The coursework in this program will prepare you with theoretical, practical and experiential knowledge to serve in executive, administrative and programmatic leadership at nonprofit organizations. The curriculum includes 7 required courses, a Capstone and three electives.
Schema
Required Courses
Proseminar in Nonprofit Leadership
Comprehensive, intensive course covering theory and practice in areas such as laws governing nonprofit organizations; program planning, monitoring and evaluation; creative entrepreneurship; arts and cultural leadership; community organizing and coalition building; and the evolution of social movements, social justice and social change. The course also explores practices to support the well-being and growth of leaders and followers, and the creation of a learning organizational culture.
Fundraising and Financial Management for Nonprofits
This course covers essential practices, including legal compliance and ethical standards, for fundraising and financial management of non-profit organizations. Students will learn the major categories of fundraising, internal controls and accountability to stakeholders. Students will analyze the fiscal health of organizations, create financial and fundraising policies and plans, generate budgets, navigate grant cycles, write grants and individual appeals, and gain a solid foundation in donor research, cultivation and stewardship. They will become familiar with a variety of software platforms for fundraising and financial management.
Human Resources Management and Board Governance for Nonprofits
Managers in nonprofit organizations face the challenge of working with both paid and unpaid stakeholders to shape organizational futures. Examines workplace equity, hiring and employment practices; contracts, compensation and benefits, and performance appraisal. Emphasizes the roles, responsibilities and powers of boards of directors. Cultivates approaches to developing, supervising, motivating and recognizing volunteers and staff. Addresses effective organizational communication; staff-volunteer relations; and stress, conflict and crisis management.
Writing for Nonprofit Leadership
Introduces students to grant proposals, reporting and other forms of narrative writing. Topics include effective research and producing the elements of a strong grant proposal. The course also provides opportunities to practice other elements of writing essential to success in nonprofit settings: press releases, appeals, social media content, blogs, newsletters, and other forms of thought leadership and storytelling.
Promoting and Marketing Nonprofit Organizations
Provides an overview of marketing principles and practices through many forms of media, including print, television, Internet, and social media, focusing on branding, and brand awareness, thought leadership, and sharing original content to tell an organization’s story in a way that motivates engagement and positive action. To learn these skills, the course will utilize lectures, research, projects and case studies.
Communication across Cultural Boundaries
Explores the complex connections among strategy, leadership and change. Set in a global environment characterized by rapid technological change, it emphasizes the importance of a leader’s capacity to anticipate, envision and work collaboratively toward a viable organizational future. The course requires students to synthesize and integrate lessons learned in their previous courses.
Organizational Behavior
This course explores the behavior of people within organizations and the factors that most influence it. Those include factors related to individuals, groups and the larger organizational system. The course utilizes experiential learning to help students understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Capstone
The Capstone experience brings together a cohort of students in their final term for individualized yet shared learning processes. Each person will engage in a practicum experience at a nonprofit with a mentor from the community, while meeting regularly in an accompanying seminar setting with a faculty member and their peers, where they can process, analyze, and integrate their learning experiences together with the cohort and pursue a thesis-level project. The project will benefit their host organization while preparing the graduate for their future. Students currently working for a nonprofit are encouraged, but not required, to base the capstone in that nonprofit.
The capstone options include:
- Conduct original research and compose an academic paper for publication
- Prepare a final report for the organization sponsoring the capstone project consistent with expectations of a professional consultant
- Group practicum: Apply theory to practice through a small group project with your peers; suitable for presentation as poster session at a state or regional conference, or for publication
Electives
Administration of Arts and Cultural Organizations
This course focuses on the role of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in society, engaging students in the management and operations of arts and cultural nonprofits through techniques and applications of mission/visioning, planning, staffing, volunteerism, board governance, fundraising, promotion and modes of community engagement. Theoretical and applied knowledge of leadership in arts related organizations will be synthesized through site visits and interviews with arts and cultural organizations.
Advocacy, Community Organizing and Public Policy for Nonprofits
Provides preparation to create meaningful change by better understanding the structures of public policy and learning various styles of community organizing in order to mobilize people and organizations, and to advocate for systemic change. Course includes exploration of the creation and execution of public policy, models to describe political life, the strategies and skills of community organizing such as social analysis, listening, building a membership base, running campaigns, developing grassroots leadership, building and maintaining complex public relationships, and consensus and coalition building. Students will have opportunities to reflect on, practice and assess leadership styles and skills.
Cultural Sustainability/Revitalization and Entrepreneurship
At the heart of cultural sustainability and entrepreneurship is the ability to perceive need, value, voice, cultural knowledge and innovation from a particular community perspective. Cultural sustainability utilizes approaches from anthropology, public history, communications, community development, and activism to effect positive, community-driven development and change. This course introduces collaborative orientations and frameworks for effectively working within and among communities to identify, protect, enhance and advocate for specific traditions and knowledge bases. It explores strategies for working alongside communities as they support and develop the cultural practices, spaces and sources of social and economic capital that matter most to them.
Ethical Issues and Wholeness in Change Leadership
Explores the ethical responsibilities of organizational leaders and practitioners who design, guide and implement change interventions or initiatives. It also considers the issue of practitioner wholeness and how living a divided life can contribute to ethical conflicts during times of rapid organizational change. Topics that will be covered include: Values, “use of self,” conscious vs. unconscious choice, ethical decision-making, and wholeness at the individual, group and organizational levels.
Health Care Administration
This course provides an orientation to the current health care business environment and service delivery systems. Students will develop a broad based perspective of key environmental factors influencing current and future trends in health care. Students develop a knowledge base and context for synthesis, discussion, and analysis of contemporary issues and trends.
Organization Development
This course serves as an introduction to the theory and practice of organization development (OD), also referred to as “planned change.” It emphasizes the historic evolution of OD, models of planned change, the dynamics of resistance to change, organizational culture and the role of the OD consultant. The course also seeks to compare and contrast OD with other approaches to “change management” and to assess their relevance in organizations today.
Strategic Leadership for Change
Explores the complex connections among strategy, leadership and change. Set in a global environment characterized by rapid technological change, it emphasizes the importance of a leader’s capacity to anticipate, envision and work collaboratively toward a viable organizational future. The course requires students to synthesize and integrate lessons learned in their previous courses.
Joe Rembowicz
