Social Enterprise Initiative

Summer Associates


2002 Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship Summaries

Click on organization name for summaries.

ACCION International
Rosalinda Cabrera
 My project was to calculate the potential need for medium-term financing among ACCION Latin affiliates because of their offer of a new credit, housing financing, and to identify and assess on-going availability and scaleability issues with funding sources. To solve these issues I learned to deal with nonprofit figures and nonprofit schemes, which were very different from the ones I used to manage in large for-profit organizations; therefore, I had to be creative and come up with new original mechanisms that have not been implemented in most of the Latin countries, and to do so I learned about their local financial systems and about the socially responsible world.
 I presented such mechanisms to all the parties that should be involved in their operation and I got positive and passionate reactions. The parties offered their full commitment and commented how this project will impact their future way of managing their businesses.

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The Acumen Fund
Amira El-Adawi
 My internship as a Summer Associate at the Acumen Fund, was one of the most interesting, comprehensive experiences one can hope to have in a 10 week period. During the period from June 13th through Aug 9th, I worked at the Acumen headquarters in New York City, followed by a brief on site assignment in Egypt the week of Aug 16th. My responsibility was to establish the foundation for the Economic and Civic Enterprise Portfolio. The portfolio is a venture philanthropic portfolio that focuses on investing in civic enterprises in Egypt and Pakistan.
 The 9 weeks at the headquarters in NY were spent framing and defining the portfolio, identifying both the advisory and the investment boards for the portfolio, identifying and conducting the due diligence on the first round of investment as well as identifying a pipeline of projects for future rounds of investment. This was followed by a week in Egypt which was primarily spent completing the due diligence with on site follow-up visits to our first round of investees.

Amanda Merryman
 In late spring, Acumen Fund retained McKinsey & Company to assist them in creating a performance measurement and grantee evaluation system. My project involved managing the performance measurement project with McKinsey, and overseeing the development and implementation of performance measures for Acumen's portfolio organizations.

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The Angiogenesis Foundation
Mei Shibata
 "Angiogenesis" is the study of new blood vessel formation and it is believed to be a common denominator of diseases that afflict 500 million patients in Western nations each year, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, some forms of blindness, arthritis and psoriasis. My summer project at the Angiogenesis Foundation was to develop a technology evaluation tool for emerging angiogenic therapies. More specifically, the instrument I built takes more than 40 variables into consideration and calculates financial, business opportunity and risk scores for each angiogenesis drug in development. The objective of the tool is to help improve the quality and efficiency of angiogenesis technology development by providing the business and financial communities with a more scientific and clinically based instrument for comparatively evaluating different agents in clinic. The internship was twelve weeks long.

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Alaska Conservation Foundation
Joshua Haacker
 I was hired by the Alaska Conservation Foundation and worked with one of their key partner organizations, Denali National Park & Preserve. My main project was to develop a strategic planning process for the Research and Resource Preservation Division in order to help focus and prioritize their work. I also conducted an organizational assessment in order to provide recommendations concerning workplanning systems, organizational structure and personnel development. A third project that I worked on was the analysis of alternative pricing models for future concession contracts.

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Boston Cure Project
Stacy Schwartz
 This summer, I was a Market Analyst for the Boston Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis, a national nonprofit organization focused on finding a cure for MS by first determining its causes. My role was to create a comprehensive "market map" by which the organization can navigate the best route toward executing its comprehensive research plans in a complex market comprised of powerful private, nonprofit, and government players. My document details the operations, roles, and incentives fueling health care discovery, development, and delivery in the MS market. Data for this analysis were acquired through extensive primary and secondary research of the drivers influencing product, money, and information flows between individuals, the NIH, foundations, scientists, journals, biopharmaceuticals, the FDA, payers, hospitals, physicians, pharmacists, and patients.

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Calmeadow/AfriCap Microfinance Fund
Una Kim
 I was a Summer Associate with Africap Microfinance Fund, a $15 million equity fund dedicated to the African microfinance industry based in Dakar, Senegal. Microfinance involves providing financial services to segments of the population generally considered to be "unbankable" by traditional banks and aims to reduce poverty, promote entrepreneurship, increase economic activity, and improve general social well-being through access to capital. Africap makes investments in a select number of leading microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Africa committed to commercial viability. Africap operates on a venture capital model and has dual financial and developmental objectives of earning equity returns and leading sector advancement. I spend the summer evaluating several potential investments in MFIs in East Africa. I conducted extensive due diligence, interviews of management and staff, financial, sector, and country analysis, and prepared investment reports, proposals, and documentation.

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Catalyst Alliance, Inc.
Carlin Janson
 The HBS Social Enterprise Fellowship allowed me to spend my summer using the skills I learned during my first year at HBS to advance the goals of Catalyst Alliance, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit consulting company. Catalyst Alliance creates innovative cross-sector collaborations that help other nonprofit organizations develop sustainable ways to address pressing social problems. Catalyst Alliance's mission is to effect lasting social change by partnering with nonprofit organizations to create entrepreneurial, efficient, and sustainable approaches to their missions, while mobilizing a strong network of committed social entrepreneurs. Through the Fellowship, I completed a number of strategic projects to help Catalyst Alliance build its organizational capacity and improve its ability to serve its myriad stakeholders. My summer experiences strengthened my passion for Catalyst Alliance's mission, and reinforced my strong belief in leveraging business knowledge and skills to develop creative solutions to society's most critical challenges.

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Citizen Schools
Tina Snowden
 Through Catalyst Alliance consulting, I developed a major portion of Citizen Schools' new growth plan including the rationale behind national growth, the form and rate of growth, identification of ideal CBO and alliance partnerships, the financial implications behind growth, and a potential career path that will attract and maintain talent in Citizen Schools affiliates throughout the country.

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City Year, Inc.Richard Leimsider
 City Year is an "urban Peace Corps" program for young people from all backgrounds to serve their communities. City Year seeks to demonstrate, improve and promote the concept of national service as a means for building a stronger democracy. Serve-a-thon is City Year's pre-eminent service and fundraising event. To be held in Boston this year on Saturday, October 26, 2002, Serve-a-thon unites 5,000 local citizens to participate in a day of service, and to fundraise on behalf of City Year.
I provided a host of management support services for Serve-a-thon, including general strategic support, marketing, partnership development, data management, and volunteer recruitment and training. Join us by visiting www.cityyear.org/serveathon.

