Non-profit Internship in Public Education -
A Rewarding Experience

By Srik Gopalakrishnan, MBA2

The Monroe Street Journal
University of Michigan Business School
November 11, 2002

I must begin by confessing that as an international student beginning my MBA at the University of Michigan Business School last fall, a non-profit internship wasn't exactly on my list. I was hoping to travel down the trodden path of most ambitious MBAs - Strategy Consulting, and my education and background convinced me that it was the right path for me to follow. Until the current economic situation and the consequent dearth of employment opportunities convinced me to take a long, hard look at what I really wanted to do this summer. I decided to focus more on 'what activities would I be happy doing?' rather than 'what industries do I want to target?' As I made a mental checklist of things 'I'd be happy doing', it seemed increasingly apparent to me that it was imperative for me to get some experience working for a smaller firm in a non-traditional sector. As I looked at off-campus positions, I was particularly attracted to the internship opportunity with The Ball Foundation, as it had at its core something that I have come to value greatly - education.

The Ball Foundation is a family Foundation based in Glen Ellyn just outside of Chicago that works in two different albeit closely linked areas - Public Education and Career Counseling. My internship was with 'Education Initiatives (EI)', the arm of the Foundation that primarily consulted with public school districts in implementing several reform-based initiatives. I had a brief but highly rewarding interaction with 'Career Vision', the other arm, the details of which I will save for later.

EI has 'partnership agreements' with four small to medium size school districts in the U.S. The EI staff, located both at Glen Ellyn and at some of the partnership sites, engage in continuous interactions with school district officials and local school staff to introduce and implement many productivity-driven interventions. These include site-based decision making, leadership development, school based budgeting and school design collaborative models. Most EI staff members have a background in Education, which in some cases is complemented with an MBA degree. Increasingly, the focus for EI has been the infusion of successful ideas and concepts from the business world in to the realm of public education. And this, in many ways, is what I attempted to accomplish during my internship - to marry the worlds of business and education with a view to create sustainable, impactful education reform.

Having worked previously in a large consumer products company, I had virtually no perspective on working in a small, non-traditional firm. Hence, every little experience added value and opened my mind to multiple possibilities. Some of the things I found appealing were o The sheer novelty of being 10% (to 15% depending on the point in time) of the total staff at EI. This was a refreshing experience in terms of being a part (even as an intern) of all the interesting things that were going on. I attended weekly staff meetings, sat in on presentations by other EI members and read updates on key projects that were ongoing. o Being given a very high level of autonomy in carrying out my projects. Except for the project briefs that were given to me at the beginning, I carried out most of the work independently, with occasional suggestions and guidance from the EI staff. Being a person who likes to be more entrepreneurial and innovative in his work, I found this approach quite refreshing. o The openness to my suggestions and recommendations, both from the EI staff as well as from the education officials that I worked with. The fact that a 'rookie' MBA intern with no background in education was taken quite as seriously as I was amazed me endlessly!

To state that the internship experience added tremendous value to me as a person would be an understatement. It exposed me to a sector that I hadn't had any experience with and it taught me that successful management concepts are workable not only in the business sector but also in education. The most important learning for me, however, was how it changed my perspective on the kind of full-time career I wanted to pursue, or in the words of the Foundation's Executive Director, 'what I wanted to be when I grew up.'

Somewhere between implementing a school based budgeting system for an Illinois school district, suggesting better means of collaboration for a collection of Michigan school districts and writing a paper on productivity benchmarking, it hit me - this was way more than a regular job. And in my mind, it became clearer that I wanted something similar for a full-time job. Some of these values got corroborated when I took an intensive career aptitude test with Career Vision. Called the 'Ball Aptitude Battery (BAB®)', it involved everything from GMAT style math questions to finger dexterity tests to memory games. When the feedback was administered to me, it helped clarify some of the notions that had already formed in my mind regarding the ideal career for me and it helped me get in touch with facets of my personality that had been relatively remote. It was a great bonus in addition to the rewarding experience that the internship itself had been.

As I proceed with a full-time job search this fall, I intend to be more focused on job content, rather than on the industry. My attempt would be to look either for large companies that have strong entrepreneurial culture or small companies that engage in interesting work in emerging segments. My long-term goal is to work in developing markets and I'm hoping that carrying out more 'greenfield' projects like the ones I undertook over the summer would position me advantageously to assume positions of responsibility in emerging economies.

Irrespective of whatever happens this fall, I can say with conviction that working for a non-profit organization in the U.S. has been an immensely enriching experience and has helped me greatly in moving closer to figuring out what I want to be when I, eventually, grow up.

Direction. Decisions. Satisfaction.