Bill Meehan and Kim Starkey Jonker have close connections to Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and much of the thinking in Engine of Impact originated on the Stanford University campus. But they also trace the roots of their book project to another institution: McKinsey & Company. Meehan was director emeritus at McKinsey, where he worked from 1978 to 2008. Starkey Jonker served as an associate and business analyst at the firm for several years between 1996 and 2003. In an interview posted at the firm’s Alumni Center website, the authors discuss their decision to collaborate on a study of nonprofit leadership, the ways in which their careers at McKinsey informed their perspective on the nonprofit sector, and other aspects of their experiences at the firm.
In the interview, Meehan notes the relevance of the book to the McKinsey community: “I think the book is truly a handbook for not only strategy, but things like the importance of fundraising and board governance and impact measurement for nonprofit executives, but we think the larger audience is people like McKinsey colleagues who serve on nonprofit boards and are philanthropists. The book is written very much with them in mind.”
You can read the full interview here. (For more insight on the people and ideas that influenced Engine of Impact, see the Preface to the book.)