Last fall, when second-year MBA student Holly Price started school at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, she came in knowing that she wanted to find a philanthropic way to use her business skills.
Price’s career mission was shaped when her mother, Cindy, suffered cardiac arrest and slipped into a three-week coma. Although Cindy recovered, Price was troubled by the close call.
The 30-year-old Texas native was determined to translate her painful experience into a positive project and set up Sage & Grace, a venture in development that will give consumers free information about the cost of various funeral service providers. The goal is to help those in mourning spend only what they can afford.
For Price, the University of Michigan offered the kind of nudging she needed to pursue her venture. She says the right b-school for a student who is serious about social enterprise is one that has professors and fellow students who are “pushing you as hard as you can stand it,” urging you to follow through on your vision.
[Make money in social enterprise with a business school degree.]
Price says prospective students should seek answers to the following questions through conversations with current students and recent grads: “How much do students mean it when they talk about social impact? Do these students really jump in and make a difference?”
Here are four tips for finding a business school that offers the right atmosphere to learn about social enterprise, a self-sustaining organization that addresses a significant social issue without requiring subsidies or donations.
1. Look for balanced coursework: Make sure the school pairs social enterprise courses with business fundamentals, such as accounting and marketing. Experts say you need both kinds of courses to prepare for a career in social enterprise.
Todd Saxton, associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at Indiana University–Bloomington’s Kelley School of Business, says students should choose a rigorous school that will equip them to handle all aspects of entrepreneurship.
He says many social entrepreneurs are often so focused on the social problems they are trying to solve that they forget about finances, and he says knowing your budget is key to the success of a social enterprise.
[Explore why social entrepreneurship is becoming a more popular specialty in MBA programs.]
“You can’t escape that kind of discipline, and you need to understand how the numbers affect the success of your business,” Saxton says.
2. Investigate what recent grads are doing: Jeffrey Robinson, associate professor at the Rutgers Business School at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey–Newark and New Brunswick, says prospective students should target b-schools whose grads are making an impact through social enterprise.
One way to do that, Robinson says, is to determine whether the winners of the school’s pitch competitions for entrepreneurs or its startup incubators actually followed through on their projects and whether you find their projects compelling.
“You don’t want sloppy projects,” he says. “You want projects with some substance to them.”
3. Explore field work opportunities: Experts say nothing can replace the learning that happens when you work hands-on in a social enterprise. They say prospective students should choose a b-school that incorporates field work into its curriculum.
James Freeley, associate professor of management at the School of Business at LIU Post, says his students learn best when they do problem-solving for real organizations.
Freeley says this field work offers students insight into the way business skills can be applied in a social enterprise and helps them decide whether a social enterprise is where they would like to apply their business skills. For many, he says, field work generates enthusiasm about pursuing social entrepreneurship as a career path.
“They are glad that they did something useful in addition to getting academic credit,” he says.
[Ask these questions when choosing an MBA entrepreneurship program.]
4. Check for diverse faculty: Mary Margaret Frank, academic director of the Institute for Business in Society at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, says you need to learn two skills to thrive as a social entrepreneur: the optimism to see potential for solutions where others see no hope for change and the skepticism necessary to see flaws in your own ideas.
To hone that mindset, Frank says, you need to hear from faculty who have a diverse array of opinions about the possibilities and pitfalls inherent in social enterprise. She says this includes the viewpoints of those who are big believers in what social enterprise can accomplish and those who question how much it can feasibly do.
Courses about how and why social enterprises succeed can be inspiring and are extremely practical, says Tyler Butler, who founded a consulting group. She attended both the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University,
“It gives you a sense of the innovation that is possible in this field,” Butler says. “You get role models, and it sparks creativity.”
Searching for a business school? Get our complete rankings of Best Business Schools.
More from U.S. News
Weigh Being a Generalist, Specialist in Business School
Consider Internship Opportunities When Selecting a Business School
Find an MBA Program That Teaches Real-World Skills
4 Tips on Choosing the Right Business School for Social Entrepreneurship originally appeared on usnews.com
