The Problem-Solver (page 2 of 3)

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"Making Your Idea Fly"

The seeds for success were all in Kopp's original proposal, as well as a deadline of one year in which to recruit teachers, find schools to place them in and raise several million dollars. Of this ambitious plan, Kopp's thesis advisor said, "Listen, kid, this is obviously deranged."

But Kopp wasn't discouraged. "I believed so strongly in this idea, it just had to happen. And I was blessed with naiveté. Inexperience was my greatest asset at the time, because I just did not know why it couldn't be done, and why I couldn't be the one to make it happen."

In fact, Kopp wasn't completely naive. While at Princeton, she had served as president of the Foundation for Student Communication, a campus organization that linked students and business leaders. In that position, Kopp oversaw a $1.5 million budget and met dozens of CEOs.

"Everything I do is based on that experience," Kopp once told The New York Times. "It taught me how to strategize and manage people. I realized there's an incredible amount of money in the world and people who are looking for good things to support. If you just get in the door, you have a good chance of making your idea fly."

With office space donated by Morgan Stanley and $26,000 in seed money from Mobil, Teach for America took off. Kopp soon learned that conviction and a compelling idea only go so far. She would find out later about the power of experience.

When Kopp started Teach for America, everyone she consulted said she wouldn't find more than 50 recruits. Convinced that 500 was the smallest number needed to make a national statement, she ignored them -- and 2,500 seniors applied.

Initially, there was concern that Kopp was recruiting people who had not majored in education and that she was asking for only a two-year commitment. To Kopp, that was the core element of Teach for America's success.

"I felt strongly it's the two-year commitment that enables us to draw folks from all different career interests and academic majors. And I've held firm on this for 15 years."