"My project was to design a five-year growth strategy and business plan for Microlumbia, in collaboration with two other summer fellows, specifically defining its target AUM, fundraising requirement, annual budget, average deal size, annual number of deals, student team size, and other relevant dimensions. We were also tasked with detailing the steps for the fund’s transition from a nonprofit entity to a donor-advised fund (DAF). Since fundraising under the DAF structure offers donors additional tax benefits, Microlumbia anticipates that it will be able to solicit larger donations/grants in the future. As a result, the project occurred at an inflection point, where I had the opportunity to work with the team that formed a fresh vision for the fund and an action plan to achieve its growth target of increasing the AUM by 10x over the next five years. The project is critical to amplifying Microlumbia’s impact and furthering its mission — to support underserved communities around the world, and educate and inspire the next generation of impact investors.

Formulating a comprehensive business plan and determining its fundraising and budgeting requirements required me to apply many of the skills I have acquired through the MBA program. My key responsibility was working on the partnership strategy and vision development to outline the ways that Microlumbia could tie up with institutional impact funds to scale our impact, as well as position ourselves for growth over the next five years. Secondly, we also applied our skills from our strategy class in considering our comparative advantages and how we positioned ourselves.

Due to the pandemic, our team had to become comfortable with working in a virtual environment. While we were able to meet a few times in person, working virtually for the duration of the fellowship was challenging due to unclear communication and technical difficulties. It was also more difficult to develop team norms organically, and so we had to work harder to clearly define objectives, deliverables and due dates and delegate tasks to allow each team member time to work individually. In some cases, this was less efficient than being able to work together in-person to complete a task. I was fortunate to have worked with team members that shared the same enthusiasm for the project and took ownership of their work as it simplified collaboration. We also used tools available through Microsoft teams and other applications extensively to successfully facilitate remote work. The innovative solutions and frequent communication from each team member enabled us to overcome these challenges.

I was grateful for the opportunity to work on such an important part of the CBS experience for students working in impact. It was important to set a direction and strategy, and shape what this could be over the coming five years. It was also a valuable exercise in understanding how our work in Microlumbia aligns with the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, and CBS as an institution more broadly. "