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CitySkills.org
Dune Thorne
 During my Social Enterprise Fellowship I worked as a summer associate for Catalyst Alliance, a non-profit organization founded by Accenture. Catalyst's mission is to help entrepreneurial non-profits grow by enabling them to leverage long-term relationships with academic institutions (Harvard Business School, Sloan School, Haas School of Management and Stanford Business School) and Accenture. Summer Associates are matched with an Accenture team of consultants and lead projects for Catalyst's non-profit clients. My client, CitySkills, is an entrepreneurial workforce development organization in Boston. CitySkills acts as an intermediary between urban IT job training programs and employers to help build long-term relationships that will ultimately improve Boston area IT career ladders. My project was primarily focused on developing an internship program structure to increase the number of IT internship opportunities available to urban students as well as design a set of management tools that interns and managers can use improve the quality of their internship experiences.

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Commons Capital, LP
Sam Spencer
 I worked at Commons Capital, a venture capital firm in Brookline, Massachusetts which seeks strong financial returns as well as significant social and environmental impact. The firm invests in "double bottom-line" early-stage companies whose products or services promote a sustainable economy by delivering market solutions to major social and environmental challenges. The areas of investment include clean energy, environment, education, and healthcare. I concentrated on examining early-stage companies with technologies related to water. Water is will increasingly be area of concern in the United States and around the world in the coming decades because of problems related to both quantity and quality. I performed an overall study of the water industry and conducted due diligence on start-up companies with new technologies for cleaning and conserving water for drinking, wastewater, and industrial purposes.

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Community Development Venture Capital Alliance
Michelle Kraemer
 As a Summer Intern at CDVCA, I became an integral part of carrying out the organization's efforts to use the tools of venture capital to create jobs, wealth, and entrepreneurial capacity for low-income individuals and distressed communities. I had the opportunity to assist CDVCA in transporting the community development venture capital model abroad by creating the first database to track capitalization, investment activity, portfolio companies, and other information on International development funds. I also assisted CDVCA in developing a strategic marketing plan for their products and services.

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The D2D Fund
Bettina Hakerem
 D2D Fund, Inc. ("D2D") is an early-stage non-profit organization formed to develop new ways to offer financial services to traditionally under-served low and moderate-income households by creating creative partnerships among financial service firms, technology firms, government programs and traditional nonprofits. Located in Roxbury, Massachusetts, D2D Fund is working on providing its internet-based financial product to communities nationwide and has developed a relationship with the Alston-Brighton Community Development Corporation where it will be running a Phase I test site for its product.
 My projects as a Social Enterprise Fellow were largely focused around assisting D2D in developing the program surrounding its product, as well as some product development and evaluation. I developed training materials for D2D's Internet-based product for its three primary user groups: program directors, program administrators and program participants. I assisted in developed an evaluation process and evaluation materials for D2D's product both within the context of the pilot program and beyond the pilot program into a regional or national product introduction. In addition, D2D formed a User Advisory Group comprised of all three user groups to provide feedback on the product, training materials and evaluation tools. I helped provide materials for these meetings and helped to ensure the feedback from the meetings was used to make changes where possible and appropriate. I was also involved in the day-to-day operations of a young non-profit, which can be unpredictable at times!

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Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Johanna Blaxall
 The objective of my project was to provide analysis to help determine the future strategy of the Cause Marketing Business Unit in the DFCI Division of Development & The Jimmy Fund. I researched the general field of cause marketing and conducted competitive analysis on both traditional cancer institute competition and successful cause marketing programs at other types of non-profits. I also looked internally at the existing Cause Marketing Business Unit at Dana-Farber and spoke with their current corporate partners to understand what they are looking for out of a partnership and the current status of the relationships. I presented two sets of recommendations, one for a continued regional growth scenario and another if a decision is made to expand nationally.

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Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) Government of the Philippines
Elaine Aglipay
 My major project at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was the development of material for Filipino businessmen that would orient them on how to do business in China and recommend Philippine products and services for which there was a relatively great market opportunity in China. The aim of the material is to increase awareness about the China market and encourage exporters to enter China. This project is in line with the Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) for 2002 to 2004 which was approved by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the week that I started my internship. In the PEDP, China had been identified by the government as a priority export market given that the Philippines' share of the growing Chinese import market grew +180% from 1998 to 2001. The final output will be given to local businessmen. More importantly, it is going to be distributed to the participants of the First Philippine Solo Exhibition in Shanghai next March 2003, another DTI initiative aimed at promoting the China market. A minor project of mine aimed at increasing exports to emerging countries with higher financial risk. This project involved working with Standard Charter Bank in assessing the need for a facility which would secure the letter of credits of Philippine exporters from countries which had a lower credit rating relative to the Philippines.

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EE's Residential Group Homes
AJ Shanley
 EE's Residential Group Homes, Inc. (EE's) is a nonprofit organization that provides foster-care services to delinquent minors. An effective alternative to juvenile detention centers, the organization operates twelve facilities in San Jose, California, and is licensed by the state to house 72 youths. In addition to housing, the organization provides around the clock care for the teenagers and offers a variety of programs that focus on rehabilitation and skill development. I had the opportunity to join this organization in a strategic consulting role for a portion of this summer.

I spent nine weeks working with EE's to address many of their financial and organizational weaknesses. EE's core competency is rehabilitating delinquent minors; the individuals who run EE's are experts in child care. However, they have little formal training in business, operational efficiency, knowledge management, finance, or technology. My task this summer was to identify strategies and procedures in finance, technology, business development, individual performance incentives, and knowledge management that will enable the organization to continue to grow in the coming years.

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Endeavor Initiative, Inc.
Benjamin Gigot
Unlike most other non-profit internships, Endeavor does not plan to use its MBA interns internally, but to charge them with the responsibility to coach and support one particular new business, that needs the business expertise, contacts and acumen of an MBA during a summer for a defined task.
 I was staffed with new IT services start-up Openware. Started in 1994 by Federico Seineldin, Openware started as an IT consulting shop providing services and support to medium-sized argentine companies operating out of Buenos Aires and Rosario, where the company is located.

Joao Rodriguez
 Endeavor recruits top MBA students from leading US business schools to spend 10 weeks working on-site with our entrepreneurs to help them address their critical issues. I have worked 9 weeks for Escol@24horas, a Brazilian private company with the mission of providing complementary educational programs to students' trough the use of new web-enabled technologies. I have worked directly with Mauricio Curi - Executive Director - and his team of directors in several distinct projects: - Market Segmentation and Value proposition for each segments; Creation of a structured business development process; Creation of a detailed operation report on client usage; Business Plan for Internationalisation in European Country and Business Plan for entrance in corporative market in alliance with international incentives company.

