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August 2004 Naïveté, Inexperience Spawn SuccessTeach for America, the volunteer teaching organization, has 3,000 corps members, 16,000 applicants, and a $30 million budget, Wendy Kopp, the group's founder and president, told a View from the Top audience in April. When Kopp conceived the idea during her senior year at Princeton, few would have believed the organization would thrive. Fifteen years later, Kopp attributes much of its success to her naiveté and the power of inexperience, which kept her from being jaded or discouraged. The timing was also perfect. Teacher shortages were constantly in the news and campus leaders were looking for careers beyond the popular training programs on Wall Street. But times have changed and so has Teach for America. Ignoring managerial details, Kopp started the organization hoping it could be run in a nonhierarchical way. She learned after some missteps that "effective management is everything." Today, Kopp concentrates on Teach for America's core mission instead of getting distracted by side initiatives and programs. She describes herself as obsessed with finding and retaining great people focused on "clear outcomes" and trying to measure the group's fundraising success and programmatic effectiveness. Lastly, she realizes the value of culture and tries to instill the organization's core values at every level. "I think internal management 'stuff' is why Teach for America is thriving," she said. |
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