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In 2007 Booz Allen Hamilton set out to help small nonprofits in the Washington, D.C. area gain access to expert advice and guidance on management and fundraising that was otherwise unattainable for them due to cost. In the four years since, the Booz Allen Hamilton Nonprofit Development Conference Series has grown exponentially and now successfully serves more than 400 unique nonprofit organizations with top tier guest speakers from around the metropolitan area who provide the sorely needed advice and guidance.
Boston Beer Company keeps the entrepreneurial spirit going
With so many doom and gloom headlines about the credit crunch, it was encouraging to see The Boston Globe profile a new micro-lending program sponsored by Center member Boston Beer Company in partnership with the nonprofit ACCION USA. This is a great example of a company exercising creativity in addressing needs in the community. I also found it especially enjoyable for the Center because our faculty member Mark Feldman’s Cause Consulting was a big part of the design process.
“Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream” is a great program for these tough economic times because the company is leveraging a $250,000 financial commitment, modest by many measures, by supporting the budding entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry in other ways by providing:
- Business education and financial literacy seminars
- Advice and expertise from Boston Beer employees through regular events
- Access to networks, markets and mentors that would otherwise not be available to them
The Center teaches in its management development courses that the more closely a company aligns its signature program with its mission and brand the more likely the effort will succeed. In this case, it seems that the very DNA of CEO Jim Koch was brewed into the program. Koch says the deck was pretty much stacked against him in 1984 when he took a gamble and launched his dream of creating a microbrewery that could compete with behemoths such as Budweiser. He knows he beat the odds and wants to keep the entrepreneurial spirit of Boston Beer Company and early patriot and brewer Sam Adams alive.
Read the Boston Globe article.
