About The Rootstock Project

There's a gap between nonprofits in need of business expertise and MBA graduates who want to fill needs in the social impact sector but feel forced to choose career paths based on starting salary to help alleviate enormous student loan debt. The Rootstock Project is designed to bridge this gap.

Through generous sponsorships from donors, we can deploy mission-driven talent from top business school programs to serve the nonprofit community.

The Rootstock Project aims to provide capacity-building support to existing organizations by recruiting and selecting graduates from top business programs to commit to two-year fellowships at one of our partner nonprofits.

We believe the following:

MBA programs attract mission-driven candidates who seek employment opportunities with social impact organizations, but post-graduate placements don’t reflect these interests.
Advanced business skills are becoming increasingly important to nonprofit organizations as they address key challenges — but most nonprofits lack equal access to MBA talent.

We address this disconnect by removing three key obstacles:

Timing
Compensation
Access

Removing Obstacles

Nonprofit organizations typically do not provide job offers months in advance of the start date.

90% of MBA grads accept job offers prior to graduation.

Timing

Rootstock Solution

Align fellowship class hire timing with MBA recruiting calendar.

Nonprofit organizations are often unable to match market rate compensation for MBA graduates.

The average MBA student graduates with $100,000 in loan debt, resulting in career decisions based on salary rather than genuine interest.

Compensation

Rootstock Solution

Provide starting salary comparable to for-profit post-grad entry, funded through grants to hiring organizations.

Few nonprofit organizations participate in on-campus recruiting, resulting in a lack of access to MBA talent.

75% of students leverage on-campus recruiting.

Accessability

Rootstock Solution

Participate in on-campus recruiting programs to recruit for fellowship placements.

By removing these obstacles, The Rootstock Project will provide nonprofits access to mission-driven MBA talent, allow MBA students to allow MBA students to immediately embark on careers on the social impact sector, and amplify the effectiveness of donor philanthropy.

Rootstock will partner with MBA program career services teams to manage the administrative elements of the on-campus recruiting process and co-manage candidate selection through interviewing hand-in-hand with our nonprofit partners. Those nonprofit partners will define a specific role in their organization that they believe is critical to maximizing their mission that an individual with business skills and experience is uniquely positioned to fill.