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e-Parliament
Julia Brunings
 The e-Parliament is a year-old organization working to establish an ongoing forum to further communication and negotiation between the world's democratically-elected legislators in a joint search for effective solutions to global issues. It aims to produce a series of problem-solving processes on issues of global consequence such as global climatic change, children's rights, and AIDS. My role at the e-Parliament involved strategic evaluation and planning for a number of initiatives that are expected to launch before the end of 2002.

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European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Mark Collins
 I spent eleven weeks working with the Property, Tourism and Shipping Team at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). During that time, I was involved in work on five major real estate transactions for Russia, Poland, the Baltic States and the Balkans. Each of the projects was quite different, in terms of instrument (senior debt, mezzanine, equity), structure, size and location. My work was similarly varied - from valuation and capital markets analysis work to structuring the main terms of an investment and from researching ways to protect the Bank's interests through term sheet clauses to laying the groundwork for initial pricing and structuring negotiations with a client's investment bankers. In completing these tasks, I found my learning at HBS to be invaluable. While finance skills were to the fore, insights gained in other classes were ultimately equally important for understanding matters such as mitigating the risks inherent in deal-making, and understanding the interplay between individual projects and the wider economy. From a personal perspective, I believe that my time with the EBRD was extremely rewarding, as I was able to contribute, albeit in a small way, to projects that will materially assist in developing the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

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Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget
Susan Rasmus
 I worked within the Executive Office of the President in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Specifically, I worked in the Information Policy and Technology Branch. Over the summer, I reviewed business cases from federal agencies regarding their major information technology expenditures. I identified duplicative IT projects that could be eliminated through the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, I drafted OMB's policy on e-authentication (how the government validates a user's identity on-line), as well as a recommendation regarding a common ID card for all federal government employees.

Deana Sutliff
 In the Office of Management and Budget, I worked in the Front Office of the National Security Division. My projects primarily centered on the Defense budget for fiscal year 2003, and among other things, I coordinated and synthesized the Administration's opinion on the Senate-passed defense budget and facilitated communication between the Department of Defense and Congress. In addition, I worked with the intelligence team in the Homeland Security Transition Planning Office, which is charged with determining how to manage information sharing among federal, state, and local governments, and the private sector.

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The FATE Foundation
Elizabeth Howe
 I spent this summer as one of Fate Foundation USA's inaugural group of MBA interns sent to Lagos, Nigeria to promote the development of small businesses in that newly emerging democracy. The mission of the Fate Foundation is to foster wealth creation by promoting business and entrepreneurial development among Nigerian youth. Fate Foundation USA's mission is to promote economic development in Nigeria by serving as a channel through which resources, management support and information flow between the United States and Nigeria to aid entrepreneurial efforts. The Fate Foundation matched me with Delt-R Limited, a small Nigerian juice manufacturer with just five employees and $50,000 in annual revenue, so that I could help them develop a product expansion plan. In addition, I helped the Fate Foundation's current class of Aspiring Entrepreneurs develop their business plans.

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Finance Ministry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Bertrand Bodson
 When President Kabila came on campus last Fall, he asked Dean Clark if a Harvard team could help him on the reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). When his father was murdered a few months earlier, he was asked to take over the leadership of a country of 53 millions inhabitants living with less that 100 US$ per year. War, occupied territories, corruption, hyperinflation and unemployment were part of their daily life. Moreover, the country was at the edge of bankruptcy, with industry productivity declining sharply and the debt burden increasing proportionally.

 Peter Tynan and I have worked with his newly appointed minister of Economy, Finance & Budget (called "The super-minister" by the press, PhD in the US and a key IMF personality in the 90's) on two dossiers:

Analysis of the competitiveness of the Congolese industry (which resulted in an industry prioritisation for the DRC)
  Elaboration of an action plan for the revitalization of the private sector.

We worked closely with the government, private sector, World Bank, IMF and embassies, could always count on the help of HBS professors, and presented our recommendation to the Ministerial Commission and to the economic advisors of the president.

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Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)
T. Martin Butler
 My Social Enterprise fellowship was with the Boston affiliate of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC). I worked with another HBS intern on developing an Individual Development Account (IDA) program to be distributed through inner-city companies. These inner-city companies are part of Mayor Menino's Back Streets program, launched in the fall of 2001. We made recommendations to the executives at ICIC and Mayor Menino on what needs to be done in order to make an employer-based IDA program successful.

Ashleigh Davis
 The Back Streets Consulting Fellowship program is a joint effort by ICIC-Boston and The Boston Consulting Group. The program engages HBS summer fellows in high impact projects with local businesses supported by Mayor Menino's newly created Office for the Back Streets, part of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Back Streets companies include over 4,000 firms (largely commercial services and light manufacturing) that operate in Boston's inner city. They employ over 100,000 area residents, provide revenue to the city, enable the flow of goods and services in Boston, and provide economic diversity to Boston's economy. In the pilot year of this program, three Back Streets Fellows developed proposals for two programs to be rolled out to Back Streets companies: Workplace English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and Employer-Based Individual Development Accounts. My project entailed researching, developing and recommending a program plan to distribute ESOL to incumbent workers of Back Streets companies. In drafting the recommendation, I worked closely with ICIC-Boston and BCG's Boston office who provided mentorship and feedback on my project.

Ruby Kam
I worked with another HBS intern, in conjunction with the Mayor's office, researching possible amendments to Individual Development Account (IDA) legislation. IDAs are a savings vehicle for low-income participants to acquire a first home, to pay for post-secondary education, and to invest in a business. Our goal was to make IDAs more accessible to the population that qualified and benefited from IDAs. We researched the feasibility of changing IDAs from community-based organization run programs to employer-based programs. We tested this hypothesis by interviewing a subset of Boston inner city companies to see if employer-based IDAs would be desirable. We also analyzed and supported the need for additional low-income housing in Boston so IDA participants could apply their savings towards a first home.

