Graduate Degrees for Social Entrepreneurs

A graduate degree could be what it takes to transform yourself into a successful social entrepreneur, as these real-life examples show.

"I don't know anybody who is an entrepreneur who said I am going to business school to get an MBA," challenges Dr Pamela Hartigan, director of The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University's Saïd Business School.

"You either are an entrepreneur or you are not, and, if you are, you just get on with it. The same holds for social entrepreneurs. The only difference is that they are focused on creating a new product or a new way of doing things that is going to benefit the world."

"If you are going to do a graduate degree, you should make sure it gives you some useful tools by pursuing subjects such as engineering, economics or healthcare. The best social entrepreneurs in the world are people who have focused on a particular area. For example a disproportionate number of social entrepreneurs are engineers."

The engineer entrepreneur

One such engineer is Harish Hande, who was 26 when he founded Selco India, a company selling, installing and servicing solar lights for poor Indian households.

After a decade and a half of struggle to find the right investment partners, Selco has recently received $1.4 million in equity finance from the Good Energies Foundation and other organizations.

The idea came while Hande was a graduate engineering student at the Centre for Sustainable Energy at the University of Massachusetts. While on a trip to the Dominican Republic he saw the potential for the technology to be used in his home country.

"I saw these very poor people using solar lighting," he says. "Why couldn't we?"

He linked up with a charity dedicated to the promotion of solar power in developing countries.

But Hande soon realized that it wasn't just providing the lights that mattered; it was financing their purchase and servicing them, something a company could do better. The sticking point was the upfront cost, and it took him a long time to persuade local banks and cooperatives to create niche financial products that would enable individuals and families to purchase the lights.

Hande's key lesson is this. "Irrespective of whether you want money, you should have control of the company," he says. "Never take it from someone whose mission is not aligned with your own."

The humanitarian

A different type of social entrepreneurship story is told by Sasha Chanoff, founder and executive director of Mapendo International, a not-for-profit organization which identifies and resettles those refugees who are in the most extreme danger.

"Social entrepreneur is a term that is used quite a lot and I guess I do define myself as one," he says.

"When I started working with refugees I had a very specific job. However I was always trying to think of things I could do outside that job to help. Mapendo has become the solution to the problems I was thinking about."

Chanoff decided to return to full-time education to prepare himself for the challenges of setting up his own organization. He chose a Masters in Humanitarian Assistance at Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy, a joint degree program through the Tufts Feinstein International Famine Centre.

"I was attracted by the NGO management and social entrepreneurship degrees, and I finally decided on this program because it was one of the most cutting edge. It helped to give me a better l understanding of all the work I had done for the past decade.

"I got access to people who had created organizations themselves or who had led organizations such as Oxfam America, UNICEF or the Red Cross. On top of this I had access to all the colleagues on the program who had a great deal of experience."

A third way

A third non-MBA master's path is to seek out programs that allow you to enter existing public-sector or third-sector organizations which are active in the facilitation or financing of social entrepreneurship.

Dr. Audrey Selian has an MSc from the London School of Economics, a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy, and a PhD from Tufts University Fletcher School of International Affairs.

She argues, "Non-MBA degrees can actually foster a far more 'out of the box' approach, although the skill-set of knowing your numbers is always vital to attract any serious amount of funding."

"For example, for those working on developing portfolios of investee companies in a country such as India, more diverse skill-sets are vital. These portfolios tend to be comprised of small and growing businesses led by social entrepreneurs and you have to be commercial, but the tool kits of an investment-banker MBA don't always go far enough."

The three case studies show the importance of graduate school in first enhancing hard transferable skills, such as an engineering specialization.

Those with experience in the relevant field, such as Chanoff, can then use a carefully chosen social-entrepreneurship or NGO management qualification to give them the theory, contacts and opportunity for reflection they need to become successful social entrepreneurs.

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