Nonprofits Utilize Student Programs for Mission-Critical Projects

Savvy nonprofits tap into all the resources available to them. Those resources include the skills, passion, and energy of Berkeley-Haas MBA and other grad students. Nonprofit organizations can benefit from two major community-based programs; Berkeley Board Fellows (BBF) and Social Sector Solutions (S3), both of which are accepting applications.

The Berkeley Board Fellows program is, at it’s core, about board excellence. Selected nonprofits simultaneously meet a critical board need, and provide a learning environment for future board leaders. Two grad students join the board as non-voting members. They complete a project through a board committee and receive insight into board service from a mentor. The Social Sector Solutions program provides accessible management consulting to tackle complex, strategic questions for nonprofits. Consulting teams are guided by experienced faculty and aided by McKinsey & Company coaches.

BBF	S3
• 2 fellows serve jointly	• 5 person consulting team
• Oct – May (8 hrs/month)	• January – May (15 weeks)
• Located in the Bay Area	• Any location (incl. int’l)
• Provides board member training	• Provides team coach
• 30 nonprofits	• 10 nonprofits
• Free	• Fee-based

BBF nonprofit partners at financial management training.

How Students Help the Nonprofits

In Berkeley Board Fellows, the two fellows serving on the board will lead a project as part of the board committee they attend. BBF projects fall into 1 of 4 categories: 

1. Performance measurement/assessment
2. Business strategy/planning
3. Financial management
4. Marketing

Some sample projects from past Fellowships include:

• Research and analyze three earned income ideas to support core mission.
• Determine appropriate pricing for 2 afterschool programs.
• Develop social media strategy recommendations to increase effectiveness of the organization’s profile.
• Develop a board member dashboard to compile and display data to track progress on a new strategic plan.

Social Sector Solutions projects can be in any area, but must be of key, strategic concern for the organization and “big enough” to fully engage a team of 5 for 15 weeks.

Some examples of previous Social Sector Solutions projects include:

• Develop a national program expansion strategy.
• 10-year program impact evaluation.
• Brand evaluation and improvement recommendations.
• Create a sustainable financial model for a program or organization.

Students brainstorming an S3 project.

Which program is right for you?

Having a hard time deciding which great program can best propel your nonprofit toward mission success? The key may lay in the type of project you have in mind. Try asking this question: If we are not accepted into one of these programs, who would be tasked with executing the project?

If the answer is “another board member“, Berkeley Board Fellows may be right for you.

If the answer is “an external consultant/firm“, Social Sector Solutions is probably a fit.

 

Raise Your Hand to Show Your Interest!

The success stories from both programs abound. You can read some of them on this blog by clicking on the Berkeley Board Fellows or Social Sector Solutions content tag.

Full Program details and applications can be found at the Berkeley Board Fellows or Social Sector Solutions program pages. Questions related to these programs can be directed to:

Berkeley Board Fellows: Cathy Garza at cathy_garza@haas.berkeley.edu

Social Sector Solutions: Andrik Cardenas at andrik@haas.berkeley.edu

Student discussing a project plan.

Do Good, Together, with Value – Lessons from High School Entrepreneurs

The Young Entrepreneurs At Haas (YEAH) program recently concluded its 27th year of service to Bay Area high school students. A key component of the program is business plan presentations done by high school sophomores. The students are given free rein to devise any business they think is needed and could be successful. With ideas in hand, they work with an undergraduate business or MBA student coach to flesh out the business value, structure, financials, supply chain, and marketing. With a clean slate on which to innovate, the talented groups came up with novel product and service ideas. Three themes emerged from this year’s presentations:

1. Social Entrepreneurship
2. Collaboration
3. Consolidation

These themes underscore the evolution of business and the mindset needed from a new generation of business leaders. The teams presented to a panel of judges and deftly defended their ideas during the Q&A sessions.

An enthusiastic crowd supports the student presenters.

Social Entrepreneurship
One half of the companies provided a social good of some kind. The teams did not refer to themselves as social entrepreneurs, but the mission focus of their idea and business structure was clear. The presentations made it clear that students did not consider this novel or attention-getting. There is an implicit expectation that successful companies will contribute to the well-being of the community either directly through an offering or through its operations. Many startups consider social impact to be a point of differentiation or even a competitive advantage. These budding leaders signal a soon-to-be future where that it not the case.

