People

Kristin Majeska, MBA ’94

Shopping at a public market in Portland, Maine, one day in 1999, Kristin Majeska inquired about the expensive organic beef she spotted. Erick Jensen, manager of a farm that had been willed to a nonprofit organization, explained that his processing costs were three times those of feed lots because of the small volume.

“We started talking about ways to increase the volume and partnering with farmers in northern Maine rather than having his coastal farm add more cattle,” recalls Majeska, MBA ’94. Together they developed a business plan, and Jensen tapped into the newly created Common Good Ventures, a venture philanthropy arm founded by Majeska with support from the Maine Community Foundation. Jensen’s Wolfe’s Neck Farm now partners with farmers in the economically depressed northern part of Maine who also raise cattle without use of hormones, antibiotics, or animal by-products in their feed. The meat is sold to Boston-area supermarket chains that promote the brand’s natural qualities. Consumer demand for the premium product has led to higher income for the farmers.

Majeska’s Common Good, meanwhile, is making grants and providing business advice to other nonprofits that want to further their social goals and increase their financial self-sufficiency through mission-related businesses. Some of these partners are training and job-creation organizations; one is a catering service whose primary mission is providing nutritious meals to low-income children in day care.

“For us to invest, an organization has to have a believable business plan that shows how they will break even in approximately three years, including extra costs associated with using the business to accomplish their social mission,” says Majeska, who contributed a chapter on marketing to Enterprising Nonprofits (John Wiley & Sons, 2001), which was coedited by former GSB professor Greg Dees. Her current work “draws heavily” on her previous private-sector consulting and her Stanford Public Management Program experience and connections, she says. Another advantage of her MBA, Majeska says, is “the confidence to do something interesting and meaningful wherever you go. I’m in Waterville, a town of 17,000 people 75 miles north of Portland, and I still found great work to do.” 

—KATHLEEN O’TOOLE

Richard Scurry, MBA ’63

WHEN HE RETURNED from a 1994 trip to Russia, Richard Scurry was excited. With tens of thousands of other American Christians who had been invited by Gorbachev’s education department to teach the Bible to Russian schoolteachers, he had learned firsthand what happens to a child’s education when a core piece of Western history is missing. “People were telling us that the worst mistake they had made in 70 years of Communism was taking the Bible out of schools,” Scurry says.

Today, Scurry, MBA ’63, is a partner working half time at the Jefferson Financial Group in Manhattan and also vice president for development of the Bible Literacy Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of business people dedicated to the academic and objective study of the Bible and its influence on Western civilization. The Project, in conjunction with the Freedom Forum, has developed “The Bible and Public Schools, A First Amendment Guide,” endorsed by 18 organizations, including Jewish, Christian, and Muslim groups as well as the two national teachers’ unions. It is the first consensus statement on teaching about the Bible in 160 years of U.S. public schools.

Scurry reports that many teachers, including atheists, are enthusiastic about this project because the Bible is foundational to Western culture. Large portions of history, literature, art, and especially English are based on scriptural references and cannot be fully understood without that key resource.

The Project has met with educators in 22 states so far, but Scurry notes real change will happen at the local school board level. The Project currently is putting together a pilot curriculum for schools in Dallas.

On his personal beliefs, Scurry says with humor: “I always went to church, but family and business were my priorities, with religion way down the line somewhere behind football.” After a series of experiences following the death of his best friend, George Clark, MBA ’63, he now describes his faith as life changing. Asked about his commitment to the Project, Scurry replies, “I’m 63 years old. At some point you have to start giving back.” 

—LISA EUNSON