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International Finance Corporation
Rudy Bijleveld
INCaF (IFC-Netherlands Carbon Facility) purchases greenhouse gas emission reductions in developing countries for the benefit of the Government of the Netherlands using the "Clean Development Mechanism" of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

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International Rescue Committee
Olivier Velter
This summer I worked during ten weeks for with the International Rescue Committee. The IRC is a leading non-sectarian, voluntary organization providing relief, protection, and resettlement services for refugees and victims of oppression or violent conflict. The IRC works in 26 countries across the world and supports around 150 million refugees worldwide. I worked more specifically in Uganda where the IRC runs a refugee camp housing 30,000 Sudanese refugees. My project was to design and implement a monitoring and evaluation system for the various programs of IRC Uganda (food, water sanitation, education, income generation, community services). This system is supposed to provide the information to assess the impact of the programs, to communicate the results to the donors and to allow the improvement the efficiency of those programs.

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Invention Factory Science Center
Charles Masters
 During my 10 week internship with the Invention Factory Science Center I prepared and presented a Situation Analysis, began implementing some key recommendations (such as increasing manufacturing space and re-organizing the personnel structure), and wrote a 5 year Strategic Plan. I had the chance to exercise an amazing variety of skills, have real impact, learn new things and see a new part of the country. The Science to Go program prepares and delivers science curriculum kits and professional development to teachers in the New Jersey area. Science to Go has expanded very rapidly, and the Board of Trustees was quite frankly unsure what the future of the business should be. It was like working on a start-up, but knowing that the end result was also a social benefit. I couldn't have asked for much more from my summer internship.

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Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Jennifer Dimas
In my time at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum this summer I have seen that there is a real opportunity for professionally trained managers to make a difference in a museum setting. I had the chance to work with various museum executives to create and implement an action plan consistent with the strategic goals of the Museum: to increase awareness, attendance, membership, and revenue. I was able to apply lessons newly learned in Strategy and Marketing to the job while I continued to develop these skills. I have always been dedicated to the arts, but my experience this summer has played a pivotal role in my decision to pursue museum work after graduation.

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Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lee Koffler
This summer I worked as an Assistant to the President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. (Linc Inc) in New York. The Lincoln Center Campus is home to twelve performing arts organizations. Each group is a separate entity. Linc Inc, the group that I worked for, has two roles. The first role is as a landlord for the campus. The role of landlord includes overseeing collaborative efforts between companies. Linc Inc's second role is as a producer of programming. There are seven programs that are included in this second role, including the Great Performers Series, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Lincoln Center Festival. I directly assisted the President of Linc Inc on projects for each of Linc Inc's two roles. The projects were related to Lincoln Center's $1.5 billion dollar redevelopment and Linc Inc's long-term planning.

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Ministry of Finance of Columbia
Julian Rizo
The internship took place at the Department of Public Credit of the Ministry of Finance of Colombia. This department is in charge of the management of Colombia's public debt (internal and external), and of the privatization of the Government's main companies as part of a long term restructuring effort. My main responsibilities were to evaluate the viability of the largest State owned telecom company and to provide general advise to the Ministries of Finance and Energy in the privatization of 4 power utilities. Although I have mixed feelings from this experience due to the uncertainty caused by the change of government that happened in the middle of the internship (a new President came to office), all in all it was a great way to get to know how the government works and a valuable lesson on leadership. I would be interested to go back to government some years after school if I can get a position with decision power.

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National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Eisha Armstrong
Founded in 1996, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy's goal is to reduce the U.S. teen pregnancy rate by one-third by 2005. This past summer I worked on two projects to assess the impact of the Campaign's various activities. First, I managed a project to measure the effectiveness of five of the Campaign's most important program components: its work with print and television entertainment executives, its publications, its efforts to support efforts in states and communities to prevent teen pregnancy, its work with public policy leaders, and its efforts to support journalists covering teen pregnancy. This was achieved by developing and administering impact assessment surveys to the five constituencies served by these various programs. Second, I analyzed data from a pre- and post-test evaluation of teens that took an online educational quiz as part of the Campaign's first-ever National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. My analysis provided feedback on the quiz and helped the Campaign determine if the interactive quiz helped to change teen's attitudes about the consequences of sex.

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National Kidney Foundation Singapore
Simon Cheng
The National Kidney Foundation of Singapore (NKFS) seeks to ease the socio-economic burden of kidney patients by providing them with access to quality dialysis treatment, rehabilitative care and essential drugs at affordable cost. The NKFS is also strongly committed to preventing kidney disease through early detection and intervention programmes as well as continuously educating the public on the vital need for organ donation. It is also devoted to research, contributing new knowledge towards the eradication of kidney disease worldwide.

During 9 weeks at NKFS, the MBA summer internship project with the Prevention Division had the mandate of increasing the number of participants in the Corporate Health Screen program and the number of monthly donors recruited during those events.

After thorough analysis of the organization's portfolio of corporate partners, and nursing and marketing capacity, it was delivered and implemented:

    Segmentation of organizations by penetration and size;
    Mapping tools and strategic planning matrix and processes;
    Specific action to penetrate and nurture each segment;
    Structure reorganization and empowerment of marketing executives teams by industry, segment and region;
    Key performance indicators, targets and goals;
    Knowledge management and sharing procedures and documentation.

As a result of the project, the department is expecting to increase its health screen participant coverage by 37% and new monthly donors by 20%, exceeding the annual target by 25%.

Louise Hulme
Prior to business school I built a wide variety of business skills through my experiences of strategy consulting, working in the media industry and as a venture capitalist. My personal goal over the next few years is to pull together these skills and apply them to a general management role in an area I am passionate about. This desire led me to actively explore the non-profit sector at business school and to discover the unique approach of the NKFS.
 The commitment of the NKFS to learning and utilizing for-profit best practice was clear throughout my internship. With the internship only in its second year I noticed an opportunity to provide additional structure to the program and increase the value of the projects to both the interns and the organization. Initiative is encouraged in the NKFS and within a few hours of making these suggestions I was put in charge of implementing my ideas. As a result the program is no longer a simple internship with interns primarily learning from the NKFS, but a consultancy arrangement where interns are given stretch assignments and are encouraged to go beyond concepts towards implementation.

Continuing my focus on learning, I also conducted a project for the leadership academy. The project focused on strategies to promote a learning culture within the organization through quality content and personal development guidance. The new philosophy of the academy encourages individuals to take ownership of their training needs while the organization commits to provide up to date and relevant materials to meet these needs. Throughout the summer I focused on expanding the learning of the NKFS, but also learnt a considerable amount in the process. A summer with the NKFS is a great opportunity to see ideas turn into action and add value to an organization in a short period of time.