A student team fields questions from judges.

Collaboration
The business mantra of “leading” and “following” is dissolving. The next generation of leaders doesn’t see a push-pull, us-vs-them environment. Where a traditional business plan would identify competitors, young leaders see only potential partners. With one presentation after another, teams commented that their ideas offered something new, and that incumbents were better off collaborating to stay relevant in the marketplace instead of wasting the time and energy to compete head to head against novel startups. Collaborative networks working to create shared value are not new to the social impact space. Young entrepreneurs see collaboration as a key business tactic for success across sectors.

Consolidation
In terms of the actual ideas, many of them showed a frustration with a fragmented landscape of niche products and services. There is a value in a consolidated, robust product that provides users with a go-to place for what they need. Students identified a complex world where each product or service provides one small remedy to an ongoing pain-point. There was a tenable desire for consolidation of these services. Several teams hinged on this added value as the core proposition for their idea.

The success of the YEAH program is clear, with a 27-year track record and nearly 100% of program graduates going to college. Visit the YEAH program page at Berkeley-Haas for more information.

 

Which of these themes ring true for you?

GSVC 2016 Global Finals: Social Enterprises Converge in Thailand

By Cameron Scherer

None of us expected the night to end with a water gun fight – but I’ll get there later.

Last month, three classmates and I had the privilege of traveling to Bangkok, Thailand for the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) Global Finals. We did not compete, but attended the Finals as GSVC Fellows, tasked with developing strategies to make GSVC an even stronger program for aspiring social entrepreneurs.

The GSVC, managed by Berkeley-Haas and partner universities around the world, highlights the next generation of mission-driven business leaders. The competition provides entrant teams with mentorship, connections to industry experts, and seed funding to transform their promising ideas into real-world impact. For the past several months, I have gotten to know our global partners, to figure out how we can better serve entrants’ needs, and what lessons we can learn from their experiences.

After weeks of phone conversations, I finally had the opportunity to meet everybody in person during the three-day Global Finals and Think Big, Act Small symposium, a whirlwind of meetings, pitches, and speeches. Before the event formally started, we held a meeting with our global partners to collaboratively develop strategies to better position GSVC within the rapidly proliferating landscape of startup competitions. These discussions were energizing and we have an interesting set of opportunities and challenges ahead of us as we look towards the future.

Now onto the main event of the weekend–the competition. Never have I been so impressed by a group of peers. The solutions presented by the finalist teams were as diverse as the countries they represented, from a Korean company up-cycling leather car scraps into stylish bags to a team from Boston reinventing how we diagnose lung cancer. Selecting a winner among these innovative and mission-driven ventures was no easy task. Certainly all these teams traveled far and wide to win the grand prize, but what GSVC provides them is more than just prize money. GSVC is a supportive community where young social startups can work on their ventures, obtain valuable feedback from industry experts, and foster a network of like-minded entrepreneurs hoping to leverage business to make the world a better place.

@10Pwr Pitching! Final team to pitch @GSVC #GSVC2016 #Bangkok @BerkeleyHaas #renewable #energy #sustainable #solar pic.twitter.com/9lTHgZGF9t

— ZoMA (@somcity) April 2, 2016

The highlight of the entire trip, though admittedly biased – was traveling with my three fellow Fellows (ha) – Mitul Bhat, Vanessa Pau, and Claire Markham (all FTMBA ’17) in and around Thailand. Of course, you can’t really go wrong with a trip of Berkeley-Haas students, but I could not ask for a more fun, inspiring, and kind group of three.

And, oh yeah, the water fight.

The final night, after the awards were announced, we celebrated the Thai New Year Songkran with bright colored shirts and toy water guns. Instantaneously, job titles and who won or lost became irrelevant, as we darted between tables, ready to attack an unsuspecting friend.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many conferences end this way? I was struck then, as I was all weekend, by the value of holding the GSVC in Thailand: not only do we get to hear from so many new voices when we travel abroad, but also be reminded that letting loose and having fun might just be the best way to celebrate the incredible accomplishments – and futures – of all the participating teams.

