Sara Toulson

When Sara duPont decided to go back to business school, she had nearly 10 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. She was making a social impact, but she believed she could do more. That’s why she chose the Questrom MBA.

“I came into the program really jaded by nonprofit fundraising,” Sara says. “All nonprofits are actually running two businesses: their revenue-generating business (fundraising) and their program or service. It’s an incredibly tall order. I wanted to explore and better understand ways to bring programs and services to life through for-profit models. I thought that if you could simplify the operation, that is, run only one business, you could make your impact more sustainable.”

Sara wasn’t looking to leave her job while she attended college, but as a part-time student, she assumed she’d be a secondary member of the Questrom community. She believed faculty would naturally know their full-time students better, that the most esteemed professors wouldn’t stick around into the evening to teach her classes, that she wouldn’t have many opportunities to get involved with extracurriculars. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Questrom made it possible for me to really invest in the experience, and I felt the school, in turn, really invested in me,” says Sara, who participated in networking events, case competitions, and social gatherings with classmates and professors. And now, she’s tapped into resources across BU to help get her new social impact enterprise off the ground.

The Mindful Applicant is a for-profit company building a social-emotional curriculum and technology platform for college and career prep. Sara has relied on The BUild Lab, BU’s Innovation Hub, and BU computer science and design students to help build a beta of the platform.

“Questrom has been more than Questrom for me,” Sara says. “I’ve opened a door into all of BU, for support when I was a student, and now my company.”

It’s fair to say, with Questrom by her side, Sara on her way to achieving her goal of making a bigger social impact, and helping the next generation do the same.

“I fell hook, line, and sinker for Questrom’s Social Impact program, and I wasn’t wrong to do so,” she says. “I was headed to business school to figure out how to leverage business concepts and the free market to create positive social change. At Questrom there really is a place for this conversation. It isn’t just an add-on or something that looks nice in a marketing brochure.”

“Questrom has been more than Questrom for me,” Sara says. “I’ve opened a door into all of BU, for support when I was a student, and now my company.”

– Sara Toulson