Joana Jereissati
 The NKFS is a non-profit organization with a for-profit approach and business model. The objective of the International Business Development Department - the product of this project - is to share the philosophy, knowledge and expertise of the NKFS with other non-profit institutions. This project analyses the current international activities and creates a financially sustainable way to penetrate the international market in a more substantial way.

Taylor Margis-Noguera
 One of six HBS summer interns working at the National Kidney Foundation Singapore this summer, I was attached to the Planned Giving Department and responsible for reviewing the unit's business strategy. After spending roughly 3 weeks orienting myself with the organization and conducting best practice research on Planned Giving departments worldwide, I presented the CEO with a proposal to reorganize the department and completely shift the focus of its solicitation efforts. The remainder of my 9-week posting was spent developing a new business plan and a week-by-week implementation strategy that is currently being executed.

Rui Miadaira
 The National Kidney Foundation of Singapore (NKFS) persistently seeks to ease the socio-economic burden of kidney patients and their families by providing them with ready access to quality dialysis treatment, total rehabilitative care and essential drugs at affordable cost. As a senior marketing executive attached to the Call Centre department I was assigned a project to develop a business strategy that proposes a next generation Call Centre Management Model, which can be effectively implemented within the NKFS to serve its overall corporate requirements. In doing so, I also defined effective CRM strategies to acquire maximum value and support from the NKFS's existing and new potential pool of donors.

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National Parks Conservation Association
Joshua Jarrett
 The Business Plan Initiative (BPI) is a joint program between the National Park Service and the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a nonprofit working to benefit our national parks. I worked at Fort Stanwix National Monument, a Revolutionary War fort in Rome, NY. This was one of 12 parks selected to take part in the program, now in its fifth year. The goal of the initiative is to improve the financial and operational management of the park by developing a business plan with the help of graduate business school and public policy students. Working closely with the park Superintendent and senior staff, my fellow consultant and I reviewed historical operations and spending patterns, evaluated priorities for the future, and developed an integrated business plan for the future. This document will be used to improve the management within the park as well as the communication of the parks priorities and financial needs to outside constituencies, including Congress.

Sara McGinley-Smith
 I spent 11 weeks as a consultant for the National Park Service, writing a business plan for Guadalupe Mountains National Park. As part of the Business Plan Initiative, a joint effort between the National Park Service and the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, I:

  1. Analyzed the park's programs, operations, and activities as mandated by Congress (e.g. monitoring endangered species, road maintenance, interpretation, visitor safety)
  2. Identified standards of operation for each program
  3. Documented current sources and uses of funds
  4. Identified gaps between park needs and current funding
  5. Analyzed the policy and program implications of various funding options
  6. Quantified future funding requirements; and
  7. Developed financial and management strategies for addressing funding shortfalls.

The findings were presented to park management and the business plan will be professionally printed and distributed to park superintendents nationwide as well as members of Congress.

Andrew Stern
 If you take a look at a globe, you'll see a relatively large island in the middle of Lake Superior. This island is Isle Royale National Park, a 450 square mile archipelago. It serves as a unique ecosystem for scientific study and a valuable part of America's wilderness available to approximately 20,000 visitors each year for their enjoyment. Through an innovative partnership between the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Park Service, I spent 10 weeks on Isle Royale writing the Park's business plan. It was a valuable consulting experience that included creating a detailed activity based costing model and the development of strategies designed to reduce the impact of insufficient appropriations and to better deliver on the Park's mission. In the end, it was a small contribution to helping protect, preserve, and enhance our national park system. But, it was also a unique chance to spend a summer in an amazing wilderness environment.

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The Nature Conservancy of California
Eve Bould
 Organization Description: Non-profit conservation organization that protects lands and waters through various means including the direct purchase of land, conservation easements, and partnerships with businesses and local communities.
 Project Description: Developed recommendations for conservation strategies on California's North Coast, including market-based approaches to conservation, such as timber certification and carbon sequestration. Worked with ecoregional team to develop annual operating plan and design matrix organizational structure. Managed development of design specifications for web-based risk management tool to track capital expenditures related to TNC California's real estate portfolio.

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New Profit, Inc.
Euvin Naidoo
 Venture philanthropy is a relatively new approach to effecting social change that aims to harvest appropriate practices from the venture capital world, emphasizing best practices relating to performance measurement, effective reporting, an active board and strong management. New Profit, a leading venture philanthropy organization, currently has a portfolio of nonprofit organizations that it interacts with, providing both funding and thought partnership. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of the tools that organizations within New Profit's portfolio utilize to gain a holistic understanding of their organization's performance, goals and aspirations.

Stephanie Snitow
 NPI is a venture philanthropy fund that invests human capital and financial resources in leading, results-driven non-profits in order to fuel their growth. I was involved in four main projects. I worked with a team of Monitor consultants to develop a growth strategy for an education related non-profit to expand nationally. Second, I wrote an intellectual capital document on Exit Strategy in the Venture Philanthropy World, along with three other people. I also participated in conducting due diligence on four potential investments. And finally, I researched, wrote and presented a document on Best Practices in Development at Leading Non-profits. Overall it was a great experience, and I was able to use learnings from EM and Marketing in this internship.

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NewSchools Venture Fund
Sonali Sampat
 The New Schools Venture Fund is a non-profit venture philanthropy fund focused on dramatically improving under-performing public schools. New Schools identifies entrepreneurs with the potential to have tremendous impact on the public education system and supports them with financial resources, hands-on strategy consulting, and access to a diverse network of education, business and policy experts. New Schools invests in both for-profit and non-profit ventures, believing that both models can yield a strong impact and lead to a high social return.

As a Summer Associate at New Schools Venture Fund, I had the opportunity to work on both short and long-range projects. This summer, New Schools was closing Fund I, their first fund, and was in the midst of incorporating key lessons into developing strategy for Fund II. Although a large portion of Fund II will be invested in charter management operators, non-profit school management organizations that seek to create a scaled system of charter schools, there is also an interest in raising a sub-fund focused on education technology ventures which improve learning and efficiencies within the charter school system. My long-term project was to scope out the funding sources for an education technology fund and to recommend a funding strategy. In addition to the project, I reviewed and evaluated business plans, researched various areas within the education technology sector and worked with the team on portfolio related work.

My initial strategy in assessing the funding landscape was to evaluate whether a for-profit subsidiary based on a traditional venture fund model would provide greater access to capital for an education technology fund. As most education technology ventures are for-profit, New Schools could make a financial investment in these companies with an expected ROI. A venture fund model would allow New Schools to target financial savvy investors as limited partners who believed that the education technology sector is a growing sector in which to invest. This strategy would expand the current funding source of philanthropic donors and foundations to financial players.

