leaders to make a social impact and inspire collaboration between sectors.
The Center for Social Sector Leadership offers students a wide variety of courses to take that can help shape various careers in the social sector, such as nonprofit consulting, board leadership, and strategic or financial nonprofit management. In addition to learning inside the classroom, the center also provides a number of opportunities for experiential learning, such as the Berkeley Board Fellows, which places graduate students on nonprofit boards of directors, or the Haas Impact Investing Network, which offers first-hand experience in impact investing for socially-minded MBAs around the country.
San Francisco State University College of Business
The College of Business at San Francisco State University offers at MBA Emphasis on Nonprofit and Social Enterprise Leadership. With the goal of preparing students to take their business skills to mission-driven organizations, the program will teach students to create a coherent organizational vision, apply innovative solutions to address needs, and evaluate the effectiveness of an organization’s programs in meeting goals.
Students in the Nonprofit and Social Enterprise Leadership emphasis will take the core MBA course requirements as well as three courses for their major: Nonprofits, Policy and Society; Innovation for Sustainability; and Seminar in Social Entrepreneurship, or Strategies in Emerging and Developing Economies. Students will also select two electives that can help further shape their education in leadership and creativity.
Stanford University Graduate School of Business
The Stanford Graduate School of Business offers MBA students the opportunity to pursue a Certificate in Public Management and Social Innovation as part of their degree. Through the university’s Center for Social Innovation, MBA students can explore the social sector and prepare for roles as forces for social change throughout the nonprofit, philanthropic, government, or corporate spheres.
To pursue the certificate, MBA students must complete a social innovation experience that allows them exposure to populations affected by a particular social or environmental issue. Students may also work alongside leaders making contributions in the field to fulfill the requirement.
For more on how MBAs are making a greater social impact, check out how these students are making a difference in their own unique way.
Georgetown McDonough Student Government Association Launches Research Bites Series
For those wondering why speaking events don’t serve more food, you aren’t alone. At least, it seems the McDonough School of Business Student Government Association (SGA) picked up the idea, launching the Research Bites “lunch-and-learn” series late last month.
The series, running until November 20, and highlights faculty research over five unique events. During each Research Bites session, a different faculty member will give a one-hour presentation about their life in academia and how their research impacts business. Gabe Nelson, MBA ’18, Vice President of curriculum for the SGA, wanted to recruit faculty members who were familiar to the student body. He reached out to professors who taught core classes and had interesting research experiences to drum up interest. Nelson says he hopes the series will “give students valuable insights that can help their careers in tangible ways” and “build faculty-student relationships.”
The first Research Bite took place on September 18 and featured Associate Professor of Strategy Chris Rider. He expanded on the effectiveness of the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which is the league policy that requires all teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching positions. According to the press release, about 50 students attended the first event.
Other faculty members set to participate in the series include:
- Debora Thompson, Associate Professor of Marketing
- Paul Almeida, Dean and William R. Berkley Chair
- Jason Schloetzer, Associate Professor of Accounting
- Allison Koester, Assistant Professor of Accounting
According to McDonough, the MBA SGA serves the student body of Georgetown’s MBA program and is the primary interface between the student body and the faculty and administration. The SGA plans social events and boosts alumni relations, such as Thursday kegs, outings to local sporting events, and fall and spring formals. The SGA is also responsible for major student organization decisions, management of finances, and implementation of new and existing policies or initiatives. You can learn more about the McDonough MBA Student Government Association here.
The Top 5 Reasons Diversity MBA Conferences Should Be on Your Recruiting Calendar
Pictured above: Tuck second-year MBA students Bianca Goins, Sadé Lawrence, and Jodine Gordon.
More than 10,000 MBA students, business school representatives, recruiters, and business executives filled the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia late last month for one of the largest career conferences serving minority professionals. The conference has been around since 1970, but for the first time this year the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) and Prospanica, the association of Hispanic professionals, joined forces to present it. The result was an incredible opportunity for attendees to network with companies and each other, take advantage of career development programming, and interview for and secure job offers from hundreds of companies spanning multiple industries.
