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On Board A M Students at Wharton spend a school year serving on nonprofit boards, bolstering their MBA training with insights into the not-for-profit world. by Nien-hê Hsieh and Sadaf Kazmi While business student Chris Donohue was serving on the board for the nonprofit Empowerment Group, the organization received two substantial grants. The Empowerment Group is an organization that accelerates growth in distressed urban communities by promoting local entrepre- neurship, and these grants allowed it to dramatically expand its train- ing programs. Donohue, an MBA student at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, was serving on the group's board of directors as part of a new program at Wharton. He was asked to analyze the results of the Empowerment Group's training programs in terms of performance costs, gradua- tion rates of participants, and numbers of new businesses opened as a result of the programs. Instead, Donohue suggested an alterna- tive approach—evaluate participants' performance three years after they completed their training with the Empowerment Group. As an MBA student, Donohue was able to offer the organization's board members a new perspective and encourage them to look past shortsighted metrics to a more long-term view of success. "My ability to look at the organization's mission through a long- term lens helped the board think about the ultimate goals of the program and how to achieve them," he says. In return, Donohue received a valuable educational experience that he never would have received in the classroom. As members of the group that launched Wharton's Nonprofit Board Leadership Program (NPBLP) in 2005, we have heard many similar stories that illustrate how much business students can offer—and how much they can learn—when they serve as visiting board members for nonprofit organizations. Donohue was one of ten students who participated in that first year. Many other Wharton students served on committees for fund raising, strategic planning, and marketing of the program. Prior to authoring this article, Sadaf Kazmi served as student advisor of the program, and Nien-hê Hsieh became faculty advisor. 36 BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006