January 2010 Archives
By Aaron Hurst on
January 29, 2010 9:30 AM
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Josh Rai, our fearless web developer, is already the third casualty of
jury duty on our team this year. (We're not even a month into 2010!) In
the hope that it would get him out of jury duty, Josh developed a
program that could reliably return verdicts that would replicate actual
human jury verdicts.
Here it is-
if (trial.getDistrict().getUntrustedRaces().includes(defendant.getRace()) and
defendant.getAnnualIncome() < LocationService.lookup("90210").getAverageIncome() and
MagazineService.lookup("Us").countOccurrencesInPastYear(defendant.getName()) < 10) {
return "Guilty";
}
else {
return "Not Guilty";
}
We
think he did a great job. Imagine how many hours of wasted time and
government costs Josh just saved the country. Nobel Prize? He has my
vote.
By Aaron Hurst on
January 20, 2010 2:38 PM
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With an upcoming Taproot board meeting, the recent release of our
Board Recruitment Service Grant,
and our participation in the San Francisco board matching event
referenced in my last post, this week we have been thinking a lot about
board service.
As a result, an article that referenced a
board made up mainly of lawyers caught my attention. My experience is
largely in working with social entrepreneurs. To most social
entrepreneurs, a board of lawyers feels like an innovation death
warrant.
Instead, social entrepreneurs tend to design boards
they believe will support their own entrepreneurial drive. These boards
tend to come in one of five flavors-
1)
The Passive Board- The goal is to have a board that doesn't get in your way. It is small and populated by friends.
2)
The Succession Board-
The goal is to ensure the organization will continue after you leave.
This board tries to help the organization 'grow up' as fast as possible
and put systems in place.
3)
The Capital Board- The goal here is to raise $500k+ per year in unrestricted funds to pay for innovation and growth.
4)
The Mentor Board-
The goal is to support you as an inexperienced entrepreneur by
partnering with veterans who can play a very active role in the
leadership of the organization.
5)
The Credibility Board- The goal is to show foundations and others that you are legit by populating the board with experts in the field.
Are these the best five models? How can social entrepreneurs create better boards?
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As mentioned last week- for my thoughts on the future of nonprofit board service, check out my keynote address from the recent BoardSource Leadership Forum. You can also check out BoardSource for additional tools and events.
By Katelyn Wilson on
January 15, 2010 1:56 PM
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On January 12, the
Volunteer Center Serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties presented their annual Board Match Event at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
The event is essentially a job fair for potential board members. More than 120 nonprofits set up booths and wooed potential board members from all walks of life - there were young professionals that would likely be carded at rated R movies mingling with folks who could have ordered off the back of the Denny's menu while Clinton was President.
One woman attended because after a 20-year "stint" on the board at a local hospital, she had reached her term limit and was looking for a new organization to serve. Some younger professionals were attracted no doubt by the sassy, "come one, come all" attitude conveyed by the tattooed, orange legwarmer-wearing board member portrayed on the event's collateral.
In the first hour - when most of us were still at work - more than 700 potential board candidates arrived. That's how many attended in total last year. As co-host, Taproot Foundation would love to take credit for this amazing turnout (we did
tweet about it ...), but it would seem that the booming interest in board service might surpass even our reach.
The volunteering and service movement seems to have found another growth opportunity, and people are clamoring for a way to engage on a deeper level with the nonprofits serving our communities. Events like the Board Match provide nonprofits with an opportunity to meet a diverse pool of talent, and therefore be positioned to be strategic in their selection processes. By capitalizing on the vast and growing interest, nonprofits are able to build their leadership and management capacity. And isn't that what it's all about?
On a side note, Taproot Foundation's network showed up in droves - several nonprofit clients busily recruited, dozens of pro bono consultants attended, and a few of our friends from Service Grant Tokyo stopped by our host's table to say hello.
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For even more about the future of nonprofit board governance, about check out Aaron Hurst's recent keynote address from the BoardSource Leadership Forum.
By Marilyn Chen & Jaime Hiraishi on
January 14, 2010 7:34 AM
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To start the conversation on this emerging field, this week, The Taproot Foundation, the Net Impact Chicago Booth chapter, and American Bar Association Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service and the Center for pro bono gathered twenty-five leaders from Chicago business, law, design, and architecture schools at the first-ever Chicago Summit on Pro Bono Service in Professional Schools.
With deans, professors, program directors, and students, we had a unique cross-university discussion focusing on the current State of the Pro Bono Union, how professional schools can collaborate to make an even bigger impact on the challenges facing Chicago today, and building a framework to ensure success and continuity of pro bono programs from year to year.
Some key points and outcomes from the Summit's conversation include:
- Pro bono programs are currently student driven and primarily student run
- There is great value in collaboration across schools to take on multi-disciplinary projects
- There is great potential for university pro bono to have a positive impact in the city of Chicago
- In order to change the culture of the institution, infrastructure is needed - as one participant commented, "We have people ready, give me the resources!"
- The group envisioned experiential learning as a part of every professional school's education by 2013
- A representative from the Civic Consulting Alliance committed to creating a list of 100 key issues for students to solve through pro bono
With great enthusiasm on campuses, we need to bring training, infrastructure, and resources to schools to move the needle on the pro bono movement. It's clear the time is now! How do you suggest we make this happen?
