Inspirational Alumni / Janelle Lin '00
Still Reaching Out

By Laura Tiffany

Pre-med student. Artist. Harvard Business School M.B.A. The career path of Janelle Lin ’00 has taken many turns over the years, but from her junior year at Pomona and on, she knew her ultimate destination: Serving the community by working at a nonprofit.

Her dedication to the nonprofit sector—from her tenure as community affairs commissioner at Pomona to her leadership in drawing attention to nonprofit job opportunities at Harvard to her current position as managing director at Step Up Women’s Network—made her a perfect choice for the 2008 Inspira­tional Young Alumni Award.

What transformed Lin from a neuroscience major to an art major with an eye on community work was five months spent in Zimbabwe during her junior year, studying education and healthcare. “It was just a transformational experience,” says Lin. “I was exposed to the whole NGO [non-governmental organization] world and realized I could actually follow a different path.”

She was elected community affairs commissioner her senior year and was in charge of Pomona Outreach to the World, where students spent the day volunteering for nonprofit organizations.

One of the groups Lin invited to campus that day was TeamWorks, a mentoring program for inner-city junior high kids in Los Angeles. “That really was, I think, the seminal moment for me to go into a career in youth development, and realize that I wanted to someday run my own after-school program with at-risk youth.” She enjoyed volunteering with the group so much that she went on to work for TeamWorks after graduating.

After two years with TeamWorks and two more as a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs, Lin’s next step was a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. “At that time, in nonprofit management, bringing business-minded skills to the nonprofit sector was seen as a vital tool for a nonprofit’s organization and growth,” says Lin.

Just as at Pomona, Lin rallied her Harvard classmates around the nonprofit cause. She became president of the Social Enterprise Club, and launched a six-month fellowship program to train M.B.A. students to become board members. She also spearheaded a career fair that brought about 100 nonprofits such as Teach for America to campus: “We ended up seeing in my graduating class the highest percentage of nonprofit career people ever.”

After Harvard, another fellowship brought Lin back to Los Angeles for a year, but she finally landed in New York as the managing director of Step Up Women’s Network, a nonprofit membership organization that runs girls’ and women’s programs focused on health, leadership, self esteem and career development. The group also runs after-school programs in New York City and beyond. “So it’s caring for the same thing that I wanted to do from the beginning, which is my passion for working with youth,” says Lin.