The 2016 GSVC Global Finals were held in Bangkok, Thailand, April 1-2, 2016. For more information about the event and competing teams, visit: http://haas.org/1WIPxH3

Gaining Experience in Impact Investing

Berkeley-Haas Education Team at MIINT

A Move into Impact Investing

My momentous experience with the Haas Impact Investing Network (“HIIN”) started in late September. I came to Berkeley-Haas to pursue a career in impact investing, so HIIN was an obvious decision. At work, I was frustrated with the nonprofit funding model – I had an undergrad degree in finance and I wanted to incorporate social impact into my work – a career in impact investing was a natural fit. However, I neither had the experience nor the tools to make this change. I quickly learned that HIIN was much more than just another case competition. My HIIN experience provide the tools I needed to make a career switch into impact investing.

HIIN is the Berkeley part of an experiential training program called the MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (“MIINT”). It’s an international competition where MBA teams from the US and Europe spend 6 months going through the impact investing process. Teams identify, conduct due diligence on, and recommend for investment an existing early stage for-profit organization that is building social impact into its business model and is looking to raise funding in order to scale up. The winning companies receive seed investments as part of an existing funding round. In addition to the competition component, MIINT provided access to various online and in person trainings on the stages and nuances of impact investing. The competition provided access to professionals in the industry both in formal speaker and panel settings to informal lunches and coffee chats. Furthermore, the competition provided access to networking both internal and external to Berkeley-Haas. I was able to connect with fellow students interested in the same topic. Soon it became an addendum to my MBA curriculum.

Focusing on Education

I joined the MIINT education team based on my personal interests. The first step was to source a company that fit a robust set of criteria. Our team assessed over 50 companies in the education space. I was doing research for the competition that allowed me to learn more about the education industry in the US. I learned about various tools for students, teachers, administrators, professionals, etc. I learned about trends such a mass open online courses (MOOCs) and adaptive learning platforms. Ultimately we decided to work with an organization named KickUp, an analytics platform for school district directors to better tailor the professional development teachers. We worked closely with Jeremy Rogof, the founder and CEO, to analyze the market, understand the value proposition, conduct financial and social due diligence. Through this deep dive into the company, I came to understand the challenges of creating a company that provides a differentiated value and a social benefit in a market that is willing to pay for this product.

Haas Impact Investing Network Fellows 2016

My first wake up call came when we presented the company at the Berkeley-Haas investment committee presentations. We believed the company was strong, the team was qualified and the product and impact were clear. However, the probing 20-minute Q&A following our presentation strongly challenged our assumptions and highlighted weaknesses which we had failed to discover. Ultimately, KickUp’s strong value proposition that addressed a massive problem in public school education today allowed us to win the local round. We represented Berkeley-Haas at the final round at Wharton. We spent the next three weeks engrossed in research, interviews and further analysis to develop answers to the gaps the judges had identified. Our further work proved to us that KickUp was a strong investment and we presented the company to a group of investors at Wharton.

The MIINT Finals at Wharton

The two day competition in Philadelphia was a fantastic experience for the whole team. The first day consisted of coffee chats and networking events where we met the other teams and judges. Their credentials and level of commitment to the tournament were impressive. The second day consisted of the final investment presentations. We spent weeks honing our presentation and were excited to show it to the judges. In our final presentation we felt we did a good job describing the company and answering the tough questions that followed.

In the room where it happens. #MIINT2016 investment committee deliberates on wining team, led by @trelstad pic.twitter.com/LgnIA36F9C

— brianwalsh (@brianwalsh) April 9, 2016

In the end, we were not victorious. As the day wrapped up, we were awed with a presentation which showed what happened with previous winners, including Learnsprout who were acquired in a multi-million dollar deal by Apple earlier this year. Even though it didn’t win, hopefully KickUp will enjoy similar success!

Although we did not win, the experience was invaluable. Our team learned a great deal about the impact investing space, how investments are sourced, studied and eventually executed. Classes are great at providing concepts, tools and frameworks, but it is opportunities such as these that allow students to take their learnings and apply them in the real world. It was also wonderful to work closely with passionate MBAs from four continents, as well as an inspiring entrepreneur, and learning so much in the process. It is countless such activities that makes Berkeley-Haas a truly experiential program.

