W. P. Carey alum Heather Shipp uses MBA to make impact with nonprofit organization

Some entrepreneurs are motivated by an idea for a product or service. Others, like Heather Shipp (BS Supply Chain Management '15, MBA '22), are driven by a desire to make a difference in the world. That desire led her to co-found a nonprofit organization that provides economic opportunities, classes, and spiritual support in Nigeria.

Some entrepreneurs are motivated by an idea for a product or service. Others, like Heather Shipp (BS Supply Chain Management '15, MBA '22), are driven by a desire to make a difference in the world.

"If something aligns with my personal core values, it makes me very excited, and I will do anything to make it a reality," she says. That desire led Shipp and a college friend to co-found Hebron Home Outreach, a nonprofit organization based in Nigeria that provides economic opportunities, classes, and spiritual support.

Having founded the organization before she began the Full-time MBA at W. P. Carey, the knowledge and skills Shipp gained in the program have made a big impact on Hebron Home, as well as her other career as a director of the project management office at Lynn Community Health Center in Massachusetts.

The W. P. Carey School spoke with Shipp about her organization, its beginnings, and its future, and how her MBA experience has shaped her outlook on running a business.

Why W. P. Carey?

As with everyone else, Shipp's life underwent many changes during the global pandemic of 2020. She and her family had been living in Boston, but decided to fly out to Arizona, where she and her husband were from, to be with family when the lockdown started.

She was working full time while also helping to run the nonprofit she had cofounded, but she found herself not totally satisfied with her job. Her goal was to move overseas, as her nonprofit operates out of Nigeria, but the pandemic made that difficult. So when she received a call from ASU about the Full-time MBA program, she was intrigued.

"All of the people that I asked in my life at that time," she says, "had talked about how an MBA could be really beneficial for me in the different places that I was working, either running my nonprofit or working in global health, which is what I was doing for my career at the time. So I thought, ‘Okay, this seems like a great choice.’"

Shipp had received her bachelor's degree in supply chain management from W. P. Carey, so she was familiar with the welcoming environment and countless resources available to students. The MBA program places a strong emphasis on creating connected leaders, and Shipp picked up many skills and ideas she took with her to Hebron Home Outreach.

"My friend [and co-founder] is a very magnanimous personality, and he really is interested in creating an organization that outlasts him," she says. "So looking at the different kinds of leadership models and taking those back to him and talking with him about them really helped us figure out ways to avoid this being a personality driven organization, and figure out some of the strategic structures and moves we needed to make to set our organization up in a way where it was possible for him to not always be the face of this organization."

Why entrepreneurship?

Shipp calls herself "mission-focused," getting passionate about projects that align with her values and the impact she wants to make. When friends from graduate school told her about the difficulties and persecution some in their home country of Nigeria face, she wanted to take part in their idea to help.

"They had an amazing, compelling vision that really aligned with my values and what they wanted to see happen back in their community and the positive impact that they wanted to make there."

She worked with another friend who had experience setting up a nonprofit to do the necessary legwork to get the organization, Hebron Home Outreach, off the ground. She has continued to do a lot of behind-the-scenes work for the organization, including building business infrastructure and working with donors, tasks where her strong business knowledge has come in handy.

Hebron Home Outreach's mission is to provide stability to those facing economic hardship and religious conflict within Nigeria and other West African countries. "What the organization does now is it works to mentor individuals in their faith, while simultaneously providing them economic opportunities," Shipp says. "We have people who come and do different education courses, then we also work to support them with tangible skills." The organization also provides seed money to fledgling small businesses.

Shipp credits her experience and education from the MBA program with helping her remain actively involved in the organization's operations while being able to stay in the United States, where she works a full-time job in addition to her work with Hebron Home.

"Having that [MBA] community around us gave us the courage to say, ‘Okay, even though we don't see a clear pathway over to Nigeria, we can make this happen for ourselves in other ways,’" she says. "And we did make it happen for ourselves. That was a big benefit of the MBA as well, to have that community."

What's next?

Shipp is very excited about the future of Hebron Home Outreach, which continues to grow in size and impact. Thanks to some larger donations, the organization has been able to purchase permanent facilities.

"I’m really excited to see how the amazing group of people that we have working for our organization now are able to take that space and move it to the next level and support even more people in the local community," she says, noting that the organization has been able to help over 3,000 people in the last five years and that number will continue to grow.

In her full-time healthcare career, she faces new and exciting challenges in her new position as a director. Her time in the W. P. Carey MBA program was critical to getting her to where she is now, she says.

Living in Massachusetts, Shipp stays connected with W. P. Carey primarily through social media and online correspondence. Despite not seeing everyone face-to-face, the sense of community is still very strong for her.

When offering advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, she draws from her own experiences about finding motivation.

"For anyone starting their own business or looking to be an entrepreneur, I think it all comes down to passion. If the work that you're doing aligns with you, especially at a deep level, and you're committed to that work, you have just as good of a chance of making it successful as anybody else."