Neel Hajra is no random particle, despite having been a man without a plan in college. He majored in physics because it's interesting. Since then, the NEW Center's CEO, now 37 years old, has been more organized. From U-M Law School to the NEW head office via Ford Motor Company, he's arranged his professional life scientifically and, as it turns out, joyfully.
NEW Center, the Ann Arbor non-profit that helps other non-profits with governance and infrastructure, turned out to be a perfect fit. NEW provides training for non-profit boards through its
BoardConnect program, which has expanded from grooming and placing individuals on non-profit boards to rebooting more than 60 full boards a year. The boards come to NEW asking how they can become more effective for their organizations, Hajra says.
Another program,
NpServ, provides so-called back office services to nonprofits for a low fee. Focused on IT, it supplies work stations, networking, email support, social media support, and other technology needs to its clients. Small nonprofits would otherwise struggle to stay up-to-date, Hajra explains. "We do lots of donor database work. But we can't just focus on one area. Nonprofits still need financial accounting. We're still interested in providing other back office services," he adds. NEW is now studying its next strategic moves - with no shortage of ideas, he adds.
Strategy had little place in his early life"I had no intention of becoming a physicist or of going into science. The rigor was good preparation for law school," the double University of Michigan grad says.
Born at U-M Hospital, he calls himself "an Ann Arbor boy, through and through." Except for 18 months in India and the UK as a young child, he's been here all his life. "There's definitely been growth and sprawl over the years - Ann Arbor didn't used to be a city where one takes the highway to get across town. I also think that the town has diversified away significantly from being a 'college town.' The University still looms large, obviously, and the Pfizer closing was a blow, but I sense that the city has developed an identity and economy that's not part and parcel with the University, which is healthy," Hajra says.
Going to law school was another random act, he quips. After graduations, he joined
Ford, where he worked on mergers. Susan Katz, his predecessor at NEW, had been his boss at Ford.
"Continuing on my random path, I was unaware of nonprofits. (Ford) was really interesting work but I wasn't enjoying myself. I was not having fun - nothing on Ford," he says. When Katz became head of NEW in 2001, Hajra became its chief operating officer, albeit without any burning interest in the nonprofit sector.
"I still lived in Ann Arbor. I thought it would be nice to work in Ann Arbor. It would be easy to network. I joined NEW not out of passion for doing good," he explains. "So many people told me, 'You're making a mistake.' It felt like a crazy move. Then I got to NEW and I loved it."
Hajra calls his three years at Ford formative because he was surrounded by people who were immersed in business. But having Ford on one's resume has lost of a lot of its luster, he notes. "The Big Three aren't cool any more. (They aren't even called the Big Three any more.) People forget how much talent there is there," he observes.
When he became NEW's CEO, he restructured the organization, eliminating his former COO job and appointing a development director. NEW's board members recognized the need to bolster development, Hajra says.
At the same time, NEW started a shift that continues today, away from being totally supported by donors. Its revenue model is now split between foundation support and service fees from client non-profits. During Najra's seven years at NEW, the annual budget has grown from $700,000 to $1 million, concentrating on slow growth. NEW's mission is to support 501(c)3 organizations, one slice of the nonprofit world.
"I think there's more and more interest in the nonprofit sector. It employs 10% of the workforce in Michigan. I get tons of calls from people from the for-profit sector looking for jobs in the nonprofit sector. It's accelerated by the economy," Hajra notes.
The economy has affected donor support but not as much as you might think, he says. NEW's fundraising is foundation-driven; it doesn't solicit individuals, partly to avoid competing with client organizations. Unfortunately, Hajra has noticed that fundraising is showing signs of easing, which means attracting more nonprofit clients.
"New [to NEW] foundations are talking to us now with interest and curiosity. These are our green shoots," he explains. "Of our half of revenue that comes from charitable giving, 15% is corporate. That has gone down in the past couple of years. We'll always pursue it. Right now we're maintaining contacts, taking the long-term view."
Nevertheless, 2009 saw one of the highest levels of individual giving, despite the down economy. 2008 showed the largest drop in 20 years - but was still one of the five highest years historically, Hajra says.
The sector may be not-for-profit but it doesn't lack competition"Large nonprofits have highly sophisticated development staffs. Small nonprofits are competing with U-M, EMU, and hospitals," Hajra observes. "Good development people are headhunted. Big nonprofits pay better, have more resources. Universities and hospitals produce clients who have the ability to give back: Patients. Alumni. We do not."
Churches also compete for donor dollars, but along with education and health care, they are not necessarily direct competition, he says. Donors often support multiple activities.
Long range, what might lie ahead for Hajra? Entrepreneurship? A return to the for-profit world? He won't rule it out. "I don't think of myself as Mr. Nonprofit. Even though Ford wasn't where I wanted to be, I found it interesting and energetic," he says.
If he were fresh out of school today, he would go corporate again, he adds. "It provided me with a tremendous foundation for all aspects of business and financial management. Watching a global company operate from its headquarters really helped me understand what it takes to run a successful enterprise.
"I firmly believe that it has made me a much more effective businessperson and leader. It also made me appreciate that my heart really lies on the entrepreneurial side of the fence."
Constance Crump is an Ann Arbor writer whose work has appeared in Crain's Detroit Business, The Ann Arbor News, The Detroit Free Press,
and Billboard Magazine. Her previous
article was MASTERMIND: Chrisstina Hamilton. Send feedback here.
Photos by David Lewinski
All Photos Taken at New Center in Ann Arbor