The World is a Mess

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There's an incredible video making its way around the internet called "The Girl Effect," and it starts with this statement: The World is a Mess. I've watched this short clip a bunch of times, and it never fails to give me chills. Check it out here:

Pretty powerful, isn't it?

As the video closes, a sentence comes up on the screen: "Invest in a girl and she will do the rest". This got me thinking: who out there is really investing in girls?

The good news is that a lot of organizations are. The Girl Effect is, in fact, a collaborative effort between the Nike Foundation, the Novo Foundation, and a handful of other international organizations. Beyond just this project, there are many other well-known NGOs also working to promote education and economic empowerment for women and girls around the world, including Room to Read and Heifer International (both of which have terrific girls' education and gender equity projects). Of those with a U.S. focus, two of my favorites are Girls on the Run and Girls Inc (more along the lines of girl empowerment and confidence building). In the end, it seems that a whole host of domestic and international organizations understand the value of putting girls first.

But this good news is, in my opinion, also the bad news. A quick search on Guidestar for nonprofits with the word "girl" in their title produced a list of 20,177 results. Ok, so I recognize that this isn't the most scientific of all surveys, but it raises a crucial question: At what point are there just too many nonprofits out there doing the same thing? Yes, in theory lots of organizations should mean more resources, more innovation, more impact--but does it? Or does this huge contingent of girls' organizations (or any kind of cause for that matter) simply dilute everyone's collective efforts? The nonprofit community seems divided on this one. While some folks clearly think that this redundancy concern is a non-issue, the topic of nonprofit mergers is increasingly on the front burner. Interestingly, a February 2009 Bridgespan Report stated that mergers should not just be a tool for nonprofits in tough times:

...nonprofit mergers often come about through default—due to financial distress or leadership vacuums. At the same time, relatively few nonprofits are using M&A strategically, as a way to strengthen organizations' effectiveness, spread best practices, expand reach, and to do all of this more cost-effectively. Yet the potential for M&A to create real value in the nonprofit sector exists, particularly if more philanthropists take on the mantle of matchmaker and help nonprofits explore and evaluate M&A opportunities.

To me, the idea of nonprofit mergers seems obvious: given the increasingly competitive fight for fundraising dollars, it makes sense that we'd be entering our own form of nonprofit natural selection, truly a "survival of the fittest." But therein lies the rub, as they say: how can organizations--already strapped for financial and staff resources--ensure that they have the skills and strategy in place to guarantee that these mergers are not doomed to fail from the outset? Looking back five years or ten years from now, what will we say made the difference between mergers that worked and those that didn't? 

And here's where you come in: what do you think about the issue of "too many" nonprofits? Are mergers the way to go? Do you have other examples of two organizations becoming one--and it being a success? I'd love to hear what you think.

Other Related Resources:

Call for Submissions

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Are you a summer intern working in CSR, nonprofit management, or venture philanthropy? Do you work in fundraising, cause marketing or social enterprise? If you're working to create your own community of change at your workplace or school, The Changebase wants to help share your story. If you're interested, contact me and we can talk more about details: what you'd like to say, questions to cover, word limit, etc.

Remember, The Changebase is meant to be a resource for learning and sharing, and that can't happen without your input!

-Ashley

Ethics and MBAs

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Rule #1 of business school: Q: What is the #1 responsibility of management?

A: To maximize shareholder wealth.

I remember hearing this from one of my professors for the very first time; fresh-faced and ready to change the world through my new business education, I was immediately thrown back: surely this can't be the only goal of management, I thought. What about concerns for customers, for employees, or for the environment or society?

As it turns out, if you ask any MBA student at any MBA program, you're bound to get the same answer to this question. And while it may not be 100% true (even the most straight-laced finance concentrators would agree that this idea is oversimplified), the theme of maximizing returns to shareholders is recurring and prevalent. And it raises a second, important follow-up question:

What does it say about MBA students if this is the most important question they learn to answer during their two years of school?

