Daniel Rodriguez
Net Impact and SEI Prepare Chicago Booth Students for Non-Profit Board Service
Daniel Rodriguez, a full-time MBA student at Chicago Booth, is learning the ins and outs of serving on a board as a board fellow of One Million Degrees, a Chicago-area student-assistance nonprofit that prepares Chicago-area community college students for graduation and beyond.
"One Million Degrees gives financial aid and stipends for some students," Rodriguez said, "but, more important, they provide tutoring services, and they match students with mentors, and professionals in Chicago. They do several programs to help students find jobs, graduate from community college and then support them if they transfer to four-year schools as well."
Rodriguez’s unique view of One Million Degrees comes through Net Impact’s Board Fellows program. He watches the board members tackle the big questions, seeing not just what’s happening on the ground, but also what’s on the horizon.
Board service is another way students can deliver social good. While Rodriguez eventually wants to work for a for-profit, his passion for tutoring kids tugged at him to serve on a not-for-profit board.
"There is not really much of a difference between the board of a for-profit and a board of a not-for-profit," said Rodriguez. "Each one of them is setting the very strategic vision for the organization."
Rodriguez watches his mentor—the board director of One Million Degrees—to see how boards and CEOs tackle tough decisions on whether to grow, how big to grow, and whether that growth is affordable.
"I get to see the kind of questions that a board director asks versus the kind of questions that the CEO is asking, so it’s great," he said.
Rodriguez is co-chair of Net Impact, a Chicago Booth student group that brings together students interested in social enterprise. In his role, Rodriguez also helps other Chicago Booth students spend time as observers on the boards of Chicago-area nonprofits to learn how they work.
The Social Enterprise Initiative has been instrumental in connecting student groups with like-minded organizations, according to Rodriguez, and maintaining contact with those organizations even as graduates leave and first-year students come in.
"SEI has really been huge at helping us achieve some of the things that were keeping [Board Fellows] smaller or not as impactful as it could be," said Rodriguez. "We’ve been meeting with Christina [Hachikian, director of SEI] almost every other week, and they’re making sure that we recruit different organizations that are in the areas of interest of the board fellows that will be applying next year. So that’s going to be great, maintaining that relationship year to year."
In addition to facilitating relationships with nonprofits, SEI is also supporting interactions between students who are interested in social impact, Rodriguez says. "We’re trying to meet a lot more people within the class that also have that interest in social enterprise because at the end of the day those are going to be your peers in this kind of world. That’s where SEI can have a huge impact."