Tag: non-profit

A few years ago, pursuing a joint degree program in business and social work was practically unheard of, but at Washington University in St. Louis, students like Annicka Webster find the best of both worlds. “I chose WashU because of the excellence of both the business and social work programs,” Webster told Poets & Quants who feature her in their “2016 MBAs to Watch” report.

“I knew that my joint degree would be a little off the typical MBA path, and the flexibility of both programs would allow me to build the exact curriculum that I wanted…But what really sealed the deal was my visit to campus where I was impressed by the faculty, staff, and most importantly the students that I met.”

Read Annika Webster’s entire profile on Poets & Quants

Congratulations to the second cohort of the Certificate in Business Management for Non-profit Leaders who ‘graduated’ on July 30. The program is a unique Olin partnership with the United Way of Greater St. Louis and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, and is offered to select executives with United Way agencies.  This year’s cohort included 11 top leaders from various services agencies. They completed a curriculum focused on effective application of strategy, leadership, management, finance, and marketing, while exploring several critical questions facing their organizations.

Guest Blogger: Michele Ralston, associate director of open enrollment, Olin Executive Education programs

Participants also completed a comprehensive active learning project in which they were asked to identify and investigate a key challenge faced by their organizations, and then develop recommendations and action plans for addressing the challenge.

To celebrate completion of the program, Dean Gupta and the Executive Programs team hosted a luncheon for the participants, members of their staffs, and agency board members. Each participant shared his or her project ‘elevator pitch’ and engaged in table discussions about the project.

Bonnie Barczykowski of the Girl Scouts of Greater St. Louis was selected to give a more in-depth presentation. Bonnie delivered a 25-minute project overview and made a compelling case for a program delivery innovation that was very well received by the 40 guests in attendance. In her talk, Bonnie credited the certificate program as a key catalyst that helped her re-frame an organizational challenge in a new light. We are so excited to see the impact of this certificate program with our students, their organizations, and the communities they serve.

Guests at the luncheon were also treated to keynote remarks from Michael DeCola, Chief Executive Officer of HBM Holdings and Mississippi Lime Company.  Mike sits on the Board of the United Way and was co-chair for the United Way’s record-setting 2014 annual campaign.  He stressed the importance of clarity of purpose as well as the need for synergy with other community partners.

The Certificate in Business Management for Non-profit Leaders — along with the Olin United Way Board Fellows program and the Taylor Community Consulting Program — continue to place Olin at the intersection of leading business and non-profit thinking.

Students eager to help local St. Louis nonprofits gathered in the Active Learning Lab on Thursday night to inaugurate the spring session of the Taylor Community Consulting Program. The program, an initiative of the Center for Experiential Learning, drew students from diverse academic backgrounds, including BSBA, MBA, engineering, and law students.

Each group of 5-6 students will work directly with a specific organization on a project over the course of the semester. Projects range from a date benchmarking project for Catholic Charities to an industry analysis for the Nonprofit Resource Center.

Mark Soczek, Director of the Taylor Program, was extremely excited to announce a record number of applicants both from non-profits and students hoping to participate in the program. Some organizations, such as City Academy, have been part of the Taylor Program before while many others, like the Human Rights Campaign, are newcomers who have been drawn by the reputation of the program. Soczek commented that he cannot wait to see the impactful deliverables that will come from the student consulting teams.