Over the last few months, as news of corporate scandal, greed, and bankruptcies continues to make headlines, my business school class discussions have taken somewhat of an ethical turn. Through conversations about Enron and greed, McDonald's and nutrition, and Google and online privacy, it's clear that my professors want us to think about how we would handle real-life decisions where the line between right and wrong is blurred. But in my opinion, none of them have quite gotten there yet. Yes, we need to be discussing these issues, but to say that a few isolated classes are sufficient to ensure my classmates and I have strong, ethical compasses is surely a stretch.

I've been thinking and reading a lot about this recently, and it appears that others have been too. Harvard Business Review has been hosting an especially interesting online debate featuring a series of posts on "How to Fix Business Schools". One of my favorite posts in this series is from Angel Cabrera, the president of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, called "Let's Professionalize Management". In his article, Cabrera advocates the institution of a business version of the Hippocratic Oath, a basic do-no-harm for management. And here's the kicker:

A professional ideology of service to the greater good is not at odds with the principle of shareholder value creation. It actually grounds shareholder value morally and it integrates it in a richer multidisciplinary context. It reaffirms the importance of shareholder value as both a source of societal prosperity in itself as well as an indicator of other forms of value. But it acknowledges that businesses create multiple forms of value and it attributes to managers responsibilities that go beyond profit maximization.

I just love this paragraph. The idea of grounding shareholder value in a moral context just resonates with me. As a "conscious consumer", I support companies like Target because I have witnessed the kind of commitment they make to the community; while I may not own Target stock, I would like to believe that its shareholders feel proud to own a part of a company that's doing good things.  And that last sentence about "multiple forms of value" in measuring business success is so true.  

So it seems that others are recognizing the inherent flaws in this oversimplified question and answer set. But where do we go from here? One of the steps I'm most excited about is my own school's entry into the U.N. Initiative Principles for Responsible Management. Boston University School of Management now joins over 200 other schools committed to "responsible management education, research and thought leadership globally".

In the current academic environment, corporate responsibility and sustainability have entered but not yet become embedded in the mainstream of business-related education. The PRME are therefore a timely global call for business schools and universities worldwide to gradually adapt their curricula, research, teaching methodologies and institutional strategies to the new business challenges and opportunities.

Certification is a great start, but I'll be curious to see what the next steps look like. In the meantime, I wonder: how are other business schools approaching and integrating the topic of ethical leadership ? What success stories can you share from your own classroom experiences? What have you seen that hasn't worked? And how much do you hate that stupid shareholder wealth question?! I certainly do.

A few more interesting resources on Ethics and MBAs:

Welcome to The Changebase!

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Hi everyone and thanks for stopping by The Changebase. As the tagline says, The Changebase is all about Creating, Promoting, and Leveraging Communities of Change. My vision for this blog is to create a first resource for passionate, motivated changemakers who want to learn and share. Whether it's corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, social entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, or somewhere in between: everyone is welcome to read, comment, and exchange ideas about change.

As the site gets more developed, you'll most likely see some changes in content and format. For now, take a look at a couple of things:

  • Take a moment to explore the links listed at the top of the page, especially the Creating, Promoting and Leveraging tabs. These sections will grow and build over time and will depend on your input and comments.
  • Next, spend a little time reading over the Blogroll and Helpful Sites on the left margin. There are some really terrific bloggers and thinkers out there and this list can serve as a resource for your learning.
  • Finally, on the right margin you'll see my recent comments on Twitter. If you haven't started tweeting yet, I highly recommend it--there's an incredible network of very smart, very talented people on it and I've learned a lot so far. If you like what you see, feel free to follow me here.

Again, thanks for taking some time to check out The Changebase. I encourage you to come back often as I'll be updating it frequently. And please don't hesitate to get in touch with suggestions, comments, and questions. Until then, happy reading!

-Ashley