Combining Business Acumen and Passion for Community Health

From 2021 to 2023, Hannah Darr (MNA ’24) worked for the University of North Carolina – Fort Liberty Public Health Partnership while completing her Master of Public Health (MPH) at the University of North Carolina. After graduating, she planned to develop her business skills to supplement her MPH and had considered earning a Master of Public Administration. But that changed when she came across Mendoza’s Master of Nonprofit Administration (MNA) program at the University of Notre Dame: that’s where she found a perfect fit.

“I always knew I would end up working for a nonprofit or government,” Darr explained. “So I thought it was important to develop the business acumen that would allow me to approach nonprofit work through a business lens.”

She was also drawn to the 10-month intensive format and the opportunity to complete a practicum, a portion of the MNA program where students gain hands-on experience working directly with a nonprofit organization.

Darr’s choice to enroll in the Notre Dame MNA program didn’t come out of the blue: Her husband’s grandparents, Joan and Bill Darr, graduated from the program in 1986 and 1990, respectively, before going on to administrative roles in healthcare and higher education.

“I saw firsthand how the program had benefited their careers,” Darr said. “Not only did they go on to be very successful in their fields, but they also spoke highly of the program, the classes, and the professors. I was excited to see what the program could do for me and my nonprofit career.”

Decades later, Darr found a similarly enriching experience at Mendoza. “Interestingly, I had one of the same professors as my grandparents-in-law,” Darr said, speaking of Accountancy Professor Ken Milani. She also found the coursework equally interesting, highlighting her courses in strategic management and innovation in the nonprofit sector as particularly helpful.

Darr found her work outside of the classroom especially valuable. “Any opportunity I had to collaborate with classmates outside of traditional coursework was amazing,” Darr said. “These were really cool instances where we could put into action the things we learned in the classroom.”

One of these opportunities was the student practicum. As an intern at WNIT, the PBS channel for Michiana – the community that includes northern Indiana and southwestern Michigan – Darr helped develop a television show about health issues, which is a planned initiative as a part of the station’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

“I set up a framework of what the show segments could look like and ideas of different partner organizations,” she explained. Following her suggestions, the team broadened the show’s initial scope to include housing and other public health topics in an attempt to break stigmas around issues like homelessness.

Another highlight of her MNA experience was participating in the Diversity Equity & Inclusion 2024 Grow the Good in Business Case Competition. Darr’s team of three MNA students developed a business plan for a low-cost meal kit delivery service, which could be purchased with government assistance benefits.

“Meal kits have become a luxury item,” she explained. “We’re trying to flip the model on its head and see what it could look like to meet the needs of people who might be working multiple jobs, with lower income and possibly limited literacy and cooking skills.”

The proposal won first place in the competition. After several judges encouraged them to make the business a reality, she and her teammates are continuing their research and tapping into Notre Dame’s alumni network, assessing the feasibility of pursuing the project further.

Darr also appreciated getting the chance to participate in Grow Irish Week, an immersive, off-campus learning experience that challenges students to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to real-world scenarios. Darr’s team helped Catholic Charities of Orange County, California, develop a food distribution network. Darr and her teammates interviewed workers at 70 partner food pantries throughout the county, helping Catholic Charities better understand the unique needs of each. “That was a really cool project,” Darr said. “It was amazing to help the community imagine what a food distribution hub could look like, and then go build it,” she said.

Now that she’s graduated from the MNA program, Darr has another new project on the horizon: In June, she started a role as a partnership program manager at the University of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO). LEO partners with nonprofit and public sector service organizations, conducting evaluations of their anti-poverty initiatives. As Darr explained, the evaluations help partner agencies gain evidence of their effectiveness, which they can use to obtain future funding, while LEO gathers data to advocate for effective anti-poverty policy changes.

Throughout her projects at Mendoza and her new role, Darr has combined nonprofit administration skills with her passion for public health, which she notes encompasses far more than diseases and health conditions. “In public health, we think far upstream about people’s education, their housing, their jobs, and how that affects their long-term health,” she explained. “We try to address the root causes of the issues people face.”

Learn more about the Notre Dame MNA program and how it continues to uplift the nonprofit sector.