MCP’s goal is to pool large amounts of philanthropic capital to invest in and help scale US nonprofits. At the time of my internship, MCP’s main focus was on building out its Water Philanthropy Fund, a vehicle to reverse the underinvestment seen within the United States water infrastructure space. On the J curve of the business cycle, MCP was in the very beginning stages of formulating an idea/concept and needed to raise capital to begin scaling. Therefore, my role at the firm was to (1) research and perform due diligence on potential areas of impact within water; (2) identify, target, and reach out to foundations and philanthropists who could provide us feedback on our concept and potentially partner with us; and (3) optimize and streamline the sales process so that future endeavors could be logged and analyzed for improvement. MCP already had a PE partner called Sciens Water that had raised several hundred million dollars and invested in a few infrastructure projects across the country, but on the philanthropy side, we wanted to find people who were also passionate about water. With another fellow CBS intern, I spent two to three weeks researching how lead and bacteria are prevalent in our water systems and the damage these have on our health, quantifying the cost of inaction and its impact on our water infrastructure, and connecting with water industry experts (including Columbia’s own Professor Lall at the Water Center). I then spent a few more weeks reaching out to foundations through cold calls, emails, and social media to potentially set up calls to learn more about their needs. Towards the end of my internship, I was primarily focused on managing our sales flow data, and I wrote up a tutorial to help delineate our process to future employees.

Coming to business school, I had a background in research so that part of the internship was quite familiar. However, given MCP’s early growth phase, I spent more time thinking about our strategy, marketing, and sales processes. Columbia’s curriculum, in particular my Strategy Formulation class, was useful in providing the tools and analytical framework that enabled me to contribute to the conversation. Even if one of my suggestions was not implemented, I still felt better prepared for our weekly meetings and ad hoc brainstorm sessions because of my training from the core classes. Surprisingly, what really helped me during the internship was just being around so many entrepreneurial students at Columbia. Talking to fellow students about their startup ideas and the challenges they faced made it that much easier to recognize what hurdles MCP faced in scaling. Lastly, discerning MCP’s value proposition and, more importantly, how we could market that concept, was not only key to maximizing my contribution to MCP, but also positively correlated to how much I would get from the internship.

This will likely echo many of the other fellows’ experience, but my greatest challenge during the internship was working remotely. Because MCP works closely with nonprofits and foundations, I would have highly valued face-to-face contact with these professionals who generously donate their time to hear our pitch. In addition, despite technological advancements and the wonders of Zoom, communication lines are still not as robust as in-person conversations. Disparate time zones among the interns and the founder, along with frustrating AT&T internet connections on my end, made it difficult to have streamlined teamwork. Along with COVID-related challenges, personally, it was quite difficult for me to step out of my comfort zone as a research guy. Putting myself into a marketing state of mind is unnatural for me, but necessary for the success of the firm. The role pushed me to become more empathetic, as I had to put myself in our listeners’ shoes when we were pitching. Lastly, as part of working for a startup, I had to take on more initiative as there weren’t as many guardrails in place or clearly delineated processes. Coming from someone who loves structure (I have a spreadsheet for every vacation I’ve taken with cost breakdowns, and I keep a tally of all my movies with my own personal rating system), I wasn’t totally prepared to set my own expectations and drive the projects forward. This experience pushed me do that.

I am grateful to both MCP and the Tamer Center for providing me this opportunity in spite of everything that is going on in the world. Although I do not plan on going into nonprofit work after business school, I wanted to learn as much as I could about what it’s like to work for a company that partners with nonprofits. It was eye opening to see the challenges of a startup and the significance of having a strong business plan, strategy, and execution. I never understood what it really meant to market a company’s brand and products until working at a venture fund like MCP. From our Zoom calls with philanthropists and foundations, I also got a glimpse of their business processes and how they manage their grants. I have always been involved in nonprofit work because I feel privileged to have the resources and background that I have, and I believe this experience showed me what are truly the barriers to success within nonprofits. My research during my internship also informed me on the crumbling water infrastructure within our country, and if anything, has made me more aware of the big issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. There is always a need for firms like MCP to bridge the investment gap and provide the necessary funding to address our country’s problems, and I am thankful that I got to be involved this summer.