I was at a Net Impact networking event last week with a lot of the brightest young MBA-non-profit minds from top schools throughout the country. Everyone was working or living in the DC area and dedicated to a social cause of some sort.
As we went around the room, and each one of the forty or so of us described what we were doing this summer, I realized that I was in the minority. I was one of four working for an organization I had heard of before. Two of us were working with United Way of America and two were with National Public Radio. The rest? All working in a niche, cause-based social business or nonprofit. These organizations all sought to innovate within the cause-based sector.
Innovation is a key part of what we need in this sector to advance the lives of those who struggle on an everyday basis. Innovation just for the sake of innovation is worth very little. I fear that many of the most talented people, seeking to be on the leading-edge, are chasing pipe-dreams.
What does this mean for the cause-based sector? This means that as the number of non-profits grows, our efforts are becoming increasingly fragmented, and the most talented among us are one of the main forces behind this trend.
I don’t like everything about the slow-moving, out-of-date but hardworking and well-meaning United Way system, but I do like that fact that it seeks to coordinate efforts within and among other cause-based organizations. And for this reason, this principal and belief, I think it is likely that I will choose to work for the larger (and usually stodgier) nonprofits.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: fragmentation, innovation in the social sector, united way, Yale School of Management
