Top Non-Profits?

Question

I was just wondering what are some of the top non-profits that can lead to business school? And what do these places pay?

As long as I could afford to live off that salary I wouldn't mind doing that over an IB.

isa · Answer

Kellogg's Social Impact page has quite a bit of detail on which companies recruit their MBAs, the recruiting calendar, etc.

Here's the PPT they posted on companies that recruited during their career fair. Note that it also contains for-profit companies (e.g. Baxter, Abbott Labs) but you should be able to get a sense of the types of companies that recruit...

https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/student/club/social/Careerfair.htm

I would imagine other schools with a non-profit emphasis also have similar details posted (Yale, Duke come to mind). I'd also take a look at similar websites for other schools you're interested in.

hope this helps,
ac.

msday · Answer

If you're looking for a non-profit that you can join immediately after undergrad with the hope of going to an MBA 2-3 years out, then Teach for America (TFA) and the Peace Corps come to mind. Lots of folks seem to come out of those two places.

isa · Answer

Oh I might have misunderstood your original question. If you're looking for pre-MBA nonprofit programs, msday's right that Peace Corps and TFA are popular ones. I've also met people who've come out of the UNDP programs, Gates Foundation, Acumen Foundation, Grameen (I think it counts).

aaudetat · Answer

hello hello!

I'm an SY at Duke and worked in a nonprofit before coming to school. I think that if you're good, you can turn almost any nonprofit experience into a good bschool-app-worthy story. I'll discuss this a little more below, but the first thing I'd say is work someplace that turns you on. It's hard hard work and if you aren't driven from the inside to get up every day, then it's not going to be worth it to you. Do you have anything that you're interested in doing? Technology? Education? Housing? Environment? What "causes" are you willing to put yourself into?

Once you decide what to do, there are some pros to working in np:

you get to management level quicker
you have p/l responsibility fairly early
they're usually smaller, and you get to do more stuff
if you're there, it's because you love it
usually your coworkers love it too
the work you do matters

Bschools like np backgrounds because of the above, and because you're probably a joiner and a contributor. You're unique, both in your background and what you bring to a class discussion - how you think, what matters to you - will be quite different from that of your classmates.

Of course, there are some down-sides too.

NPs have a reputation for being poorly run, and it can be really stressful. You're probably overworked and under-paid. You won't have resources. And the work is just d@mn hard. No one knows what the answers are. Forprofit folks can say, "yep, I sold X widgets and made Y on each one, so our bottom line is Z." Not so clear for the do-gooders. It's hard to know what works, hard to prove you're the best place to put a funder's dollar.

From the bschool side, the adcoms might think that you can't hack "business stuff" like statistics and accounting. They might also think it'd be hard to employ you.

I'm happy to talk about more of this stuff with you, and give you some ideas about the different kinds of nonprofits and what they pay if you give me an idea of what you're specifically interested in.

cheerio
aau

mcds · Answer

Thanks! I'm mainly interested in education for underprivileged kids, namely to get high talented kids to top prep schools for high schools then to top colleges. Particularly for minorities.

I ran a non-profit of my own and still sit on the board and I've raised around 15K either through fundraisers, networking or grant writing so I have some experience.

Ntang · Answer

You might look at some of the smaller non-profits active in your area. Most states (and certainly most metropolitan areas) have various non-profit organizations working to help underprivileged youth excel in school and get into college. But the poster above is correct... do it because the work/goal turns you on first and foremost, because whatever benefit you think it'll have on a B-school app won't counterbalance the hard work and low pay you'll receive.

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