May 26, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Brigadier General Michael P. Mulqueen wasn’t everyone’s first choice for the top job at the Greater Chicago Food Depository when he was hired 14 years ago, reports Business Week (May 16). Some board members worried that the former Marine wouldn’t fit in with the nonprofit world’s culture of cordiality and consensus. But today, Mr. Mulqueen is winning universal praise for turning the organization into an efficient enterprise that has become a model for other food banks across the nation, the magazine says.
His secret, the magazine says, has been molding the charity after a for-profit company. The food bank’s chief financial officer made the leap to the nonprofit world from Arthur Andersen, the now-defunct accounting company, and its operations director and director of food services are both former engineers. The charity also pays salaries on a par with the business world — Mr. Mulqueen makes $200,000 a year — and has a competitive-bids system for purchases of more than $500.
Its successes include Pantry University, which trains hundreds of volunteers to run food banks, and a new $29-million warehouse, built with help from corporate logistics experts, to serve 600 local soup kitchens. Mr. Mulqueen also runs programs that aim to get people off the hunger lines, including Chicago’s Community Kitchens, which offers a 12-week crash course to prepare unemployed people for jobs at restaurants.
Mr. Mulqueen’s management skills reflect the changing nature of the nonprofit world, the magazine says. While many organizations were founded by dreamers with little management knowledge, they are increasingly demanding that new employees have professional degrees and executive experience. “I would not qualify for the job I have now,” says William M. Walczak, chief executive officer of the Codman Square Health Center, a nonprofit organization, in Dorchester, Mass., that he founded three decades ago.