Another compelling reason to set up a for-profit venture fund was the Small Business Investment Company ("SBIC") program. This program allows venture firms to receive government funds on the funds they themselves raise at a 2:1 ratio. That is, if New Schools raised a $10 million fund (the minimum size permitted), the SBA would match it with a $20 million investment, for a total fund size of $30 million. Not only did I need to understand and present the mechanics of how this type of fund would be structured, but I also had to evaluate how a for-profit subsidiary at a non-profit would affect the team, the overall morale and New Schools' goals as a whole.

After many internal strategy discussions, we decided that the venture fund / SBIC option was at odds with the New Schools' mission, thus we decided to structure the fund as a venture philanthropy. The remaining part of the project was to scan the foundation market for foundations which would be aligned with the mission of New Schools. The final recommendation was to target a very narrow list of foundations (about 12) for both grant and program-related investment funds. The recommendation also included the possibility of approaching other for-profits that have an interest in the education sector.

This summer, I also had the opportunity to sit on a committee for the California Pollution Control Financing Authority (an Authority of California's State Treasurer's Office). The committee was put together by the California Pollution Control Financing Authority to review grants submitted by local districts to obtain up to $500,000 in funds for sustainable and economic development within the state. Although not education focused, I applied many of the same skills of assessing need and trying to understand where funds could generate the highest social return.

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Office of the United States Trade Representative
Douglas Raymond
I spent my summer working as an intern in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in Washington, D.C., which is part of the Executive Office of the President. USTR is America's chief trade negotiator and the principle trade policy advisor to the President. In this role, USTR develops and implements trade policies that promote economic growth and create new opportunities for American businesses, workers, and agricultural producers. USTR coordinates the trade related activities of the Departments of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, and 18 other government agencies. USTR is divided into offices that specialize in an industrial sector and those that focus on a geographic region. The offices work together in a matrix structure to cover the various trade issues that arise. I spent the summer in the Office of Europe and the Mediterranean working on a variety of different projects. I met with representatives of companies and industry groups who wanted help with various trade disputes between themselves and European governments, particularly those relating to the U.S. tariffs on steel. I also helped initiate punitive action against Croatia for failure to ratify intellectual property protection. Additionally, I conducted analyses of trade data to help develop and support new trade initiatives with former Soviet Republics.

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Outward Bound, USA
Brandt Pyles
 I was assigned two projects for the summer at Outward Bound. The first project was to develop and write a business plan for growing the organizations fledgling professional development business. The second project was a review of the national scholarship system.

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Phipps Houses
Lucy Cummings
 Founded in 1905 to build and maintain affordable housing in New York City, Phipps Houses is the oldest and largest not-for-profit sponsor, developer, owner and manager of affordable housing in New York City. The mission of Phipps Houses and its associated companies has expanded somewhat to include the creation of enduring communities that are attractive, safe and conducive to building economic independence and vitality in New York City's less advantaged neighborhoods. Working closely with Adam Weinstein, Phipps' CEO, I was thrown into many different types of projects: including a refinancing of a government-subsidized affordable housing property located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, an application to the New York City Housing Authority to develop more than 60 new apartments through the renovation of three city-owned buildings and construction of two new buildings on city-owned land, an application to the a national foundation for seed money for housing preservation (maintaining the affordability of properties where government subsidies are expiring) in New York City, and a joint-venture with a for-profit developer to build more than 700 market-rate and affordable apartments on the Lower East Side.

Boris Gutin
 I worked as a social enterprise fellow at Phipps Houses in New York. Phipps Houses is a not-for-profit affordable housing provider. The company is one of the largest developers and managers of apartment units for low-income individuals in Manhattan and the Bronx. I worked primarily on two projects while I was at Phipps: creating a captive insurance company for Phipps and other affordable housing providers and managing the transition of a below-market rate apartment complex to a market-rate building.

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Prospect Foundation
Nick Will
 The Prospect Foundation hired me to help them with a strategic review of their mission and operations. The organization was founded in the fall of 2002 by a small group of high-tech entrepreneurs in the rural town of North Adams, Massachusetts, adjacent to the more affluent Williamstown, Massachusetts, home of Williams College. The founders are graduates of Williams College and after having made considerable profits from their business endeavors after college in the 1990s, they decided to found an organization dedicated to serving the North Adams community.

The original concept of the organization was to serve the community by providing free, entry-level training for jobs in the then-burgeoning high-tech sector in the Berkshire Region. However, after the market collapse and retrenchment in 2001, Prospect found itself struggling for relevance in the reeling local economy.

In addition to reviewing the operating strategy, the small organization needed help configuring and improving its operations so that a small team could source, win, and support programs on a scale commensurate with the effect they and their board desired to have on the community.

After a systematic review of its mission and the perceptions of the organization's constituents through a month-long qualitative study involving influential community members and an economic analysis, the organization decided that its mission was correct: to equip the region's employable youth with career skills necessary to succeed in the local economy. However, because the local economic context had so dramatically shifted, the organization needed to significantly revamp how it executed its mission. Complicating the challenge was a strong request from the board that the organization set forth on a path to financial sustainability so that it no longer would need private funding to pay for overhead expenses.

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Public Broadcasting Services
Jeannie Mun
 PBS is a private, non-profit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation's 349 public television stations. A trusted community resource, PBS uses the power of noncommercial television, the Internet, and other media to enrich the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services that inform, inspire, and delight. Available to 99% of American homes with televisions and to an increasing number of digital multimedia households, PBS serves nearly 100 million people each week.

As a summer intern, the scope of my project at PBS was twofold. First, I examined the future of television, focusing on how TV viewing patterns change with the increased adoption of on-demand personal video recorders platforms (PVRs such as TiVo and ReplayTV). Based on the analysis, I made strategic recommendations on what PBS could do to ensure that their content remained relevant in this dynamic landscape. At the end of the summer, I presented the results to the senior executive staff, the local public television station management, and the CEO. One of the recommendations I made resulted in the formation of a long-term strategic relationship with TiVo, a PVR industry leader.

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Rainforest Expeditions
Charlotte Gosling
 Rainforest Expeditions is an Ecotourism Company in Peru. It is a commercially run company with significant social contributions. My role was to devise a method for driving sales in the off peak season period. The tasks required included the identification of ideas, market research, operations planning, financial modelling and marketing planning.

