Students Get an Early Start Serving as Nonprofit Board Members
Generous support from Golub Capital has provided students with augmented advising, new academic opportunities, enhanced partnerships with the local community, and access to a national network that strengthens nonprofit boards.
Sarah Bond ’26 chose Yale SOM in part because of the school’s Nonprofit Board Fellows program.
“I knew I wanted to have a career with impact,” she says. “I saw this program as an incredible opportunity to learn what board service is actually like and connect with likeminded students.”
The program gives students the opportunity to serve as nonvoting members of local nonprofits. Bond—now a student leader in the program—joined the board of the Women & Family Life Center in Guilford, Connecticut during her first year at SOM. This year, her experience and that of other SOM fellows has been enhanced by a transformative gift from Golub Capital that relaunched the school’s Nonprofit Board Fellows program as the Golub Capital Nonprofit Board Fellows Program. That gift, student leaders say, has allowed them to bring their professional training and nonprofit impact to a new level.
“The Golub Capital gift has been instrumental in deepening my engagement beyond the boardroom,” says program co-president Malik Dent ’26.
The enhanced Golub Capital Nonprofit Board Fellows Program is now housed within SOM’s Program on Social Enterprise, Innovation, and Impact (PSEII). Fellows participate in the Golub Capital Nonprofit Board Fellows Network, a partnership among similar programs at other major business schools. The Golub gift has allowed PSEII to hire Sooah Rho ’23 as a program lead and to engage Paige MacLean ’98, a lecturer in the practice of management, to serve a faculty advisor to the program.
Over the past year, the expanded Golub Capital Nonprofit Board Fellows Program has hosted biweekly lunch-and-learn sessions with MacLean and invited external experts to provide training sessions on topics such as nonprofit fundraising. In the fall, Tony Sheldon ’84, senior lecturer in the practice of management and PSEII executive director, will offer a new for-credit course called the Impact Practicum. The practicum course will allow students working on nonprofit-related social impact projects to meet as a group and work intensely with faculty mentors. The program is also assembling an alumni advisory committee and on developing a set of teaching case studies that can be used across the network.
These program enhancements are intended to enable students to better serve their nonprofit partners in researching and implementing strategic initiatives. Outgoing co-president Margaret Kuo ’25, who helped the Central Connecticut Coast YMCA board articulate its stance on emerging issues such as artificial intelligence, called the gift a “game-changer.”
Dent, who is succeeding Kuo as the YMCA’s board fellow, says support from Golub Capital has allowed him to deepen his community engagement.
“At my host nonprofit, I’ve leveraged my background in managing community-based contracts and my personal lived experiences to bring a unique lens to board discussions,” he says. “The gift has given me the flexibility to attend community events and see the organization’s work firsthand, which has enriched my understanding of how the board can best support on-the-ground operations.”
Bond says that the gift has allowed SOM’s fellows to connect more deeply among themselves and with peers across the Golub Capital Nonprofit Board Fellows Network. This spring, the program sent seven students and two staff members to the network’s first convening at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. At the convening, PSEII faculty director Judith Chevalier shared lessons on program design, while first-year fellow Ramya Srinivasen ’26 presented the outlines of a project that she was preparing for her nonprofit board. Students also met with Bridgespan Group partner Peter Grunert ’15, who serves on the network’s advisory board and led a panel discussion at the conference.
As fellows look ahead to the program’s next year, they say that new leadership, deeper coursework, and the support of a national community will put them on a lifelong path to high-impact board service.
“Doing this work has reaffirmed my desire to continue serving on the boards of nonprofits throughout my career,” Bond says.
