Since 2001, the Social Enterprise Initiative of HBSCP has sponsored scholarships for regional Executive Directors of non-profit organizations to attend a week-long program at HBS entitled “Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management”.  The recipients of this year’s scholarships were Bill Clark, President and Executive Director of Philabundance, the region’s largest hunger relief organization, and JoAnne Fischer, Executive Director of the Maternity Care Coalition, an organization concerned with the health and well being of pregnant mothers, infants and young children.  Based on their letters of gratitude, we should all be commended for this important contribution to our community.  A letter from Bill Clark appears below.  JoAnne Fisher’s thoughts and comments will appear in next month’s newsletter.

August 26, 2008.

To the members of the Harvard Business School Alumni Club of Philadelphia:

I want to offer my sincere appreciation for the scholarship to attend the Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management program. Simply put, it was one of the most intense learning experiences of my life. I am extremely grateful for your generosity in making it happen.

The week long program seemed designed, from the beginning, to achieve transformation for the attendees. Beautiful facilities combined with some of the brightest, most enthusiastic faculty imaginable and 140 eager nonprofit leaders from around the globe all orchestrated an environment for rich learning. Since I have returned, the hard work of putting the lessons into practice is already germinating. My conceptual toolbox bursts with a rich set of tools including the Strategic Triangle, the OODA loop, Question Zero, the Strategic Service Vision, the Characteristics of a High-Performance Organizations, to name but a few.

It seems an understatement to say that I learned a great deal. Of equal sustained value was the support and sincere recognition by the Harvard folk (like you) that the work my colleagues and I do as nonprofit leaders is truly respected, important and difficult work. Ours is a profession that faces challenges essentially different from our for- profit counterparts, as has been grasped by the HBS world class faculty. This inspires renewed verve to our efforts.

I feel a duty to use what I learned from the program to make a difference in my organization and my community.

Thank you to the HBS Alumni Club of Philadelphia for your support and the chance to push my strategic perspectives to a higher plane.

Executive Director Philabundance

www.philabundance.org