Delivering Blended Value in the Education Marketplace

Abstract

I served as a resident at Education First (Ed First), a national, mission-driven, for-profit organization that provides a wide array of policy- and strategy-related services to support states, districts, policymakers, advocates, and practitioners in K-12 education. From 2006 to 2015, the organization grew from a one-woman start-up to a 50-person, consulting firm with client relationships with some of education’s most influential organizations, including the U.S. Department of Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In early 2016, for the first time in the organization’s history, it found itself with declining revenues. Ed First’s partner owners seized this opportunity to step back and take stock on what they had accomplished, the challenges they were facing, and what the future might hold. I was brought in to Ed First to provide analysis and make recommendations on their business model, specifically how well it was organized to deliver impact and sustain itself financially, and to help identify its current and future positioning within the education marketplace. This Capstone examines my work at Ed First to capitalize on the organizational urgency to strengthen the firm’s business model, restoring its financial positioning and its capacity for impact on the field of education. My work draws heavily on Clay Christensen’s jobs-to-be-done and business model frameworks, undergirded by research on the history and utility of mission-driven for-profit organizations. Through Mark Moore’s strategic triangle framework and Ron Heifetz’s adaptive leadership framework, I deconstruct my work and mine the successes and challenges of my efforts and the implications for my own personal leadership, for Ed First and for the education sector writ large.