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The Robin Hood Foundation
Kimberly Kravis
 The Robin Hood Foundation's mission is to end Poverty in New York City. Robin Hood has a hands-on approach and views each grant as a long-term investment. Along with each grant comes a commitment to help develop and grow the recipient organization. Robin Hood has six divisions: Program, Relief Fund, Management Assistance, Special Projects, Development, and Marketing. This past summer I was part of the Special Projects Team and worked on the Library Initiative. The Library Initiative seeks to build a state-of-the-art library in every elementary school in New York City. To date, ten libraries have been built and work on the next twenty begins this fall. The three main projects that I was involved with this summer were: choosing schools to receive libraries with qualified librarians, creating and implementing a mentoring program, and writing the business plan for a reading garden.

Marc Ricks
 I worked in the Management Assistance group of the Robin Hood Foundation, a venture philanthropy organization focused on fighting poverty in New York City. Robin Hood raises millions of dollars each year to fund over one hundred direct service providers in five areas: education, early childhood, after school/youth, job training, and survival (largely shelters and soup kitchens). Through its Management Assistance group, Robin Hood provides non-financial assistance to its grantees, including legal, real estate, accounting, and strategic advice. I spent my summer on two projects - one internal and external. The internal project was an effort to classify all of Robin Hood's grant recipients by "lifestage", to understand how needs vary across lifestage and finally to look for ways to tailor services accordingly. The external project was a strategic planning effort with one of Robin Hood's oldest grant recipients - Bailey House - which provides supportive housing to homeless people infected with HIV/AIDS.

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The Rubicon Bakery
Fernando Martins
 The Rubicon Bakery is a social mission company belonging to a non-profit organization, the Rubicon programs. It specializes in premium desserts and is well recognized in the San Francisco Bay area. With $1.5M in sales, Rubicon Bakery employs individuals from economically unprivileged backgrounds. Ailen Ruiz and I were employed at the Bakers with fund from the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, to work on its short and medium term growth strategies. Rubicon needs to quickly double sales to break even and cease to depend on grants. We focused on understanding the industry relationship with food distributors and retailers, as well as consumer preferences, to proposed a feasible yet aggressive growth path for Rubicon. At the same time, it was a great opportunity to connect with the reality of small businesses, and, more importantly, with the challenges and rewards of socially engaged organizations.

Aileen Ruiz
 The Rubicon Bakery is a commercial wholesale bakery operation that specializes in premium desserts (cakes and tarts mainly) and is well recognized around the Bay Area. Rubicon employs individuals from economically underprivileged backgrounds and provides a training program that helps place individuals from its target communities in the private sector. It is a portfolio company of the Rubicon Programs, which is funded by the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, and also provides medical care and housing to the community. Our project involved developing an understanding of the consumer goods industry, focusing mainly on the key relationships in the value chain (manufacturer, brokers, distributors, and retailers), as well as factors that influence consumer purchasing behavior, in order to develop a strategy that would enable Rubicon Bakery to achieve sustainable growth. Sustainable growth would help it to achieve its mission: 1) to become a successful business and 2) to provide jobs and training to its target community. In addition to growth strategy development, the project also gave myself and my co-intern, Fernando Martins, a glimpse of the issues and idiosyncrasies facing a general manager of a small business and a non-profit, which includes the continuing challenge of striking a balance between profits and achieving social mission that a non-profit organization playing in the for-profit world faces.

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Social Enterprise Fund of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Emma Herbert
 I was inspired to go to the Congo by President Kabila's visit to the Kennedy school in November last year, and spent ten weeks working for The Social Fund of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, researching and designing development projects. The Fund, created only 5 months before my arrival, aimed to improve living conditions for the Congolese population, to improve their access to social services through the rehabilitation and reconstruction of community infrastructure, and to create revenues and employment through the implementation of micro-enterprise projects. My work involved working alongside local collaborators to design a micro enterprise project to stimulate small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) development in the country, and a health project to enable doctors to return to rural areas. In addition I submitted my impressions of the Fund's operations to date, and my recommendations for the future.

The internship was at times rewarding, at times frustrating, but undoubtedly educational. I learnt a lot about the health and micro enterprise sectors, and about the workings of government and the non-profit sector, and I met a host of interesting people. Overall the experience reconfirmed my desire to return to Africa to work either in business or in development.

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Sustainable Conservation
Velina Peneva
 During my ten-week internship I worked on two projects:

  1. Analyzing expansion strategies for Sustainable Conservation's Dairies Project. The project has successfully introduced dairy farmers in California to sustainable technologies such as using methane digesters and composting. I explored the major animal farming regions in the United States to determine where the organization should expand in the short, mid and long term. Through conversations with animal farming associations, regulators, scientists and foundations I determined the need and feasibility of promoting methane digesters to dairy farmers in 20 states.
  2. Developing performance metrics for the organization.

Together with another MBA candidate, I created project and organizational metrics for Sustainable Conservation, which would be used to track the progress and results of projects as well as the performance of the organization.

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Teach For America
Katherine Cunningham
 During the summer of 2002, I had the opportunity to work as a Special Projects Intern at Teach For America in its national office in New York City. I conducted research, performed analyses, and presented recommendations on two high-priority projects for the organization. The first project was an extensive study of the corps member (teacher) selection model, which was done in order to make needed improvements for the 2003 recruiting and admissions season. This study included examining available data (files of corps members who quit the corps and of those who are low, solid, and high-performing) to determine any interesting patterns or relationships between competencies and corps member performance, researching what qualities excellent corps members share, and developing new rubrics and interview activities to improve the organizations ability to identify and assess the most important competencies needed to be a high-performing corps member.

The second project was an evaluation of the relevance of the Teach For America model in international markets and the ways Teach For America could respond to requests for information and assistance from these markets. This evaluation included determining which countries have an established educational system, identifying the necessary criteria to make the Teach For America model relevant, determining which countries meet these criteria, identifying the different options Teach For America could pursue in relation to these countries, and assessing the risk-rewards trade-offs and resource requirements of each option. This evaluation will assist Teach For America in providing a more thought-out and appropriate response to the numerous requests it receives from social entrepreneurs in other countries.

