Philanthropy Gains Eager Followers in B-Schools

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At Columbia Business School, Melissa Berman, president and chief executive officer of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a nonprofit that advises donors on multimillion dollar philanthropic projects, has been teaching a class for the last four years, called Strategic Philanthropy. During the half-semester course, Berman teaches students about the structure, governance, and function of philanthropic investing—from donations to dual-purpose investments, as well as strategies for personal philanthropy and corporate philanthropy projects. Guest speakers this spring included representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the New York State Attorney General’s Charities Bureau.

For one assignment, students are asked to devise a “philanthropy road map,” the same tool Berman uses when she works with Rockefeller clients to help them identify what issues they care about and how they plan to allocate resources to philanthropic causes over the course of their lives. Katherine Szostak, who took the class in 2010, says the exercise helped her sharpen her philanthropic goals, which include making an impact in education, health, and women’s rights issues. “It really drills down into your belief system and helps you discover what you believe is an effective strategy,” she says.

One of Berman’s students in the course, Joanne Greenstein, a 2009 Columbia MBA graduate, was able to secure a job after graduation at Rockefeller Philanthropy, where she now works as a philanthropic advisor. The class helped her get a holistic view of the philanthropy field, she says, and as a result, she feels more effective at her job. “We were exposed to so many different individual philanthropists and foundation staff,” Greenstein says. “It just gave me a taste of what I would be doing later.”

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Damast is a reporter for Businessweek.com.