Since 1960, the Peace Corps has been the premier organization for Americans who want to help people in impoverished and developing countries. But the Peace Corps isn't the only game in town -- especially for MBAs whose ambition is to go above and beyond that social mission. MBAs with business knowhow -- and a strong bent for public service -- can travel to many of the same countries to help small businesses and their owners. Indeed, they've been doing it for more than a decade through the MBA Enterprise Corps.

Established by University of North Carolina management professor Jack Behrman in 1990, the MBAEC has sent some 25 MBAs a year -- more than 570 to date -- to Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, especially former Soviet bloc countries. No question, it's a modest effort compared to the venerable Peace Corps, but for MBA participants and business owners in the developing countries, the effort is paying dividends.

"AN UNUSUAL MINDSET."  It was a simple idea. Put top-notch MBAs to work helping develop businesses in regions most in need of hands-on knowledge. To accomplish Behrman's grand plan, MBAEC volunteers would have to be willing to serve for 15 to 18 months for $1,000 per month pay in countries that often are struggling with civil unrest and a rudimentary business environment. It takes an unusual mindset -- especially for MBAs who are usually known to be preoccupied with advancing their careers -- to be a Corps member.

The volunteer projects run the gamut, from introducing businesses to capitalism, to teaching business accounting and project management. For example, the MBAEC and the Citizens Development Corps, a nonprofit group that joined forces with the MBA group in 2000, organized and established the first Azerbaijan Case Business Competition. It brought business students from across Azerbaijan together to build their analytical and presentation skills. The winning team received a free, one-month business training course at a U.S. university.

While most MBAEC members are recent grads of top MBA programs, some have even left the rat race to participate. Tim McQuillin quit his job as a senior marketing analyst at phone carrier Alltel in 1997 to spend 15 months in Ukraine helping to rebuild Ukrainian Brick Manufacturing's marketing and sales operations. "It gave me the opportunity to do more interesting work, and more high level work, than I would have been able to do at that point in my career," McQuillin says.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE.  It did more than that for McQuillan, who's now 35. He met his wife Luda in Ukraine, and he used what he learned about international business during his stint to start a furniture import/export business in Berkeley, Calif., where Luda is now getting her MBA at the University of California's Berkeley's Haas School of Business. The two eventually expect to return to Ukraine to run the company from there.

Indeed, the overseas experience "provides students with a different perspective toward business," says Patrick Hanly, Director of Alumni & Graduate Relations for the University of South Carolina, where around 40 grads have joined MBAEC over the past eight years. More than that, the projects often push Corps members to take on responsibilities they wouldn't have a chance to tackle in the U.S. without "four or five years of post-MBA work experience," says Phyllis Tutora, Program Manager for the MBAEC.

For some, the year-and-a-half project turns into a career. Nearly half of all MBAEC recruits don't return to the U.S. to work, but instead take jobs with local companies or start ventures of their own. Case in point: Tutora recalls two Corps members who saw Ukraine had no American-style supermarkets. Instead, there were only a few mom-and pop shops with scattered food aisles, and the long trek to town made it difficult to get ingredients for meals. The pair developed a plan -- and secured funding -- to open the first supermarket in the country in 2000. These days, they're expanding it and building the Ukraine's first supermarket chain.

READYING THE RECRUITS.  Until recently, the MBAEC financed its operations mainly with grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development. But last year, Washington cut the group's funding so much that it could accept only 10 members of the 100 MBAs who applied instead of the usual 25, says Tutora. As many as 70 members trekked overseas at the program's peak.

This year, with money from other sources, including the State Dept., the U.S. Agriculture Dept., and the World Bank, the MBAEC will send its regular full contingent of 25 members overseas. That group includes Jessica Blackmon, an MBA from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business who'll head to Kiev to work with a furniture manufacturer. The 29-year-old Georgia native, who graduated in May, says the MBAEC is a perfect fit for her, a way to use her business skills and help people in need, especially since she knew she wasn't interested in a traditional MBA career.

For Blackmon and her counterparts, the next 15 months may not mean business suits and analyst luncheons, but for the developing countries they'll serve in, and for their own careers, a little help could go a long way.