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Tenacity
Claudia Onofrio
 This past summer I had the opportunity to work for Tenacity, as part of the Catalyst Alliance's Summer Associate Program. Tenacity is a young, entrepreneurial and fast-growing non-profit organization, which addresses the need of Boston's youth through its after-school and summer programs and its mission is to introduce children to tennis as a vehicle to improve scholastic, character and physical development. My project consisted of guiding Tenacity through the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard to create a strategic performance management system. The Balanced Scorecard will serve Tenacity in different ways: a) to manage its growth as described in the six-year strategic plan; b) to grow maintaining at the same time the quality of its programs; c) to meet funders' requirement for program evaluation; and d) to attract the attention of potential partners. Although an intense summer, its pay-off was two-fold, personally and professionally. I feel my work had an impact in Tenacity's activities and helped shape the organization's thinking towards performance management. The project was successful and it is going on line this month.

If I had to synthesize why or how I decided to take a non-profit internship, I would say that it was certainly not a last minute decision. Throughout my career I have strived to reconcile two aspirations: to pursue a career in business and to deliver meaningful social impact. The social sector presents the same challenges faced by for-profit companies, especially in terms of strategic planning. Previous experiences made me think that there was a need for value creation and sustainable strategies in the social sector and that business skills could effectively leverage the great passion that existed in non-profit organizations. A perfect match for my life aspirations...

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Twin Cities RISE!
Katherine Whittington
 Twin Cities RISE! is an anti-poverty program that prepares individuals for and places them into living-wage jobs. TCR!'s strategic plan calls for it to expand its model, both geographically and to other types of training agencies over the next several years. In preparation for that expansion, TCR! asked me to help them (1) determine what about the model is replicable, (2) find a way to communicate the replicable aspects of the model to others, and (3) evaluate emerging strengths and weaknesses in the model.

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The World Bank
David Ma
 The World Bank Group is one of the world's largest sources of development assistance. The Bank, which provided $17.3 billion in loans to over 100 developing countries in 2001, strives to improve living standards and reduce poverty all over the globe. Specifically, I was working in the Urban Development Sector in East Asia. As a short-term consultant, I developed a strategy for private sector participation in the Republic of Mongolia based on a study of five transition economies in Central Asia, analyzed key wastewater and sanitation projects in Latin America and East Asia to advise the government of the People's Republic of China in urban policy development, and performed an economic and financial feasibility analysis of the Liaoning Environment Project.

Dhivya Visveswaran
 I spent my summer working at the World Bank Group in Washington DC for the East Asia Urban Development Group. The World Bank Group is one of the world's largest sources of development assistance. The East Asia Urban Development Group provides resources to countries such as China, Mongolia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines to help develop basic urban facilities such as water supply, sanitation, etc. Over the summer, I worked on three projects: 1. Analysis of the economic and financial feasibility of the Second Tianjin Urban Development Project in China (project size: 261 million). 2. Review of the Bank's strategy for lending to Indonesia in an era of recent rapid decentralization. 3. Study of urban development in seven East Asian countries to advise the Government of China in development of City Development Strategy for Beijing.

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United Leaders
Lucas Klein
 I spent the summer working with United Leaders in Cambridge, Massachusetts. United Leaders is a growing national nonpartisan non-profit created in 1999 to encourage the Millennial generation to pursue honorable careers in political service. My role this summer as an Executive Management Fellow was to serve on the Executive Strategy Group. In this group I was responsible for developing United Leaders' expansion plan. I also managed interns who prepared a case study of United Leaders and worked on a partnership analysis. Overall it was a great experience, in which I feel I contributed a great deal to the organization and had a very enjoyable summer.

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United Methodist Services for the Aging
Reiji Yamanaka
 UMSA owns and manages Asbury Heights, continuum-of-care community for senior citizens, that is providing various services such as nursing care, Alzheimer care, assisted living, and residential service for independent-living.
 I completed the following four major projects:

  1. Diagnostic Review - Conducted overall financial benchmarking, reviewed asset utilization, and analyzed human resource management / allocation.
  2. Balanced Scorecard Implementation - Created the performance metrics for Alzheimer-care facility, measured the performance, and transferred the know-how for future measurement. This required buy-in process of management and staffs.
  3. Cross-sector Collaboration - Studied the best practice in the industry and initiated brain storming for creating alliance with for profit companies.
  4. Balance Sheet Restructuring - Analyzed debt service schedule assessed the possibility of balance sheet restructuring. I also created cash flow projection to help management turnaround the financial conditions.

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Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation
Sean Coar
 I spent my summer as an Associate Investment Officer at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ). Created by the Clinton Administration in 1996, UMEZ is a $300M community investment fund based in Harlem with a mission to expand and improve employment opportunities. UMEZ tries to act as a catalyst for economic development by providing low interest loans to growth businesses in Harlem, both big and small. Throughout the summer I read all the business plans and proposals that came through the door, from yet another soul food restaurant or record label to light manufacturing and software start-ups. I met with entrepreneurs, prepared financial projections and conducted due diligence on the entrepreneurs and the market. I also worked on some higher level projects; structuring a subsidiary venture capital fund that would take advantage of recent changes to tax laws; and preparing an IDA bond offering to support one of our projects. All in all it was an exciting summer, where I was able to contribute some of my managerial experience, but more importantly learned about principal investment and working in Harlem.

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The Urban Outreach Foundation
Keith Bevans
 The Urban Outreach Foundation (UOF) is a 32-year-old non-profit that builds communities by developing leadership within the church. Historically, UOF's primary activity was coordinating the National Conference for Leadership Development - which has reached over 40,000 pastors and church leaders in total. The new president, hired in January 2002, has a much broader vision for the foundation. My role this summer was to develop a strategic plan for the organization that encapsulated the 10+ new activities that would become part of the UOF's programming, addressed the 1-, 3-, and 7-year goals for each program, and described the infrastructure required for implementation. Because of my background, I also completely overhauled and re-launched the foundation's website, repaired and configured the foundation's wireless LAN, build a database that is being used to manage conference registration, and worked on a strategic partnership opportunity in radio broadcasting.

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Year Up
Heidi Brooks
 I was a Catalyst Summer Associate with Year Up, an intensive IT training and development program that provides urban young adults 18-26 with the opportunity to secure well-paid jobs and pursue higher education. My work consisted of two major projects related to communications and public funding. On the communications side, I developed tailored PowerPoint presentations to communicate the Year Up story and growth strategy to past funders and potential investors, and I successfully publicized Year Up's inaugural graduation in the Boston press. With regard to public funding, I analyzed opportunities for government funding and created an action plan for accessing increasing their funding by nearly 25 percent.

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