 

Cross-Sector Leaders Needed: Highlights from the 2016 Global Philanthropy Forum

By Kate Chadwick

Members of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts at GPF 2016
Credit: Global Philanthropy Forum

The 2016 Global Philanthropy Forum took place on April 4^th through 6^th in Redwood City, California. A mix of donors, humanitarian aid actors, development practitioners, government officials, and corporate representatives descended on Silicon Valley in the hopes of sharing knowledge and igniting partnerships to address the current migrant crisis taking place globally. Whether for security, economic, political, cultural or environmental reasons, currently 250 million people are on the move globally. Sixty million of those individuals are migrating in search of safety.

As a Berkeley-Haas CSSL Philanthropy Fellow with The David & Lucile Packard Foundation, and UC Berkeley Master of Development Practice (MDP) alumna, I had the opportunity to attend the Forum. Together, conference participants tackled issues such as peace & security, humanitarian assistance & refugees, and strategic philanthropy. Session themes like “Philanthropy’s Role: Solving for Crisis While Taking the Long View” cross-cut sectors, requiring multi-dimensional solutions. Donors explained how they partner with civil society organizations to respond to crises, including the current wave of migrants fleeing Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, and other countries, while also addressing the associated development issues such as education, health & nutrition, and food security. At the same time, field-based aid and development practitioners described their first-hand experiences providing essential support services to individuals and communities forced to migrate, or forced to consider migration as a means for survival.

 

Aid and Development Organizations Must Collaborate

Haas Philanthropy Fellow, Kate Chadwick (far right), participates in the 2016 Global Philanthropy Forum.
Credit: Global Philanthropy Forum

One major theme emerging from the conference was the need for better collaboration between aid and development organizations to create sustainable solutions to migration challenges. Professor Alexander Betts, the Leopold Muller Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs and Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, discussed his work on ‘refugees as a resource’, and the fact that most refugees have an alternative source of income and are not fully dependent on international aid. Professor Betts suggests an innovative solution to humanitarian aid contexts that blur into development challenges, specifically related to long-term refugee situations. That solution is incubator cities made up of semi-permanent infrastructure designed to provide housing, health, educational and economic support services and opportunities to populations in transition. Professor Betts’ inspiration for such cities are university campuses, which manage a fluctuating and transitioning population annually.

Professor Alexander Betts discusses meeting the immediate and long-term needs of the displaced.
Credit: Global Philanthropy Forum

Proposed solutions such as those provided by Professor Betts cannot be left to aid and development practitioners alone. There is a necessary role for donors, governments, corporations, and civil society actors, as well. The organizers of the Forum, the World Affairs Council, had the foresight to provide seats for all such actors at the conference table. Relatedly, it was suggested that one major role of philanthropy is that of the convener; or in other words, to support civil society organizations while bringing together major players such as businesses and government agencies to jointly tackle social and environmental issues.

 

Local Support is Key to Overall Success

Another common theme that emerged from the Forum was the immense benefit of participation by local community members in developing and managing community driven solutions to migration challenges. It was proposed that all parties working to address such issues should engage and include the local voice from the very start in the design phase of a project. One such participant of the Forum was Ursula Rakova, Executive Director of Tulele Peisa, a local non-governmental organization (NGO) working to relocate Tulun/Carterets Atoll Islanders who are currently threatened by rising sea levels associated with climate change.

Ursula Rakova discusses the plight of climate refugees.
Credit: Global Philanthropy Forum

Ms. Rakova gave an emotional account of the work conducted by local community members in her birthplace, with support of the Catholic Church and other local and international NGOs, to relocate and resettle the island population to the nearby Papua New Guinea mainland. Participating in the conference gave Ms. Rakova an opportunity to share her story, and learn from and connect with other organizations also working on climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. The need for all actors working on such issues to anticipate, mitigate, and adapt to social and environmental crises was another overarching theme of the conference. In addition to climate mitigation and adaptation, other examples of organizations anticipating versus simply responding to crises, include conflict resolution and building systems of effective governance.

