For the previous decade I’ve volunteered at St. Francis Inn, a soup kitchen within the Kensington group of Philadelphia.
Kensington, for the ones now not from Philly, has lengthy had a name for potent however reasonably priced boulevard medicine. Interstate 95 and the Marketplace-Frankford increased commuter educate line supply simple get admission to to the group for consumers and dealers, and deserted constructions be offering havens for drug use and different illicit process.
St. Francis Inn Ministries, which was once based via two Franciscan friars in 1979, serves sit-down breakfast and dinner for 1000’s of other folks every yr, a lot of whom be afflicted by poverty, homelessness and substance use dysfunction. It additionally runs Marie’s Closet, a charity that gives unfastened used clothes and housewares.
Those ministries are operated via a core staff of 9 full-time individuals, masses of volunteers from native prime faculties and faculties, and an advert hoc staff of other folks from many walks of lifestyles.
Within the years I’ve been volunteering at St. Francis, important adjustments have took place in Kensington, together with gentrification, hovering housing costs and higher police process. Such adjustments could make it tougher for individuals who be afflicted by poverty and homelessness to stay locally.
Round 2018, the selection of visitors visiting St. Francis Inn was once already dwindling noticeably. I heard volunteers speculate on whether or not St. Francis Inn must relocate additional north in Philadelphia the place there are extra other folks in want. Others questioned whether or not St. Francis Inn must create a cell unit that traveled to other folks in want anywhere they could also be.
As I listened, I spotted that this was once a trade resolution. As a professor of control at St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia, I made up our minds to offer this resolution to the scholars in my Control Honors Capstone Seminar. In January 2026 I printed a trade case find out about titled “Dealing with Change in Kensington, Philadelphia: The Case of Saint Francis Inn.”
Volunteers on the St. Francis Inn pray in combination sooner than serving a meal on July 19, 2021.
Spencer Platt/Getty Pictures
An enchanting trade case
The capstone seminar I educate is the second one of 2 strategic control lessons that honors trade scholars take of their senior yr. The use of the Harvard case find out about means, scholars establish the vital problems embedded in quite a lot of circumstances and to find the tips had to assessment the ones problems the usage of seminal theories in strategic control.
Scholars then suggest an answer – a speculation they consider highest addresses the location. They take a look at whether or not that resolution works via development a course of action – referred to as a “proof” – that gives common sense and proof that their resolution would paintings.
A part of what I consider makes this example find out about fascinating is that it comes to one of the vital maximum susceptible other folks in Philadelphia. I felt it was once necessary to offer scholars the chance to believe necessary problems with social justice when making use of their trade decision-making talents.
Morally sound suggestions
Amongst different subject matter, the path covers two other views that scholars can use to make knowledgeable selections and suggest answers for St. Francis Inn.
The primary is the resource-based view. The use of this framework, scholars establish the original assets and features {that a} company – on this case, St. Francis Inn – has constructed over time. Then they resolve how one can use the ones assets and features highest to hold out the company’s project.
St. Francis Inn’s project is to reside amongst and serve the deficient, following the instance of St. Francis of Assisi. The group has constructed decades-long relationships with meals firms – which percentage leftover meat, greens and different merchandise with the inn – in addition to with individuals of the neighborhood in Kensington. As well as, they have got evolved a community of masses of well-trained and motivated volunteer staff all through Philadelphia and, certainly, all the nation.
The second one framework that scholars are anticipated to make use of is “formal moral theory,” which supplies a collection of various theories for figuring out ethical laws. It permits us to make moral selections which might be structured, rational and logical.
As an example, the usage of “utilitarianism,” scholars quantify the entire prices and advantages of a choice and make a selection the choice that gives the most important web get advantages – or software – to society. “Rights theory” calls for scholars to make selections that appreciate the intrinsic dignity of all individuals. Scholars can use those theories to make morally sound tips on how St. Francis Inn can highest serve the stakeholders in its neighborhood.
Possibly the obvious other folks suffering from St. Francis Inn are the folk dwelling locally who fight with homelessness and substance use dysfunction and obtain meals and different help there. Different teams of outrage come with longtime neighbors who’ve houses close by however nonetheless reside in poverty, new citizens transferring into the group, native belongings builders who typically wish to see fewer homeless other folks locally, and town officers who’re chargeable for quite a lot of executive purposes. Those come with police and emergency clinical services and products, town council individuals and social services and products organizations.
Police shut down a bit of Kensington Street to transparent a homeless encampment on Might 8, 2024.
Spencer Platt/Getty Pictures
Scholars will have to solution a two-dimensional query: Given what St. Francis Inn does highest, how can it highest cope with the desires of its maximum necessary stakeholders?
Since they’re trade majors, many temporarily gravitate to logical trade selections that St. Francis Inn could make, comparable to proceeding its operation the place it’s, relocating, or making a cell carrier. With out fail, there are scholars every semester who argue that irrespective of what’s “best” for St. Francis Inn, the pursuits of the quite a lot of other folks of outrage locally will have to be revered. To be truthful, I revel in staring at them grapple with this drawback with sincerity and care.
Right here, scholars will have to steadiness a company’s core competencies with the ethical affect of its selections, whilst prioritizing the rights and wishes of various, nontraditional teams who’ve a stake on this resolution. That’s a treasured ability for any long term – or, for that topic, present – trade govt.
