With seed money from Kirsch's firm and John Doerr's New Schools Venture Fund, New Leaders will soon launch nationally - beginning to improve education dramatically for children in schools where its Fellows are placed. They know their markets and focus on delivering distinctive value to customers who, in the education context, include children and parents, taxpayers and school districts. In the nonprofit world, the conflicting demands of such customers can be hard to resolve. Measures of success are elusive, harder to quantify than a company's financial results. Often organizations must broker among various private and public entities with multiple goals.
Accountability is still important, but it can take different forms.
More than private-sector pioneers, social entrepreneurs have to believe in a mission larger than raising a stock price or making a profit. The young men and women of New Leaders won't stimulate voter turnout, and can't replace government action in education. But if their dedication, good ideas, and resourceful idealism can evolve to meet the tremendous need for school leadership, learning for thousands of children will be transformed. Josiah H. Brown is a master of public policy student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.