Eric Sedransk MBA ‘14 describes his career in two distinct phases: before Babson College (US), and after. The founder of Member for a Day – a golf charity platform that has raised more than USD 15 million – credits his two years at Babson with giving him something no business plan could: the confidence to actually start.
“I was nervous and shy,” he said of his pre-Babson self. “Post-Babson, I had the confidence that I could sit in any room across from any person in business and conduct myself in an intelligent, strategic way. That is priceless.”
The Babson effect
Sedransk arrived at Babson after a white-knuckle drive through a blizzard from New York City, drawn in by a speech from then-President Leonard Schlesinger. He enroled not knowing exactly what he wanted to build – only that he wanted to build something.
At Babson, he threw himself into the school’s hands-on approach, including the Summer Venture Program, where he co-founded an app that let customers pay to skip lines at Boston nightclubs. The idea didn’t survive, but the experience clarified something important: passion matters more than the idea itself.
What left the deepest mark wasn’t any single course – it was the faculty. Many of Babson’s professors were seasoned entrepreneurs who had built and sold real companies.
“When someone like Len Green walks in and explains how he created Blue Buffalo and SoBe Beverages, both of which sold for billions of dollars, you listen,” Sedransk said. “I sat in the front row and took as many notes as I could.”
Hearing those stories, he said, “made the idea of starting a company and having a successful outcome feel possible.”
From crisis to creation
That sense of possibility proved critical years later, when Sedransk found himself navigating one of the hardest periods of his life. During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was laid off. Just days earlier, his father had passed away.
“I started feeling an incredible amount of guilt. All my friends were in New York, and I wanted to give back somehow.”
That impulse became Member for a Day. The model is straightforward: members of private golf clubs donate tee times and experiences, which are promoted online to buyers seeking access to otherwise unattainable courses. The majority of proceeds go to nonprofit partners. What started as a one-time effort to support frontline workers raised more than USD 100,000 within a week.
A new kind of business model
As the platform grew, Sedransk had a realisation that reshaped his entire view of business.
“I thought there were two types of organisations: for-profit and nonprofit. The ‘aha’ moment was realising I could run a for-profit business that helps nonprofits.”
Member for a Day now donates the majority of its revenue each year while operating as a sustainable business. The company grew 300% in 2024, reached 8.9 million social media views during 2026 Masters week, and recently formed a strategic partnership with Troon Golf, LLC – a milestone Sedransk describes as feeling like “a Babson case study happening in real life.”
He went months without a salary in the early days. He says he would have done it for free.
“Entrepreneurship is the hardest thing ever. But if you love it, it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice.”
For Sedransk, the through-line from Babson to Member for a Day is clear: the school didn’t hand him a business – it gave him the mindset to build one. And whatever comes next, he says, will always have charity built in.