 

The Need for a Social Impact Infrastructure

Additional major conference themes as summarized by Forum President and CEO, Jane Wales, include: building/nurturing/sustaining the infrastructure of social impact that includes a vibrant civil society; the role of youth and the need to invest in them across all conference issue areas; the importance of the open data movement as it relates to program evaluation and sector learning; and that the ultimate role of philanthropy should be to provide people with dignity.

“The ultimate role of philanthropy should be to provide people with dignity.”

Global Philanthropy Forum President and CEO, Jane Wales, welcomes Forum participants to the stage.
Credit: Global Philanthropy Forum

 

As the Forum was organized around the overarching topic of global philanthropy, the multiple roles of philanthropy were discussed throughout the event, including:

 

• providing financial resources to civil society organizations;
• convening major players to address social and environmental challenges;
• advancing the democratic process;
• providing rigorous monitoring & evaluation of interventions and open data;
• supporting the capacity building of local organizations;
• acting as a laboratory for social justice;
• incubating and accelerating solutions to social and environmental challenges;
• integrating culture into such solutions;
• providing a voice for civil society through advocacy grantmaking and participatory research design;
• supporting innovation and entrepreneurship;
• developing human capital through management and training;
• acting as an endorser to attract additional investments towards potential solutions; and
• as it was stated several times over the course of the Forum, the idea that ultimately, foundations have the capacity to take on risk and thus, take on the role of risk-taker.

 

As a former humanitarian aid actor, development practitioner, and now grantmaker, it was an honor to participate in a conference that brought together so many like-minded individuals to share their knowledge and experience. Ultimately, woven through my own career is the thread of positive social and environmental impact, and I felt that that thread was stripped apart and thoroughly examined at the Forum.

Berkeley-Haas and CSSL: Growing global leadership on social impact

As readers of the CSSL blog, you’ve seen our recent work as the global launch partner for Philanthropy University – the exciting online learning initiative that has reached hundreds of thousands of learners from more than 190 countries thus far. This partnership is a meaningful way to extend the excellence of Berkeley-Haas and CSSL across the globe. We do this in other ways as well, and one particularly timely example is the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC), which is hosting its global finals this weekend.

For the first time ever, the global finals will be in Asia – 8,745 miles from Berkeley in Bangkok, Thailand! We recently detailed many of the exciting, game-changing social ventures going to the finals from all corners of the world. But I wanted to reflect here a bit on how the resurgent GSVC is a bellwether for Berkeley-Haas’ growing global leadership on social impact.

The Global Social Venture Competition has been empowering emerging social entrepreneurs for nearly 20 years. It provides mentoring, exposure to important stakeholders, and prize money to transform ideas into ventures that address the world’s most pressing challenges. The GSVC was founded by Berkeley-Haas students in the late ’90s, and supported by Professor Laura Tyson, who was then the Dean of the school. Professor Tyson has reengaged deeply with GSVC, and is helping to fuel the growth of the competition in her role as faculty director.

It's official – #GSVC2016 finals kick-off today! pic.twitter.com/PX64ors10l

— GSVC (@GSVC) March 31, 2016

Several thousand global teams have participated in this competition. Some big names – like Kiva, Ethos Water, Sanergy and World of Good, which was acquired by EBay – have emerged from it. Some of these great social ventures won the top prize, and some placed as finalists. Each of these teams, and many, many more, have benefited from participating in GSVC and used the competition as a launch pad of sorts.

And speaking of launchpads, GSVC not only empowers social venture teams, but also provides Berkeley-Haas with a platform to project our point of view on how social venture work can be done with the highest levels of social impact and connection to the actual people whose lives these ventures intend to improve.  Last year, we pivoted away from traditional business plans and towards using the business model canvas along with a stronger social impact assessment framework. These powerful tools force a discipline to deeply understand how social and economic problems are experienced by the people these social ventures aim to help.

In the coming months, we will also introduce a new framework to assess the true social impact produced by social ventures. While we’ll share this broadly with the social impact field, it is also our hope that pieces of this will also be woven into the GSVC in future years.

