research

MIIS Launches New Center on Social Impact Learning with Funding from Cordes Foundation

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Business, development, Featured, FMS, MBA, newsroom, research
Whitney Hales in Belize

Frontier Market Scouts participant Whitney Hales (MBA/MAIEP ’14, right) with cacao farmers in Belize, where she worked in summer 2013 as part of the Maya Mountain Cacao project.

On May 12, the Monterey Institute announced the establishment of a new Center for Social Impact Learning (CSIL), which will bring three existing programs together under a single umbrella:

  • The Institute’s Frontier Market Scouts program, which provides graduate students from MIIS and other schools, as well as mid-career international professionals, with an intensive two-week training program followed by a six-month internship designed to prepare them for careers in impact investing and social venture management;
  • The Ambassador Corps, which will provide undergraduate students at Middlebury College and other schools with ten-week in-field learning experiences in development and business in underdeveloped and emerging economies; and
  • The Development Consulting Program, which will engage MIIS students as team members on projects initiated by some of the most reputable consulting firms to provide pro-bono consulting services to nonprofit organizations.

The latter two programs were created by the new center’s director, Jerry Hildebrand, who most recently headed the Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of the Pacific. Hildebrand was previously the CEO for 17 years of Katalysis Bootstrap Fund, a microfinance organization that provides training, technical assistance, and credit to non-governmental microfinance institutions in Central America. His decades of work in grassroots economic development began in Peru, where he served as one of pioneering Peace Corps volunteers in the early 1960s.

“The opportunity to create a groundbreaking Center for Social Impact Learning at MIIS is truly an enviable task,” said Hildebrand. “The MIIS faculty have already laid the foundation of a rigorous academic program, to which we will add a compelling and innovative experiential learning component. Students will be equipped with a practical problem-solving skill set that will be field tested throughout the developing world.”

The new center plans to develop an active research program on management issues in social venture and impact investing, leveraging existing experiential and professional learning programs. Managing the research program and the academic programming for CSIL is Dr. Yuwei Shi, dean of Graduate School of International Policy and Management at MIIS, who also founded the Frontier Market Scouts program. CSIL also expects to collaborate closely with Middlebury College’s Center for Social Entrepreneurship (CSE), which integrates social entrepreneurship and liberal arts education. According to economics professor Jonathan Isham, the CSE’s faculty director, “MIIS and Middlebury College students should celebrate this grand news. Jerry Hildebrand is one of the true leaders in social entrepreneurship education. My CSE colleagues and I look forward to building opportunities with Jerry and Yuwei, on behalf of students on both coasts.”

“This new venture is unique among the many social entrepreneurship programs in existence today,” noted Monterey Institute President Sunder Ramaswamy, “in that it is designed to serve the full spectrum of budding social entrepreneurs, from undergraduates to graduate students to young professionals. CSIL will offer them not only valuable learning experiences but also seamless transitions from one stage of professional development to the next as they prepare for careers in the social impact investing field.”

The Center for Social Impact Learning will be supported by a generous grant from the Cordes Foundation. The Cordes Foundation was created in 2006 by Ron and Marty Cordes following the sale of Ron’s company, AssetMark Investment Services. One of the major focuses of the foundation’s philanthropy continues to be supporting social entrepreneurship education. The foundation also funds the Cordes Innovation Awards given each year by Ashoka U; the Monterey Institute’s Frontier Market Scouts program won a Cordes award in 2013, and Middlebury’s MiddCORE program was a winner in 2014.

“We are excited to be a seed funder of this groundbreaking new initiative, which aligns our mission with the commitment of MIIS and Middlebury to equip the next generation of leaders in social entrepreneurship,” said Ron Cordes.

The center will formally launch at MIIS effective July 1, with related academic programming beginning in fall 2014.

New MIIS Report on U.S. Coastal Economies Lauded by Congressman Farr

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu CBE, Citizen Diplomacy, Environment, Featured, newsroom, research
National Ocean Economics Program

National Ocean Economics Program Director Dr. Judith Kildow, Congressman Sam Farr, and Center for the Blue Economy Director Dr. Jason Scorse, who also serves as program chair of the Institute‘s International Environmental Policy program.

Presenting the 2014 State of the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economies report at a press conference in Monterey on Monday, Dr. Judith Kildow, director of the National Ocean Economics Program at the Monterey Institute‘s Center for the Blue Economy, noted the imbalance between the economic importance of coasts and coastal oceans and the federal support for stewardship of these resources. According to the report, coastal states supply over 81 percent of American jobs and contribute $13 trillion to the economy, or 84 percent of GDP.

Dr. Kildow presented the new report by the popular recreation trail along the coast in Monterey while competing with the sounds of a vibrant coastal community: bicycles wooshing by, people laughing, sea gulls cawing, and sea lions barking. Congressman Sam Farr noted that the trail, the most popular tourist attraction in the county, is on public land, just like the most popular tourist attraction in the United States, the beaches in Los Angeles. He warned that he could see “a train wreck coming,” unless there is an increase in federal funding for our coastal areas.

Rep. Farr lauded the NOEP report and said it was a very important contribution to the policy debate because it placed real economic value to our coastal resources. He said he was particularly happy that this important work was being done at the Monterey Institute, where he “went to study Spanish before joining the Peace Corps and going to Colombia.” Farr said there simply was “no place like MIIS anywhere.”

The press conference was covered by leading local news station KSBW and the Monterey County Weekly, and also mentioned in the Monterey Herald. For more on the the State of the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economies 2014, visit oceaneconomics.org. The report can be downloaded here.

Peru Practicum: Breaking Down Barriers Between Classroom and Real-World Development

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Alumni, development, Featured, IPS, MPA, newsroom, research
Aaron Ebner Peru

Aaron Ebner (center, MPA ’11), co-founder of the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development, with MIIS students in Peru

Five MIIS professors took an introductory policy analysis course and turned it into an optional year-long immersive learning opportunity. Students have the option to enroll in a Peru-focused policy class in the fall, design a research project, conduct in-field research as part of a winter-term practicum in Peru, and then follow up by working with the information and data collected as part of a seminar in the spring, all while they are learning the tools of data analysis.

Linking faculty research, alumni activities, and students’ desire for practical learning experiences, this is a true MIIS community collaboration. It started with Professors Robert McCleery and Philip Murphy, who have been working on research on the links between poverty and isolation, and grew through connections with the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development, a non-profit co-founded by alumni Aaron Ebner (MPA ’11) and Adam Stieglitz (MPA ’11) that is working on community development projects in the isolated Sacred Valley of Peru.

Professor Jeff Dayton-Johnson and his team of 25 International Policy Studies, Master of Public Administration, Master of Business Administration and International Education Management students looked at several dimensions of connectivity as it relates to a poor rural economy like that of Andean Peru. That included roads, telecommunications, connectivity to public services like health care and education, and connectivity via language (while the national language of Peru is Spanish, Quechua is the language spoken by most of the people in the study area).

Five students—Mario Guzmán-Soria, Josefina Lara, Luz Vázquez Ramos, Ximena Ospina, and Rafael Hernández—presented a preliminary report on major themes and initial findings to local authorities in Calca before returning to Monterey. Says Professor Dayton-Johnson about the experience: “This student-organized and delivered presentation in Calca effectively breaks down the barriers between the classroom and the real world of development practice. Our students took advantage of this opportunity to share initial findings from a field research project they had designed and carried out, to respond to policy makers’ questions, and to strengthen the relationship between MIIS and this region of Peru. I’m very proud of them and look forward to building on their work with another group of students next J-Term!”