Spring Break
Looking Forward
Note from 07/08 Publisher, Aastha Gurbax, OD
Issue date: 5/5/08 Section: News
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Over the past year, the Harbus has strived to achieve a balance - between business and philanthropy, between controversy and discussion, and between frivolity and responsibility.
Not many in the HBS community are aware of what goes on behind the scenes at the Harbus. As a $250,000 P&L business, we depend on dedicated services of a full-time General Manager, a savvy full-time ad sales manager, an indispensable designer, an enthusiastic board of seven directors.
The Harbus has taught us how to successfully run a small non-profit organization with limited resources - every year we make strategic choices for the business, set budgets, determine revenue targets, hire staff, train staff, conduct year-end staff appraisals, pay our taxes, and finally donate our profits to the Harbus Foundation to assist under privileged and deserving candidates in their pursuit of education in media and journalism. The Foundation to date has awarded over $850,000 in grants to 40 organizations that pursue initiatives in education and literacy.
As a business, 2007/08 has been a year of ups and downs. Making an annual $50,000 donation to the Harbus Foundation was something we didn't think we would be able to achieve. The volatility on Wall Street had seeped into our balance sheet as many of our advertisers deserted us. We persevered. We sourced adverts from local businesses in Harvard Square instead of depending on the investment banks for ad sales dollars. To boost revenues further, we decided to publish the second edition of the '65 Successful HBS essays book' due to hit the shelves in the fall of 2009.
On the content side, we relentlessly experimented with our cold-calling skills and hounded notable alumni like Meg Whitman, Rick Wagoner and John Whitehead and convinced them to grant us interviews. Faculty members like Bharat Anand and Bruce Scott couldn't escape from the Harbus Centennial paparazzi either. The rugby team continued to be riotous, untamed and energetic with its contribution to the paper. David Rawlinson and Karen Singson were irreplaceable. And who can forget Alex Godden - the Viewpoints editor who carried on entertaining us week after week with her bizarre and fabulous charm and humor.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
GauravSharma_India
Gaurav Sharma
posted 7/08/08 @ 10:34 AM EST
Cheers, you guys are doing a great job! thoroughly enjoyed..
All the best
Elisabeth Alverston
posted 2/24/09 @ 12:57 PM EST
That looks like lots of fun. When I was in college we didn't had so many fun activities.
Mandy Ackers
posted 2/25/09 @ 6:46 AM EST
That looks like lots of fun. When I was in college we didn't had so many fun activities.
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