I’ll introduce this new social impact assessment tool in upcoming posts and through other outlets. But in the meantime, I want to send good luck to team Dost (led by Sneha Sheth, Haas MBA 16 and Sindhuja Jeyabal , I-School 16), representing Berkeley-Haas as finalists at GSVC this week in Bangkok.

GSVC Finalists Dost and 10Power with Rich Lyons

I’m very proud to say that three of the social venture teams from the Social Lean Launchpad class I co-teach with Jorge Calderon, made it to the western regional finals for GSVC. While Dost pushed through to the finals, two other teams – Planet Murple (led by Emily Yao, Haas MBA 16, and Dave Resnick, Cal MPH 16) and Renklikoy  (led by Sevda Gundogan, Haas MBA 16) – represented the class fabulously as well.

Like the great teams that preceded them, I have faith that Dost, Planet Murple and Renklikoy will continue to rise and shine as a result of their experiences in GSVC. And, they’ll continue to do it by living all four of the Haas defining principles – challenging the status quo, going beyond themselves, having confidence without attitude and being students always. On the faculty side, we’ll follow their lead in letting these values drive our own work on elevating the field of social enterprise to have even more social impact.

Stay tuned for more soon.

Making it Real – Seeing First Hand the Impact of Your Work

By Alex Levy, MBA 17

Alex Levy

I’ll admit it. When I woke up to the sound of my alarm and driving rain early on a Saturday morning, I had a strong urge to hit snooze and roll over. I was scheduled to be at Bay Leaf kitchen, the non-profit where I’ve been serving as a non-voting board member for the past few months, in an hour to volunteer at one of their cooking classes.

As I lay in my bed, I realized that it wasn’t just my grogginess and the dread of rain keeping me under the covers. I was nervous. I was planning on driving to an unknown part of SF that people often say is dangerous. I was going to be working directly with kids during a cooking class and helping shape their relationship with food. I was stepping into an uncertain situation, and my half-awake brain searched for excuses.

Despite the rain and the uncertainty, I was able to wrest myself from bed and make the drive over to the Bayview. I would be helping out with the Roots class, which is a weekend class taught by Bay Leaf Kitchen to help 3-5 year olds learn cooking basics and develop a love for food early. The underlying rationale is that if these kids develop a connection with their food from a young age, they are much less likely to eat processed foods and develop metabolic disorders.

“I was blown away by how curious and excited these pre-kindergarteners were about carrots and grapes.” Alex Levy re @BayLeafKitchen

The class was a remarkable, eye-opening, and fun experience. I was blown away by how curious and excited these pre-kindergarteners were about carrots and grapes. One student, Becks, had developed a particular affinity for chard, and set about creating a chard salad with lime and sesame seed dressing. The result honestly tasted like something you’d be proud to serve to houseguests, if not something you’d be served in a New American restaurant. As the students shuttled between the cooking area and garden, seeking out particular vegetables and herbs, I couldn’t help but be excited by these kids’ enthusiasm for healthy and fresh food.

Jr. Chef Helpers via BayLeafKitchen

The 3-5 year olds were assisted by another group of students, which Bay Leaf refers to as Junior Chef Helpers. This group of middle-schoolers has been through other Bay Leaf programming, and came to the Saturday classes to mentor the younger group. These Junior Chef Helpers were amazingly patient and thoughtful in guiding and instructing their young mentees, and they were clearly excited to cook and create an awesome, nutritious lunch. It was plain to see how this type of mentorship could create a virtuous cycle; the Junior Chef Helpers gained further confidence and excitement, and the younger “Roots” looked up to this group, who in turn reaffirmed their budding love for cooking and fresh produce.

After the Chard salad and cauliflower stew, the fried potatoes and cauliflower grape dessert had been cooked and consumed, and the makeshift kitchen cleaned and packed away, I was incredibly recharged about the Bay Leaf mission. I had always believed that cooking education could positively impact health, wellness, and nutrition in children, but seeing the impact on individual 4-year-olds made it real.

https://twitter.com/bayleafkitchen/status/702325858795520001

One of my goals when I started at Berkeley-Haas was to develop a lifelong habit of community service. I joined Bay Leaf’s board through the Berkeley Board Fellows program to work towards this goal. Previously, I had done plenty of community service on a one-off basis, volunteering in soup kitchens, food banks, and nursing homes. I had trouble sustaining this involvement, so I thought that getting involved at the strategic levels of a non-profit might be a great way to develop personal investment and long-term involvement. What I realized was that to truly feel invested and involved, I need both. I enjoy being part of the board-level discussions, but also felt tremendous satisfaction helping a small group of 4-year-olds for two hours on a Saturday morning.

