By Juliana Koo, SOM’06

Nonprofit healthcare managers often feel conflicted about charging a price for their goods or services, especially when clients’ immediate health and welfare are at stake. On one hand, it is often the case that their target client population is poor, and placing an additional financial burden on poor people feels wrong. On the other hand, there is evidence that clients do not use donated products appropriately, resulting in lower impact of nonprofit managers’ time and investments. Here is a case where the right decision may feel completely wrong.

In her PONPO seminar on September 18, Nava Ashraf (Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School) presented a report of a field study that she conducted in Zambia with two colleagues to sort through the factors that affect a client’s use of a product based on whether and how much she pays for it. If it is true that pricing boosts usage, Ashraf contends that there are two potential reasons. It may be that prices screen in people who want to use the product, resulting in a higher proportion of users among the purchasers. She calls this the screening effect. It may also be that paying actually has a psychological effect that induces use.

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This summer I worked for the Pro Crianca Cardiaca Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on a project to build a pediatric cardiology hospital. My internship goal was to implement the recommendations that our Global Social Enterprise class team had made in May 2007. The new hospital will offer first-rate care to a patient population that will be 60% paying and 40% indigent. This hospital model will be first-of-its-kind in the Rio de Janeiro community.

My project was to develop a fundraising strategy, using U.S. best practices, for the hospital’s $18 million capital campaign. The bulk of my time was spent writing grant proposal letters, communicating board structure recommendations and revising marketing materials.

It was extremely rewarding to be able to plan and complete a project that already had a great deal of momentum from the semester. The woman who runs the Foundation is extremely charismatic and was wonderful to work for. I had the opportunity to present my deliverables to a former Brazilian ambassador to the United States, to a former minister of the Brazilian Economy, and to other senior business and government leaders. And all of this happened in the setting of a beautiful, culturally rich and socially fascinating city. My experience was fantastic!

More about Pro Crianca Cardiaca Foundation »
More 2007 Summer Internships »

Executive MBA students, Chidi Achebe, M.D., M.P.H., David Esposito, M.D., Michael Giordano, M.D., and Jamie Sidore, worked with Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) Health Care, a non-profit organization that has been helping people in Connecticut live independently in their homes for over 100 years. VNA Health Care is focused on home care and wellness services. As Dave Esposito explained, “it was refreshing to work with a group that’s not so much concerned about profit, cash flow, and bottom line.”

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