PMP

Created in the upheaval of the early 1970s to bridge industry and government, the Public Management Program keeps changing. Therein lies its strength.

Illustration by James Yang

IN 1965, Ralph Nader published Unsafe at Any Speed, his searing critique of the automobile industry and its lack of concern about passenger safety. Shortly thereafter, a handful of auto executives were called down to Washington, D.C., to account for themselves. Among them was Arjay Miller, the smart, tough president of Ford Motor.

Miller had never, by his own account, given much thought to social issues. "I was a businessman," says Miller. "I was pragmatic." In Washington, he had an interesting revelation. Like most executives, Miller had long observed that government types seemed to know little about business. But watching his corporate colleagues in the various contentious meetings, he observed that they seemed equally clueless about government. "We blew it," recalls Miller. "We really didn't do so well. Businessmen just didn't understand the political process, or how to deal with the new social demands that were starting to be placed on them."

Then in 1967, Detroit was torn apart by urban riots. As chairman of the city's economic development committee, Miller was charged with bringing private-sector jobs to the ravaged inner city. It turned out to be an overwhelming, impossible, humbling assignment. Not even seasoned business professionals could figure out how to make it happen. And as far as Miller could tell, nothing was being done to correct this. Certainly not in America's top universities.

The GSB faculty liked the idea. The trustees liked the idea. In 1969, Miller became dean, and in 1971, with grants from the Alfred P. Sloan and Ford foundations, the Public Management Program (PMP) was born.

IN MAY 1999, the PMP celebrated its first quarter century. Two hundred fifty participants came to Stanford to share ideas and stories and discuss everything from the role of technology in social change to new developments in education. There were government officials, leaders of scrappy community organizations, environmental activists, and foundation presidents. There were management consultants, investment bankers, full-time mothers, and employees of companies ranging from Monsanto to eBay. There were young people eager to talk about promoting philanthropy on the Internet and others pioneering efforts to help nonprofits become more entrepreneurial.

"The number of PMP alums doing interesting work in all the sectors is an incredible thing," says Nancy Katz, MBA '93, former executive director of the nonprofit Students for Responsible Business, which is trying to foster a new generation of progressive business leaders. "It's an unparalleled network."

The group reflects the enduring legacy — and success — of Miller's vision. But the diversity of the group also reflects the way times have changed, and the way the PMP has had to change as well. While its core mission has remained intact, the PMP has been forced to evolve. And after more than 25 years, the PMP itself could be a case study in innovative, self-renewing nonprofit management.

In its early days, the PMP had a simple mandate: Forty spaces were reserved for applicants who wanted to go into public service. It was hoped that they would become "the conscience of the school," says Miller, helping classmates take a more expansive view of their role as businesspeople. It was assumed that after graduation, most PMP students would take their new analytical and managerial toolkit and go to work for the government. It was a solid model for a program in the early 1970s. The government was still thought of as a place where a bright, ambitious, and socially conscious young person might actually want to work.

Things soon changed. By the late 1970s, government careers were beginning to look less appealing. Jimmy Carter — and later Ronald Reagan — didn't think government was going to solve society's problems; government was the problem. "It stopped being cool to go into government," says Jim Thompson, MBA '86, director of the PMP from 1987 to 1998.

Not only did government get no respect, but consulting firms and investment banks had begun bidding up the salaries of young MBAs. If you could earn twice as much consulting, why would you ever go work for the government? Fewer and fewer PMPers did. And a question began to haunt the PMP: If graduates of a public management program weren't becoming public managers, what exactly was the point?

In 1986, James Patell, then associate dean for academic affairs, was charged with answering this question. "The PMP was on life support; everyone thought he was going to kill it," recalls Thompson.

At the center of the new PMP, naturally, was coursework — classes like public-sector economics and nonprofit marketing. Students with a strong interest in full-time public service careers could load up on these courses and earn a certificate. Students with other priorities could take just one or two. Then there were periodic workshops (which have since become more regular) on topics like fundraising or how to run a meeting. These were open to everyone and focused on issues that any active citizen might encounter in a well-rounded life.

But there was room for another piece, Patell thought, some overarching project that would get students actively involved and excited. "We weren't going to be a full-service program, we weren't going to be the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs," says Patell. "But I felt maybe we could cover just one subject really well every year."

Why not let the students themselves decide what that would be? In their first year, a PMP class would select the topic that interested them most — the so-called Public Management Initiative, or PMI. It might be the environment. Or education. Or children. Their second year would feature speakers, programs, and retreats centered on the chosen theme.

