A Career in Nonprofit Consulting
by
By Paul Connolly, SOM’91
The Winter 2007 issue of the PSE Newsletter has two feature articles from alumni who are in the field of nonprofit consulting, a popular next step for SOM graduates. Paul Connolly gives us the perspective of a seasoned professional, while Kate Greene talks about the experience of staffing a project as a senior associate. –Eds.
My role in consulting to philanthropies and nonprofits has been an experience of great learning and continuous growth. In addition to recounting the unique experiences that led me to my current position, I would like to share some of the insights I have gained from working in this dynamic field, and some notable developments I have observed in the nonprofit arena.
At college, I studied city and regional planning and provided direct services to nonprofit organizations on a voluntary basis. After graduation, I worked for the New York City government in the department that designed and constructed public facilities such as jails, libraries and courthouses. After three years, my role had expanded greatly, but I desired a greater challenge.
Yale SOM attracted me due to its multi-sector approach to management. In the process of completing my MPPM, my interest in nonprofit management developed, especially after taking the course in “Strategic Management of Nonprofit Organizations†taught by Sharon Oster and Stan Garstka. After graduating from SOM in 1991, I worked as an independent consultant to nonprofit organizations for a few years until one of my clients offered me a position. I spent the next three and a half years at the Nonprofit Facilities Fund (now called Nonprofit Finance Fund), a community development financial institution that provides facility-related loans and management assistance to nonprofits.
During this past summer, I was a World Bank consultant assigned to the Nicaraguan Forest Authority. I provided technical assistance to initiate a series of activities aimed at strengthening the governance and improving the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the forest sector. Specifically, I helped revise the national forest policy and also devised a conceptual framework to promote equitable and efficient partnerships between communities and timber companies. In addition, I collaborated with the International Finance Corporation to incorporate environmental benefits in its traditional cost/benefit analysis of forestry projects in Nicaragua and Bolivia.
This summer, I worked in the Profit Execution group in Old Navy Store Operations at Gap Inc. While my primary job focused on identifying opportunities to increase profitability through store operations, I also worked with five other MBA interns on a CSR benchmarking study.
I worked at Cherokee Investment Fund, a $1.2b private equity fund, the company’s 4th. The fund buys large, generally urban brownfields (contaminated real estate), indemnifies the sellers against legal action, remediates the property, re-entitles it for high-density mixed uses, and sells the property to vertical developers, often with covenants requiring green building and other sustainable development features. I had three roles: 1) I worked as an associate on due diligence (market studies, residual analysis, financial modeling), 2) I worked on two internal consulting projects — tabulating the firm’s carbon footprint according to EPA Climate Leaders standards, and also putting metrics to the company’s commitment to environmental, social, and financial sustainability, and 3) I worked for the company’s private operating foundation (global orphan care) to establish a revenue stream that would make the foundation financially independent.
I worked in the Foreign Investment Advisory Services, which is part of the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. The group advises developing countries on how to improve their business climate and promote foreign direct investment. The idea is that by increasing “bricks and mortar†investment from multinational companies, we can help developing countries to increase employment, economic growth, and global competitiveness. Over the summer I did analysis for China’s central provinces to help pick target sectors for investment promotion, and for the Western Balkans to help select target multinational companies to approach for investment. I also reviewed and reported on best practices for developing investment promotion strategies. Finally, I researched implementing a system that would allow private companies to pay taxes by mobile phone in post-conflict regions of Africa. The work was interesting, and my colleagues were an intelligent and diverse group of people. SOM has a strong and close knit alumni contingent at the IFC. It was great to get to know them.
This summer I worked at Bank of America in the Corporate Philanthropy Department. The bank gives $200 million dollars to charity every year, yet no one knows about it! I was asked to develop a communications plan for the bank’s philanthropic efforts for internal and external audiences. I helped develop a value proposition, messaging, and marketing materials to be distributed through the local banking centers. I also helped the department strategize about ways to measure social impact. I loved learning more about how private corporations make their philanthropic decisions and I enjoyed my research on the competitive advantage of philanthropic giving.
I spent my summer at Microsoft, where I worked in their primary group that focuses on bringing the benefits of technology to the poor in developing countries. My specific project dealt with researching ways in which the company could help increase access to, and the usage of, computers by people at the bottom of the economic pyramid in large emerging markets. My work entailed gaining a good understanding of the main challenges faced by the poor in accessing and using computers, and of current innovative approaches being used to solve these challenges, from pro-poor private-public partnerships to targeted social venture funds. The internship was a great opportunity to use both the skills I picked up during the first year in addition to my background in international development work. Finally, the SOM alumni network within Microsoft is very strong and many of the alumni went out of their way to help me throughout the summer.
Over the summer, I had the opportunity to intern in the Global Compact Office at the United Nations. The Global Compact is an initiative that works with international businesses to make progress in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption. Since its inception in 2001, the Global Compact has developed a network of over 3,600 companies and organizations, making it the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative.