Nonprofit

I am responsible for working with the board of directors on forming and executing plans for the strategic direction of a comprehensive early childhood education program, founded in 1995, that serves at-risk, low-income children. I have two direct reports—a fund-raising director and a program director—and the remaining 15 employees report to the program director. When I arrive at work each day, there is one certainty—each day is completely different! On a daily basis, my responsibilities include communicating and presenting to funding sources; managing the human resource needs, payroll, budget, and taxes of the organization; and working on long-term strategic projects for the school. The most exciting project right now is our plan to open a new school by next year to help address the 100+ students on our waitlist. The organization strives to close the gap of disparity that exists among children of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

Professionally, I enjoy the variety of my responsibilities and general management environment. A smaller organization can offer more opportunity for real responsibility very fast. Having worked for both large and small companies in the past, I really prefer working in a smaller organization, where I have the opportunity to make more of an impact. Personally, I love coming to work each day, knowing that I am part of an organization that is making a difference every day in the lives of 57 families and 17 employees. (Overall, the organization’s mission is to give the 57 children that we serve, and their families, the opportunity to grow socially, emotionally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.) This is why I am here.

While working for a nonprofit can be extremely rewarding, you must be prepared for a lower salary and potentially higher stress. In nonprofits in general, there are many daily fires to put out and few resources, and the need is almost greater than the resources available. There is a tendency to get distracted from the fun, strategic work and get buried in the minutiae.

I decided that I wasn’t feeling passionate about my work life the way I was about my volunteer activities. (I have always loved tutoring in analytical topics, and I did Junior Achievement as a volunteer.) At the time of my “career switch,” I was working in commercial and investment banking for Chase. I had the opportunity to move to California, where my husband was getting his MBA, and I decided to work for a start-up education company there. I really enjoyed being closer to the educational process and working in an entrepreneurial environment. I began to realize how combining a passion for a cause with business and leadership skills could have a tremendous impact on the nonprofit world.

I had considered getting a master’s in education but did not consider it as versatile as an MBA degree. When my husband was offered a job in Houston, I saw a lot of opportunity at Rice to do independent studies related to education and nonprofits and entrepreneurship within their MBA curriculum.

You have to have passion for the cause, because that’s the intangible reward that compensates for less income. For me, I believe education is critical for success in life, and helping at-risk children by equipping them with tools to be successful in life is a reward beyond any other I could have daily. That passion is what will help you drive the very necessary business side of your nonprofit—being a leader and securing funding all stem from a belief that’s so strong, it’s compelling to others.

You have to have the ability to stay focused and not get caught just putting out the fires. There will always be too little time help and money in a nonprofit; you have to work around that to move the organization overall to a higher, better-managed level.

Stick with what you want once you’ve arrived in the MBA program, even if it is not a traditional MBA track. Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks you should do. Because I had the investment banking background, and finance careers are such a large percentage of the interests of MBAs, there was constant tendency to fall back to what I knew already—to get invited to interview, etc.

Nontraditional MBAs really have to create their own job and interview schedules. The career office at your MBA school can help with strategy and some of the network, but you have to make it happen. With an interest in education, I found my professors at Rice to be great resources, and it is through a professor that I found out about the executive director position I now have.

I started my career at Chase Bank as an analyst in their training program. I moved into structured finance, which involved both corporate and investment banking, where I spent a total of three years. When I decided to make the move to California, I took the opportunity to switch careers and joined Achieva College Prep Services, a start-up education company in Palo Alto. At Achieva, I was able to use my business skills as well as work directly with high school students in a college counseling capacity. During the year I was at Achieva, we went from 15 to 80 people. By the time we left California and I’d experienced such hyper growth in a entrepreneurial company, I thought that an MBA might be more useful, in terms of developing my entrepreneurial skills in the long run, than a master’s degree in education.

• MBA, Rice University, Jones Graduate School of Management, 2002
• Bachelor of business administration, University of Texas at Austin, 1996

Look for flexibility and a lot of course options in the MBA curriculum, including independent study options or nonprofit electives—if this is your goal or if your undergraduate degree was also in business, as mine was. You don’t want to repeat a lot of topics. I chose the Jones School at Rice, where I could easily set up independent studies with the head of the Center for Teaching and Technology at Rice and in nonprofit and entrepreneurial topics, for example. They were very willing to work with me. There was also the Rice Alliance for Entrepreneurship, which enabled current MBAs and alumni to meet with business leaders and get feedback on their business plans. It also can help to find professors with specific affiliations that interest you.

For me, small size was important in graduate school. I grew up going to small schools. Although I went to college at the University of Texas, the honors business program had only 45 students in it from my class. I learn well in that environment, so I ruled out some MBA programs [because of their] size.