Chicagoan Uses Scholarship to Innovate Within Nonprofit Sector

When Johnson got to Chicago Booth, he was surprised to learn he wasn’t the only student interested in social impact. The professors also talked about more than just financial returns.

“I don’t think a professor ever espoused high moral value to making a profit,” said Johnson, who graduated from the Weekend MBA Program in June. “They’d say, ‘We’re going to teach you how to run an organization. If you do that really well, your desired outcomes will follow.’”

This year, Booth expanded the Civic Scholars Program to offer both full-and partial-tuition scholarships to impact-driven students in its Full-Time, Evening, and Weekend MBA Programs.

With the expansion comes a deeper partnership with Chicago Booth’s Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation, now in its eighth year as the business school’s destination for people committed to helping solve complex social and environmental problems.

“The Civic Scholars Program is the most comprehensive effort by any world-class business school to arm nonprofit and government employees with critical leadership skills that can both advance their careers and the good work and thinking the social sector brings to bear on some of the world’s most intractable problems,” said Robert Gertner, the Joel F. Gemunder Professor of Strategy and Finance at Chicago Booth, John Edwardson Faculty Director of the Rustandy Center, and one of two new faculty codirectors of the Civic Scholars Program.

Learning to lead

Strapped for time and energy to innovate in the daily grind of a small nonprofit, Johnson used to attend daylong leadership seminars for professional development. These workshops provided a glimpse of what a deeper dive into operational management could provide.

What he learned in his MBA classes he could put straight to work at the nonprofit.

“We are a growing organization, and we need to grow our sophistication,” Johnson said. “There are best practices out there, and you can learn them. People often talk about ‘how to translate’ business skills into work in the nonprofit sector, but there is almost no translation required. It’s the type of work we’re already doing—trying to effectively run resource-constrained organizations to create the most impact.”

Launched in 2016 with seed funding from the Neubauer Family Foundation, students—known as Neubauer Civic Scholars—are taught by the same world-renowned faculty and earn the same MBA degree. They also receive specialized programming, dedicated faculty, and networking opportunities.

“The Booth approach to developing outstanding managers is to immerse our students with the disciplines that are essential for management – economics, psychology, statistics and quantitative methods, etc.,” said George Wu, the John P. and Lillian A. Gould Professor of Behavioral Science and codirector of the Civic Scholars Program. “Nonprofit or government sector leaders must also understand the institutions and the problems and possible solutions facing their sector.  The clear thinking a Booth MBA provides allows leaders to develop, choose, and implement new solutions for their sector’s most challenging social problems.”

To date, six Neubauer Civic Scholars have graduated from the program, and 21 Scholars are currently enrolled as MBA candidates. Part of the scholarship is a commitment to continue working in the social sector after graduation.

The program expansion is being funded through additional support from the Neubauer Family Foundation, which has invested a total of $7 million to date in the Civic Scholars Program.

Navigating a career in social impact

Helping to uplift communities by supporting entrepreneurs has been Johnson’s life’s work. While at Booth, he worked to cofound Business Services Collective, which provides shared back office resources to small, diverse construction companies.