"The thing just exploded," says Thompson. "We had people coming in who had no experience with public service. There was a big influx of student excitement and energy, and suddenly there were things going on that I wouldn't have been able to think of under the best of circumstances."

"The PMI was huge," agrees Larry Bram, MBA '91. "It pervaded student life."

"Being student run made it exuberant and messy," recalls Alison Davis, MBA '89, who was assistant PMP director from 1989 to 1995. "But the results were great. You could have an idea and run with it, explore, experiment."

Patell's only rule was that at the end of each year the PMI be abandoned. "Students would want to leave a legacy, something in place for the next class. I'd tell them their legacy had to be a clean beach," says Patell. "We wanted incoming students to come and find a vibrant initiative being executed, one they could get swept up in. But when it came time to turn things over, they'd have complete freedom to choose, design, and execute something new."

One notable exception to Patell's "clean beach" rule was the stupendously popular Class of 1997 PMI on social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is very broadly defined as everything from nonprofits that sell products or services to for-profit businesses with a strong social mission. Several faculty members loved the subject and built a course around it. Later, Greg Dees, the reigning expert on social entrepreneurship, was recruited from Harvard.

"Once the idea was sprouted, the faculty saw the potential and said, let's go for it," says Thompson. "All of a sudden, what was a student idea for a temporary project blossomed into a huge deal."

The enthusiasm unleashed by the revised student-run PMP was infectious and spilled over into a variety of new programs. Says Cynthia Scherr, MBA '91, "There was this incredible amount of entrepreneurial energy around both the public and private sectors." Says Callie Stivers, MBA '97, "If you wanted to come in and take ownership of something, you could really make change happen."

And PMP participants did. In 1991, a few PMPers decided to do something about the abysmal high school graduation rate in East Palo Alto. They adopted two elementary school classes as part of the "I Have a Dream" program, and started tutoring them and building a fund to pay the college tuition of every student who graduated. Eight years later, the program is flourishing, and the first East Palo Alto class will graduate next year.

Or consider Start Up, founded in 1994. Through Start Up, MBAs provide free consulting services to East Palo Alto entrepreneurs, helping them write business plans or raise capital. Today, Start Up is a thriving, stand-alone nonprofit, in addition to being a PMP club.

"The PMP serves as an incubator or launching pad for ideas like these," says Patell. There are a variety of other interesting student-initiated programs. One group set up an ongoing fund to subsidize MBAs who go to work for nonprofits for a summer. They named it the Stanford Management Internship Fund, or SMIF. Other students started a program, GSB Board Fellows, that places students as nonvoting members on the boards of local nonprofits for a year.

"You bring great people together and things happen. It's not just about grinding through and getting certificates," says Danny Grossman, MBA '91, who founded Wild Planet Toys, a toymaker both children and their parents ("no guns, no Barbies") can appreciate.

"If the PMP weren't student run, it wouldn't work," says David Brady, now faculty advisor to the program. For one thing, the PMP's myriad activities would grind to a halt. But more important, students wouldn't leave Stanford with a sense of empowerment and excitement about public service.

THE PMP is founded on a great concept. And over the years it has evolved a structure that is absolutely critical to implementing that concept. A strong PMP tradition and infrastructure have been firmly established, and the program is backed and overseen by talented, resourceful faculty and staff members. But what happens within the PMP framework is purposely left up to the students. And it has worked brilliantly. The PMP has become a model for the kind of vibrant, flexible, and effective nonprofit organization it is training young people to build.

"We consciously tried to model a self-renewing organization," says Thompson. "We consciously tried to create a model students would get excited about. And then when they went out to start their own organizations, they'd re-create that same spirit."

Problems continue to arise with the PMP, of course, but they tend to solve themselves, as the people they affect are directly charged with handling them. "At some point, almost all my classmates participated in one PMP activity or another," says Melinda Tuan, MBA '97. But by the next year, the number of graduates earning public management certificates dropped to a low of 18 from 51 in 1992. Brian Trelstad, MBA '99, was concerned enough to launch an investigation. It turned out that earning a certificate had become too onerous for all but a very few students. The School ultimately reduced the required number of courses for a certificate from four to three and added specialized certificates in several areas — social entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, and public policy — for students committed to a public service career. This year the number of students receiving certificates rebounded to 36.

"If we knew where the PMP would be five years from now, that would be a problem," says Patell. "We have to have faith we're going to have innovative, energetic students who will have ideas we haven't even thought of. It'll be vibrant and strong and, boy, I'll be interested to see what it looks like."