By Aaron Hurst on
January 7, 2010 11:36 AM
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These days there are so many incredible models for delivering pro bono service. Over the coming months I would like to spotlight some of the people and organizations who are leading the pro bono movement. To kick this off, this week I interviewed Kunal Modi. Here's the interview-
Kunal Modi is the Board Chairman of campusCATALYST, a Chicago-based organization he co-founded with Molly Day. campusCATALYST partners with leading universities to engage undergraduates in pro bono work for nonprofits. Working in engagement teams, and supported by both academic and business mentors, participating students enroll in a for-credit university course which complements in-class learning with pro bono service placements in the local community. You're working at Teach for America now through McKinsey- how does that work?McKinsey has a program called the McKinsey nonprofit corps. Having had on-the-ground nonprofit experience working with AmeriCorps, I wanted to understand how my management consulting training could be applied to the social sector to support a cause and a nonprofit that I believed in. I've always been interested in education. Teach for America is a really interesting case study of how to bring a lot of different skill sets together around a cause in the social sector.
The social sector right now is being defined, and I want to be a part of that discussion. I believe the best social enterprises seek to inform rather than supplant government institutions. Today, we can really start to identify and aggregate the most interesting, effective ideas in the social sector and work to translate them into government policy. For example- if Teach for America has cracked the code on the teacher recruitment model, how do we work with the Department of Education and translate those findings to affect education more broadly in this country?
So, tell us about the founding of campusCATALYST. What was the catalyst?When I worked with a nonprofit called LIFT, we had a mixed range of experiences with both nonprofit and student-driven consultants. Later, as I recruited for McKinsey, I got further introduced to the consulting framework and model. At the same time, my co-founder Molly Day was in Malawi doing research with a nonprofit. We looked at our experiences in tandem and recognized that there was an opportunity to use a lot of the management consulting frameworks to tap into the talent pool of energetic,talented, passionate students. Our program promotes cross-sector careers and leadership and shows students that no matter what profession
you go on to, your skill sets have a useful application to the
organizations serving your community.
Where is the organization now?
We're two years old and proud of all the work the organization has done in the broader Chicagoland community; we run for-credit institutionalized classes at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago; we're working also with Kellogg School of Management and Booth School of Business. We've engaged over 250 students and worked with 50 nonprofit organizations. We've contributed about $600,000 in pro bono services to the Evanston, Hyde Park, and Chicago community, and we're excited to keep growing.
Who is the typical student and client?
The typical student in campusCATALYST is someone who is strong academically and has also taken a leadership position at an organization on campus. Typically the organizations we work with are small-medium sized nonprofits that are very invested in the local community. campusCATALYST works to scope out projects that ensure the engagements are valuable learning experiences for our students but are also a very concrete successes for our clients.
We've seen many MBAs struggle to serve nonprofits given their lack of experience. What skills do you find undergrads can reliably provide?Undergraduates are tenacious researchers; they're incredibly tech savvy; they're very resourceful. The trick is to create a pro bono opportunity for students that capitalizes on their strengths while providing adequate training, resources, and advisory support. I think the for-credit classes we offer through our university partners is unique model to tap into the all the talent and energy of students on campus.
So, what's next for campusCATALYST?We have a lot of exciting growth prospects going forward. We're looking to expand our impact to more students and more campuses. This past year we launched an Advanced Analyst program for students to come together for a repeat engagement at a faster pace. We'd like to start an externship program or partner with a study abroad program. We're also really ramping up our alumni efforts. As we graduate students, we'll see a unique set of leaders who have been through this transformative experience and can work together as alumni to drive social change.
By Aaron Hurst on
January 5, 2010 8:03 PM
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There is an American sense of progress based, in part, on the manifest destiny proclaimed by the settlers of the West. For these settlers, new territory was not only desirable, it was a patriotic mandate. They gobbled up the West like Pacman on speed.
The era of manifest destiny coincided with the growth of the first real corporate boom as companies built railroads and delivered goods around the nation. These companies were built with the manifest destiny culture and mandate. Grow. Scale. Consume.
This core philosophy has continued through the corporate eras fueled by the military-industrial complex and booms in real estate, globalization, energy, finance and technology. Today, MBA programs teach that success is defined with the same goals. Grow. Scale. Consume.
Unlike the private sector, the nonprofit sector has focused on impact (value creation) rather than scale. At its best, this mentality has still sought organizational progress, but rather than a progress rooted in manifest destiny, it has been a progress more akin to that of a craftsman.
A craftsman's progress is defined by the quality of his craft and not solely by volume of production. The craftsman's success is measured by his ability to create increasingly high-quality goods of increasing value and by the satisfaction he derives from this process of creation.
Manifest destiny is a land grab. Craftsmanship is the art and science of value creation.
Given that the modern pacman company has been around for our entire lifetimes, we tend to think that it will and must always exist. It is such a core part of our lives and economy that to imagine scenarios where it is radically altered seems naive.
Still, the craftsman has actually been a part of civilization for much longer and represents a a more sustainable and more satisfying model. This model is healthier, because it is based on a resource constrained reality that affords more satisfying work for more people.
What if rather than teaching MBA students how to be pacmen, we taught them to be professionals? What if we taught them to value their trade as art or craft? What if we taught them to measure value creation and not just market share?
Josh Rai, our fearless web developer, is already the third casualty of
jury duty on our team this year. (We're not even a month into 2010!) In
the hope that it would get him out of jury duty, Josh developed a
program that could reliably return verdicts that would replicate actual
human jury verdicts.
