Can An MBA Be Profitable In A Non-Profit Organisation?

Non-profit organisations work on several important socially relevant causes, more often than not amid severe funding crunch or financial crisis that cry out for professional management. We take a look at some of the issues where an MBA graduate could put to practice the knowledge acquired at the business school for a fulfilling career.

Non-profit bodies, staffed by enthusiastic or idealistic people usually work on challenging missions, putting in long hours, often for very low wages and often suffer burnouts.

Among the difficulties faced by them are delays caused by faulty supply chains and insufficient resources. Funders and donors demand detailed financial analysis to check whether the money has been spent properly.

According to Bethany Romano, who is editor in the communications department at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, while workers in non-profits have motivation and personal fulfilment, they lack in stability, compensation and sophistication.

Romano, who is also pursuing an MBA in non-profit management at Heller, says she joined the school after a four-year stint with a non-profit organisation.

In a Huffington Post blog, she lists five reasons why workers in the sector should go in for an MBA.

First of all, most of the people jump into the work without realising the complexities in finding solutions to homelessness, poverty or inequality. Most of them have only anecdotal evidence of the impact of their work.

A person with a management degree would be able to evaluate the project and identify problems while devising ways to save time and money or even be able to prevent the organisation from taking up ineffective or harmful programs.

Secondly, on the leadership front, an MBA background could help in  understanding of group dynamics, sharing of responsibility, team structure etc.

The third point Romano terms as a common myth is that salaries are poor at non-profits. Generally, big organisations like Oxfam, the Red Cross and Nature Conservancy have the resources to pay a fair wage. It would also be a good idea to use Glass Door, PayScale or such tools to assess expected earnings and balance it with the cost of the MBA degree.

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Fourthly, most of the non-profits need people with at least basic business skills. It boils down to implementing basic principles of accounting, finance and economics to help such entities withstand financial hardship. Here again, an MBA would be able to help out.

The fifth point is to overcome reluctance on the part of those working in the sector to join a business school fearing that they would not be able to fit into a stereotypical business school environment with an explicit focus on wealth generation or elitism.

However, several business schools are focussing on non-profit MBA programs either as an add-on to the MBA program or as a non-profit management degree within a school of social policy or public administration. So all that needs to be done is to find a program that fits your needs and enrol. (Image Courtsey : pixabay.com)