Manager of HR and institutional development for an international development agency
Ottawa, Canada

What I Do

My agency is an international development agency operating in nine countries to help improve  health, education, and rural development. I  recruit and train interns to go abroad and work in South Asia and East Africa, and I manage a scholarship that brings staff from our partner organizations to study in Canadian universities. One of the most established international development–related internship programs in Canada, the program begins with interns following a one-month training course and then an eight-month overseas internship with a local nongovernmental organization. My work requires travel to these locations about 10% of the time.

I am also part of a team that is  developing an e-based educational tool to build the skills of nonprofit managers in Pakistan. This project will be developed over several years.

What I Enjoy Most

Most of my experience in the nonprofit sector came from 10 years of involvement with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), where I was primarily working in recruiting and managing volunteers. Running a group of volunteers has its own challenges, but I marvel at the vast experience of the volunteers who come together. I love helping people have the opportunity to go overseas and develop their skills. The experience is so multidimensional and helps open people's eyes to things they didn't know were going on in the world. [This] generally makes them more effective when they return to work in their home countries in the West.

For me personally, my career in nonprofits has been life-changing. I've had experiences living and working in 8 countries, and traveling to 32 more. During this time, I have had experiences that were inconceivable in another career, from meeting the Queen of Denmark to being interviewed by CBC national radio and the Christian Science Monitor about the situation in war-torn Liberia. My kids have an international perspective that most of us never had growing up.

What I Enjoy Least

Earning about half of what other MBAs would typically make, while I have a full family to support. Ironically, nonprofit managers have more trouble with work/life balance than the corporate side because of the underresourced nature of the sector; in fact, a professor at the Ivey School at Western Ontario recently coauthored a study about this.

In a nonprofit, there is the sense that you have to work harder just to make a difference, because the resources are stretched so thin. Combined with the fact that there are many "bottom lines" to address, this adds greatly to the professional challenge.

Why I Chose This Career

In college, I took a sociology course called Deviance and Social Control, which required that I read Susan George's book How the Other Half Dies, about world hunger. Furthermore, I was moved by the film The Killing Fields, about Cambodia. Both of these experiences changed my views about how the world works and led me at the age of 19 to participate in a youth exchange program in Mali (West Africa). Then my co-op experience overseas opened my eyes to nonprofits and to overseas assignments, so I started looking for organizations sending people overseas. I have been very fortunate in the life experiences gained from working with both Doctors Without Borders and my current organization.

I had already been in nonprofits for a number of years before the MBA. When I went for the MBA at Ivey, the school offered a course in career management that was immensely valuable in allowing me do some focused personal reflection. I realized that I liked what I had come from (because of the societal value and personal satisfaction) but that I could make more impact and better decisions with the knowledge and tools gained from business school. It also played a key role in opening even more challenging and better-paying opportunities within this interesting sector.

Desirable Traits to Be Successful in This Career

You must be a multitasker because of stretched resources.

If you get your satisfaction out of nonmaterial things, this is a great MBA career track.

You must learn how to motivate volunteers and staff who are there for idealistic rather than monetary reasons. I tend to motivate them around an issue or an injustice rather than a product; the power in that is strong (for the right people). I find I am able to build strong credibility when I can speak from personal experience and bear witness to the appalling situation that most of our planet's population is forced to live in.

Nonetheless, dealing with burnout is hard. Not only are resources very limited, which means a person works harder or does more than one person might be tasked with in a profit-making organization, but at the same time, that person isn't getting paid for what they do. Add to this that more and more of the responsibility of guarding society's well-being is being shifted from governments to the nonprofit sector creating intense competition for the scarce financial and human resources.

Words of Advice If You Are Considering This Career Path

More and more nonprofits are trying to be run like private sector businesses, and we're seeing nonprofits more in the MBA curriculum too—in courses and in cases within courses.  Look for evidence that these issues are part of the discussion throughout the curriculum and not just one course, as though nonprofit issues are distinct entities 100% of the time. They have the same business problems other organizations have, perhaps more amplified.

More and more business schools are offering MBA programs with a nonprofit management focus or stream.  For those certain that this is the direction  they want to take, this is a good option.  But a "regular" MBA is also of great value to work in this field.

I've come to realize that there's not one bottom line; there are many bottom lines.  A nonprofit manager needs not only to raise and manage funds but must also try to gauge how best to address complex societal problems through programming and advocacy aimed at multiple audiences.

What I Did Before This (Including Pre-MBA and Post-MBA Jobs)

I had 10 years in nonprofit management before returning to school for the MBA.

To start, after two years of university study in Nova Scotia, I did a youth exchange with Canada World Youth which led me to work on a dairy farm for three and a half months in Quebec with half Canadian and half Africans, followed by three and a half months in West Africa with the same group. This experience led me to transfer universities and follow a co-op program in international development studies. On the co-op placement I worked in Botswana for one year, developing small-scale income generation projects for several San (Bushman) communities in the Kalahari. 

I had been at Doctors Without Borders since 1991 before attending business school. I helped establish the Canadian office for them, and it had grown from just me as the first Canadian staff member, supporting a team of volunteer doctors and lawyers and accountants from across  Canada, to a team of 30 paid staff sending hundreds of medical and nonmedical volunteers overseas, raising millions of dollars, and keeping humanitarian concerns front and center in the Canadian consciousness. I was the office manager until 1993 then added recruitment through 1994.

I was transferred over to Holland to run recruitment for specific projects—especially Bosnia. I had a position in the Ivory Coast for one year, supporting medical and nutritional projects in Liberia, and I was able to bring the whole family; I had about 30 staff there.

In Copenhagen, I ran a small branch office with four staff for three years. There I also did a small project in Uganda, and I started getting into marketing and fund-raising, working with government funding. Then I managed a team of seven in Sri Lanka while I applied to MBA programs.

Educational Background (Undergraduate, MBA, Other)

MBA, University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business, 2001
Bachelor of science, Development Studies Co-op Program, 1991
Two years of arts and science studiesUniversity of Toronto, International , Dalhousie University, 1984–86

In MBA Programs, I'd Suggest You Look For...

For nonprofit management, choose a strong generalist MBA or an MBA with a nonprofit track. I definitely enjoyed the case method and found it a superior way to learn as an older student. It is also important to choose a program that requires considerable prior work experience of its students, because this enriches your learning enormously.

Now after going to Ivey, I am able to think in more strategic terms and am more comfortable with numbers.  Fund-raising is marketing, and increasingly there is a focus on corporate fund-raising, so a solid understanding of what makes the private sector tick will be invaluable for your success.

Diversity of faculty and students in terms of nationality and work experience is the best way to prepare yourself for today's global realities, especially if you plan to work across borders in a role like mine.