By Will Wieters
The Vanderbilt Executive MBA (EMBA) program is pleased to announce Shelby Doyle, Senior Vice President of Policy and National Partnerships at the National School Choice Awareness Foundation (NSCAF), as the 2025 recipient of the Vanderbilt Business EMBA Nonprofit Management Scholarship. Awarded annually in partnership with the Center for Nonprofit Excellence of Middle Tennessee (CNEMT), the scholarship is valued at more than $140,000 and covers full tuition for one executive or senior staff member of a qualifying 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Shelby Doyle
Doyle brings more than a decade of experience in education policy and reform to the Vanderbilt EMBA program. At NSCAF, a national nonprofit dedicated to increasing public awareness of K-12 school options, Doyle leads both the organization’s strategic national partnerships and its public-facing education initiatives, including National School Choice Week, Navigate School Choice, and Conoce tus Opciones Escolares.
“My work right now consists of making sure that families know what education options they have depending on the state they live in,” she said. These options range from traditional public schools to charter, magnet, private, online, and homeschooling models. “We give parents what they need to know,” informing and empowering as parents navigate their child’s K-12 education options.
In her role, Doyle oversees two national programs, one in English and one in Spanish, and manages a growing network of local partners. “We work with almost 30 state nonprofits through the Navigate School Choice Network at the local or state level,” she explained. These partnerships help deliver practical, self-service school search guides and consolidate essential tools and resources for families nationwide.
Doyle’s personal connection to school choice stems from her own K-12 experience. “School choice was a no-brainer for me as a policy because it’s what my family did,” she said. “I was hybrid homeschooled K-12, so I did a university model. My older sister graduated from a performing arts magnet school, and my younger sister graduated from a private school,” Doyle shared. “Between the three of us, we’ve got four of the six types of schools covered over the course of our education.”
For Doyle, education is a powerful lever for equity and opportunity. “If students are educated well and in ways that suit them, then they have more opportunities ahead of them,” she explained. “I care about making our country work in ways where people have the agency to live the lives they want.”
Regarding the importance of the Vanderbilt EMBA scholarship, Doyle shared, “Bottom line, the scholarship is why I’m able to do this program at this time. Being able to do it and apply it in the nonprofit world without it being a financial hardship is just amazing.”
As a Nashville native, Doyle has long admired Vanderbilt. “I’ve known about Vanderbilt my whole life,” she said. “I always drove by and thought, boy, would it be cool to go there. I have a lot of respect for the program. A huge part of any MBA program, in particular, is your community and the connections you make, and for me, I wanted to do that in person, and so this was the right fit.”
Through the Vanderbilt EMBA program, Doyle is eager to strengthen her leadership and ultimately advance NSCAF’s mission. Speaking on the increasing cross-sector partnerships between nonprofits and startups to deliver the necessary K-12 knowledge to parents, Doyle noted, “I think I really need to go to this program because I don’t think this is the last of these conversations that I’m going to have.”
Looking ahead, her vision for the future remains ambitious. “I would love to see a school choice navigator get started in all 50 states,” she said. “I’d like to see the vast majority of American parents feel like they have the amount of information they need to choose a school.”
Doyle is preparing to scale her impact, equipping herself with the strategic, operational, and financial expertise necessary to lead at the intersection of policy, partnerships, and parent empowerment.