I’m ecstatic that I got out of bed that Saturday. I feel a renewed sense of engagement with Bay Leaf, and got some great chard salad too (thanks Becks!).

From Berkeley to Bangkok: Finalists in the Global Social Venture Competition

By Edmund L. Andrews

The 2016 Global Social Venture Competition is now in the final stretch. After reviewing new business ideas from almost 500 start-up social ventures in 50 nations, judging panels from nine regional partners across the globe have selected 17 social venture teams that will travel to Bangkok, Thailand, for the final round of competition on April 1 and 2.   They will be competing for $50,000 in prize money.

This is the first time in the competition’s 17-year history that the Global Finals will be held in Asia.

Among the many innovations: an e-reader for the blind that produces pages of text in braille; a library-in-a-box for students with limited access to the Internet; a low-cost system to remove pathogens from sewage water; a networking platform that allows tiny neighborhood shops to aggregate food purchases and lower their costs.

The top-performing nations this year, in terms of first-round entries, were Italy, China, the United States, France and India. Morocco and Nigeria put in strong showings as well.

All told, 178 universities were involved, and 13 countries will be represented at the Global Finals, including first-time appearances from Cameroon, Colombia and Turkey.

Five of the finalists have focused on education:

Dost, founded by UC Berkeley graduate students Sneha Sheth (Haas MBA ’16) and Sindhuja Jeyabal (I-School ‘16), has developed a mobile platform to help mothers in impoverished economies break the cycle of illiteracy. The Dost platform sends mothers pre-recorded voice messages with tips on learning activities and child development. It also collects data on the users’ demographic profiles and goals in order to customize the content.

Recruiting MBAs for Social Impact Internships

MBA Intern at SMASH Academy

Berkeley-Haas MBAs want to have a positive impact on the world. For some of them, the time to start is now, not after graduation or a “first career” in corporate America. That desire translates into an opportunity for nonprofit and social enterprises to recruit and hire MBAs as summer interns. If your organization has a tough, strategic project that could use a smart, energetic, passionate MBA from a top program, now is the time to recruit.

Top graduate programs, including Berkeley-Haas, are seeing an increase in socially-focused MBAs. Is compensation too large an obstacle to be competitive? The answer is that there is no answer. Some large nonprofits can provide top pay, while others struggle to provide even a transportation stipend. Students are attracted to the full package; an interesting project, a strong organization, a unique experience, leadership development opportunities, work aligned with their passion, as well as pay and benefits.

The first step is creating a strong job description to market your project and organization. Some things to remember when creating a job description for MBAs:

• Put the impact of your work and/or the strength of your organization front and center.
• Link the expected outcomes of the work/project to the impact and mission of the organization.
• What experiences will the candidate gain from the position that are unique or valuable?
• Does the role create an experience with something new or innovative?

Philanthropy University: Magnet for Aspiring Leaders Worldwide

By Laura D. Tyson

Philanthropy University, the global online training program for social sector leaders that is anchored at Berkeley-Haas, has achieved even more in its first six months than most of us dared hope. The statistics from the first set of courses are worth mentioning:

• Original course offerings – 7
• Total enrollments – 412,844
• Unique users – nearly 200,000
• Nations represented – 193

Beyond the topline numbers, new data shows a remarkable geographic range and an untapped demand for professional training in leadership skills, organizational management, financing and scaling up of organizations committed to social impact.

Of the 18,000 enrollees who provided geographic data, 13.5% came from the United States but the nine other countries in the top ten were in Africa and Asia. The globally diverse top 10 nations were:

Top 10 Represented Countries
1. United States (13.5%) 2. Nigeria (9.2%) 3. India (7.6%) 4. Pakistan 5. The Philippines	6. Kenya 7. Ghana 8. Bangladesh 9. South Africa 10. Zimbabwe