Net Impact was founded in 1993 as Students for Responsible Business. Its inaugural conference was convened by 13 graduate business students in collaboration with Dr. Mark Albion and a handful of members of Social Venture Network, an organization that has been a launching pad for several other organizations within the business and society movement. The organization grew steadily in its first few years as an organization exclusively for graduate students. Beginning in 1998, a professional network of SRB alumni began to form. The organization was renamed Net Impact in 1999 in part to accommodate a shift toward inclusion of professional MBA graduates. The first professional chapter was launched in San Francisco in 2001, and in 2008 professionals made up 44% of all dues-paying members, and 23% of chapters. In 2007, an undergraduate pilot program was initiated, growing to 34 undergraduate chapters by early 2009. While the bulk of Net Impact’s activity has been focused in the United States, international chapters began as early as 1997 at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. The inaugural European conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland in June, 2008 in partnership with HEC Geneva IOMBA, INSEAD and the University of Nottingham. As of 2008 there were 40 student and professional chapters located outside the United States, on six continents. Between 2004 and 2008, under the leadership of Executive Director Liz Maw, the organization increased its paid membership nearly fivefold, in keeping with a growth trend that has been identified among MBAs and society at large toward interest in responsible business practices.
Programs
Conferences
Net Impact’s most familiar program is its annual Conference, which takes place in partnership with a prestigious business school every year in autumn. Conferences are well attended and feature ground-breaking entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and nonprofit visionaries transforming the world in inspiring ways. Net Impact’s North American Conferences have been located across the country:
Net Impact produces an annual guide to graduate business programs titled Business as UNusual, soliciting the help of its chapters to report on how far sustainability is integrated into over 50 top-tier business schools, for the benefit of prospective students. Since 1996, it also has produced studies of the opinions of graduate and undergraduate students on the role business should play in society; a Social Impact Career Handbook for individuals interested in learning about possible career tracks using business and social responsibility; and the CSR Jobs Report, in partnership with Ellen Weinreb CSR Recruiting, analyzing the market for CSR jobs as well as jobs within socially responsible companies.
Other Programs
Through its chapters, events and online career center, Net Impact provides members with an array of opportunities for networking and finding a job that meets both their material and ideological requirements. For professionals, the organization also offers the Impact at Work program to help members change their companies’ practices from within. Programs under the umbrella of Nonprofit Capacity Building, such as Board Fellows and Service Corps, support members interested in volunteering for nonprofits on a pro bono basis and gaining key experience in the process. At universities, Net Impact supports both campus greening and curriculum change initiatives that its members are engaged in, and its annual Green Challenge, open to students and professionals alike, serves to catalyze the sustainability movement among business students and create effective plans for environmental improvements. Thomas Robertson, Dean of the Wharton School, cited Net Impact activities at Wharton as evidence in an article where he claimed, “Social responsibility is no longer relegated to the relatively small percentage of students who seek to work in the nonprofit sector. It has become integrated into our way of thinking in business education and in the coming years needs to be further developed.”
