Columbia Alums Combine MBAs and Social Enterprises

Two Columbia Business School alumni have created a new social venture in New York City that provides business advisory services to nonprofits and for-profit mission-driven companies. The company is a Teach for America for MBAs interested in nonprofits and social enterprises.

The program, called Inspire Impact, is an incubator fellowship pairing mostly MBA students enrolled in various business schools with social enterprises.

The 10-week program, which has seven MBAs and one engineer, will have classes covering everything from project finance to social media skills. Each student will be matched with an organization to work on a specific project that Nell Derick Debevoise, CEO, and Yael Silverstein, chief strategy and operations officer, have already scoped out, doing a cost-benefit analysis of a new program a group wants to monetize, or looking at different revenue generating opportunities.

“By the end of the summer, they can have a 30,000 foot view of what a career in this field would be like,” says Silverstein.

Debevoise registered the company as an LLC two years ago, but the two really started building the company last summer. “We’ve been using the past year as our research and development time, working with organizations to help prove the concept,” said Silverstein.

As for Inspire Impact, it grew out of a posting for MBA interns to work at Inspiring Capital. But there were so many applications from students at a variety of top schools; the two women realized they had stumbled onto a bigger idea. “We were blown away by the caliber of the students,” said Silverstein.

Ultimately, they hope to expand the pilot to be national in scope and they want to add programs that take place during other seasons aimed at mid-career professionals looking to transition into new areas.

regions: New York City

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