Cornell’s S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management had a group of approximately 55 students attend, a mix of first-year and second-year students, according to Cynthia Saunders-Cheatham, Executive Director of Johnson’s Career Management Center.
“It was double what we have had in recent years, and perhaps the largest attendance we ever had for an MBA diversity conference,” she said. “Having a joint NBMBAA/Prospanica conference, in addition to the Philadelphia location that was driving distance away [from Ithaca, NY, where Johnson is located], helped to drive attendance.” The connections that students made while there have already resulted in multiple job offers, she added.
While securing a job or internship is a primary reason many MBA students choose to attend the National Black/Prospanica conference and others like it, that’s just one of many potential benefits events like this offer. Given that this most recent conference was right here in our hometown of Philadelphia, we went to check things out for ourselves. Through conversations with attendees, school representatives, and recruiters, we’ve compiled the following list of reasons why this year’s crop of applicants should be sure to add diversity MBA conferences to their recruiting calendar next summer and fall.
1. Unparalleled Recruiter Access—Including Many That Don’t Come to Campus
The Career Expo, which took place on the last two days of the five-day National Black/Prospanica conference, filled a cavernous hall in the Convention Center and included booths from close to 300 companies spanning dozens of industries. Among them were coveted post-MBA tech employers like Google and Amazon, consulting industry leaders including Bain & Company and Accenture, and financial services firms such as BlackRock, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. There was a continuous gaggle at the Google booth, and one of its MBA internship recruiters, Tanya Choudhury, had to resort to wearing a sign by the second day explaining that she’d lost her voice.
Big pharma and healthcare were also well represented, with booths attended by recruiting representatives from drug maker AstraZeneca to medical products and equipment company Zimmer Biomet and many in between. Leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) firms including PepsiCo, General Mills, and Proctor & Gamble were also there, as were oil and gas giants like BP, Chevron, and Exxon.
Morgan Stanley was one of almost 300 exibitors in the conference’s packed Career Expo.
But there were also plenty of organizations that are perhaps less top of mind as potential MBA recruiters—the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of State, Teach for America, and USAID, for example—who were just as eager to share how highly they value the MBA skillset. Dozens of leading business schools also had booths, largely to provide support and serve as gathering places for students who were attending, but also with an eye out for promising diverse talent. For example, Roberto Martinez, a Senior Talent Acquisition Consultant for Dartmouth College—home to the Tuck School of Business—was eagerly distributing glossy handouts touting the school’s varied career opportunities, commitment to diverse hiring practices, and excellent benefits. “We’re here not only to support students but also to hire more diverse staff to campus,” he said.
For Tuck second-year MBA student Bianca Goins, the breadth of companies at the expo was a big part of the draw. “I wanted a diverse group of companies to look at in a single spot,” she said. “There are so many companies here, and as second-year you can really come and pick and choose the experiences you want to have.”
Tiffany Anderson, a second-year student at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, was also impressed by the sheer number of companies present. A self-proclaimed conference veteran, she also attended National Black last year, as well as conferences presented by the Forté Foundation, the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and JumpStart. “Out of all the diversity conferences, I would certainly say this is the flagship,” she said. “Wow! There are A LOT of companies here,” she recalled thinking to herself as she walked in. More so than last year, before National Black and Prospanica teamed up, she added.
“I have seen the most people—students from many different schools and recruiters from many different functional areas of interest,” she continued. “It seems to be the most diverse in terms of attendees, degree of programming, and companies in attendance. For the majority of people, this is going to be one of the best to attend.” Anderson estimates that there were probably 30 or so Goizueta students there, a mix of first- and second-years.
2. Multiple Touch Points and Opportunities for Face Time
For some students, certainly, the primary purpose in attending the conference is to land a job. Second-year IU Kelley School of Business MBA student Henrique Barbosa, a native of Brazil pursuing travel hospitality, had a simple answer when asked why he was there: “To get a job!” He acknowledged that most of the firms he was interested in only conduct first-round interviews at the conference followed by second-round interviews on site, which lessened the likelihood of his leaving with an offer in hand. “But it would be great if it happened,” he said.
