Investing in Philanthropy
New MBA course teaches students to evaluate nonprofit success.
By Jeremy M. Simon
Nearly two dozen graduate students crammed into an 8-by-32-foot tiny house on a cold, wet February day. Texas McCombs Associate Dean Gaylen Paulson and his wife, Kristin, were sharing stories about their family’s 18-month experience in their home. During that time, the Paulsons lived as neighbors to more than 200 Austinites struggling with chronic homelessness in an innovative 51-acre community called Community First! Village.
The on-site visit is a good example of the unique learning opportunities students enrolled in the new Investing in Philanthropy course get to experience. Introduced this spring, the course is taught by Finance Professor Laura Starks and Business, Government, and Society Associate Professor Minette Drumwright.
“It involves a lot of thinking about being a good steward of one’s resources and how to help nonprofits be effective,” Drumwright says. “Many of our students will be board members of nonprofits, probably sooner than they expect.”
In addition to classroom lectures, discussions, guest speakers, readings on subjects from financial economics to philosophy, and on-site visits, students practice actual philanthropy. They are divided into five teams, each focused on a specific area of philanthropic investment: education, environment, health, arts, and human services.
Individual teams conduct research and create their own framework for selecting the nonprofit most effective at solving a societal problem, which they pitch to the rest of their classmates. “The experience helps students to think more broadly,” Starks says. “Not just about philanthropy, but about measuring impact.”
The class spent the semester researching and vetting nonprofits to receive $89,000 in grant money.
Those funds came from Jeff Swope, BBA ’72, MBA ’73, and the nonprofit Philanthropy Lab, which partners with donors and schools to teach giving through the allocation of real money. While the organization supports many classes at the undergraduate level, the Texas McCombs MBA class is one of only two participating graduate business classes nationwide.
Swope, founder, CEO, and managing partner at Champion Partners in Dallas, visited the class as a guest speaker during the semester. “In my early 40s, when the financial rewards had come, I did a brief retake on my life,” Swope explained to the class. “Somebody asked me, ‘What’s your legacy going to be?’ I realized there needed to be more than just being a big-time real estate guy.”
He said he considered his passions, and identified family, work, nonprofits, and UT. “This place had such a huge impact on my life,” Swope said. “You can combine your passions, and that’s why I’m here — where the passion is.”
Swope made a strong case for giving back: “With success comes responsibility. That’s something the class aims to teach MBAs.”
At the end of the semester, the students divided the donated funds among three different organizations: $47,800 to Code2College, $23,400 to the Austin Child Guidance Center, and $17,800 to the Coral Restoration Foundation.
The course allowed them to think about big, important questions, says Drumwright. “What makes life meaningful, what are their values, and how can they live those out?”
This article appeared in the spring 2019 issue of McCombs magazine. Click on the link to see the full issue.
