CLARIFICATION APPENDED
In response to the wave of foreclosures sweeping the country, a group of Harvard Business School students have launched a project to help those in danger of losing their homes.
During the final week of May, four HBS students will head to Minneapolis to meet with leaders of the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides counseling to those who may be faced with foreclosure. The group will work with leaders of the foundation, which currently has a small staff, to analyze its operations and to create a low-budget marketing plan aimed at removing the stigma of foreclosure.
According to Lindsay S. Jurist-Rosner, the second-year HBS student who is spearheading the effort, the program emerged from a desire to do something meaningful with the weeks of free time Business School students are given between the end of classes and commencement.
“A lot of my friends are doing expensive, extravagant trips, but it feels excessive and inappropriate in this economic crisis,” she said.
The students working on the project, including Jurist-Rosner, another
second-year student, and two first-years, will be joined by
Jurist-Rosner’s friend Brian McGinnis, a former investment banker who
has helped her to shape the program since they conceived the idea over
lunch in February. [SEE CLARIFICATION BELOW]
Originally, Jurist-Rosner said she imagined the program would consist of a large number of students running counseling sessions across the country.
But she soon realized that this was impractical for a developing program, she said, and the scale of the project changed.
This year, the four students are working on building a framework for consulting projects that future groups of students can implement.
After the meeting with McGinnis, Jurist-Rosner contacted professor of financial management Peter Tufano ’79, a former Crimson business manager, who put her in contact with the HPF, she said.
“We had seen that there was a need for solutions for average Americans going through financial struggles,” McGinnis said. “Average Americans don’t have the answers or see trustworthy solutions to find them, so we took it from there.”
As the group prepares to meet with HPF representatives this month, they are aware that they are simply laying the groundwork for the longer term, according to several members of the planning team. They plan to involve many more students in independent case-study projects next school year and are working with the HBS administration to explore incorporating the program into the school’s curriculum.
Damali E. Brown, one of the two first-year students chosen to lead the program after its creators graduate, said that the leaders wanted to make sure that—while involving as many students as possible—they did not overextend the program in a way that limited benefits for the organization.
“Yes, this is a great opportunity for HBS,” Brown said. “But it is really a way to help people stay in their homes.”
—Staff writer William N. White can be reached at wwhite@fas.harvard.edu.
CLARIFICATION
Due to an editing error, a paragraph was omitted from the online version of the May 5 article "HBS Group Helps Fight Foreclosures," which consequently did not identify former investment banker Brian McGinnis by his full name in the piece.