But several other students were less interested in job or internship offers—or even in early round interviews. For Jodine Gordon (Tuck ’18), the biggest factor in her decision to attend was hearing success stories from Tuck grads whose higher-level touch points with conference recruiters later helped them secure offers. “I have a couple companies on my list, but really I just want to meet as many people as possible so they can get to know me and I can get face time,” she said.
Sadé Lawrence, also a second-year student at Tuck, was likewise attracted by the opportunity to get in front of recruiters in person. “For a lot of opportunities you might be interested in, you start online at a website, applying through data base,” she said. “But coming here they now have a face with your name, and there are all kinds of organic connections that can happen,” she added. “It’s kind of amazing that you are able to build connections with people even at such a big conference, but you are. You make contacts and get lots of face time—so much more so than you can blindly through a website,” she continued. “What I have heard more of is people have an interaction with a recruiter here that leads to an interview later—here is more about entering the pipeline.”
Tuck’s Goins has taken the opportunity to network with recruiters who don’t make it to Tuck’s campus, but also those who do. “With every interaction, you are getting a more nuanced understanding of the company and can take that information and use it in subsequent interactions.”
3. Valuable Chances to Network with Peers
Goizueta’s Anderson interned in operations at Google over the summer—an opportunity she got through another diversity conference—and has been offered a full-time position on the tech giant’s Mountain View campus after she graduates. Despite having that full-time offer in hand, attending the conference still made lots of sense.
Kelley School second-year student Luis Vilchez Kupres, a native of Peru, also converted his summer internship—in supply chain operations at Cummins—into a full-time offer. So his reasons for attending the conference were not to get a job. ”I am here to support fellow Kelley first- and second-years and network a little more,” he said. He also gets to reconvene with students from other schools he met at last year’s Prospanica conference. “Often, you connect with somebody and they will help you connect with someone else,” he said. “Networking definitely helps—even among other MBA students.”
Tiffany Anderson, Goizueta MBA ’18, a diversity MBA conference veteran
For the Google-bound Anderson, the value of peer networking can’t be stressed enough. Being able to connect with students from other schools is the part she finds most enjoyable—but it’s also strategic. “When candidates are selecting a school they like to look at the size of the network they are going to get—and that’s great,” she said. “But the way I see it, I don’t have to be at Stanford or Wharton because I have friends at Stanford and Wharton. So in a way that’s kind of my network, too.”
“You have that domino effect,” she continued. If she’s trying to connect with someone at a company where she doesn’t have a contact or her classmates don’t have contacts, she can reach out to a friend at another school to see if there’s someone in their network. “Some might say, ‘Well, they’re a peer, they’re not an employer, they’re not going to get me a job.’ But there is so much more benefit to expanding your network. I don’t think everyone understands that.”
Of course, peer networking can be a two-way street. “My motivation to expand my network comes from wanting to help others as well,” Anderson said. “When you are part of these diversity networks, one of the great things is you are going to have a friend who says, ‘Do you know someone who can help me with this?’ And I can say, ‘Well, I met someone at a conference who does that very thing and I’m happy to put y’all in touch.’”
Your Search for Atlanta’s Best Accelerated MBA Programs
Most folks pursuing an accelerated MBA know which industry or area of concentration they want to pursue. They are MBA candidates who want to advance their current careers, not switch them. Others choose the accelerated route because it can be difficult to leave two years of work and salary. Continue reading…
What To Expect at Chicago Ideas Week 2017
From October 16-22, the world’s top thinkers, tastemakers, idea generators, and innovators descend upon Chicago for the seventh annual Chicago Ideas Week. Ideas Week is the largest affordable ideas festival on the planet, bringing a variety of talks, panels and hands-on labs to venues across the Windy City. Continue reading…
Mattel CFO Kevin Farr Talks Toys, Industry Challenges with Marshall MBA Students
Last month, USC Marshall School of Business MBAs had a chance to meet one of the top leaders in the toy industry, Kevin Farr. The CFO of Mattel stopped by Marshall to spend time with Suh-Pyng Ku corporate finances classes and share the challenges he’s faced at Mattel. Continue reading…
