Do You See A Need For More Executive Management Training In General?

Q: Do you see a need for more Executive management training in general? Having worked for a number of nonprofits in Arizona and California, I am now an MBA student at the University of Montana. I'm doing a research paper on nonprofit management training programs/institutes/seminars to explore the possibility of creating a non-degree summer training institute here at the UM School of Business. Any thoughts about the following questions would be warmly appreciated: Which non-degree training programs are most respected nationally for quality training? Which non-degree training programs are most accessible to nonprofits in the Northwest? (In the Rockies?) Would the Northern Rockies be a desirable location for 5 to 10-day summer training programs? Do you see a need for more management training in general? Particular topics?

A:There is a continuing and ever-present need for competent and professional managers of non-profit organizations, and your desire to help educate potential staff executives is to be commended. I expect that you have the full and enthusiastic backing of the University of Montana's decision-makers. Your "paper" is no doubt intended to conduct research, state findings, and make recommendations to the UM School of Business. However, in advance of your possibly independent study, it might be greatly to your advantage to have as much direct participation as possible from the UM School of Business to help you obtain answers the several questions you stated in your message. Surely the educators there would know some of the answers already. There are a number of listings of centers for non-profit management which cover the full range of accreditation particulars. Directly to a number of them, or perhaps via an "umbrella" group, you should be able to know about the "market" potential for your proposed training institute. Starting with the Internet Nonprofit Center's own listing, there are links provided there to other great resources which might be of use to you --- as follows: --- Internet Nonprofit Center http://www.nonprofits.org/misc/acad.htm --- Chronicle of Philanthropy Research & Academic Centers On Philanthropy http://philanthropy.com/free/resources/general/academic.htm --- Independent Sector http://www.independentsector.org/pathfinder/resources/acad_ctrs/ I would think that if you talked to foundation program officers and corporate contributions managers in your proposed area of service regarding their possible current support for such teaching and training activities, that you could better position what it is you are going to do to what they support --- or could want to support. You don't want to duplicate effort. You should have a unique mission. Now, I'm going to express what is an unabashed, biased, and otherwise strident call for you to be sure that you make fund-raising a meaningful component of your proposed curriculum. I know of far too many non-profit management programs which omit fund-raising in the curriculum, or they allow the student to choose whether or not she or he will want to know what fund-raising is all about. To have such a critically important component of non-profit management be regarded in that way is big mistake, in my opinion. What new Executive Director, on the job's first day, would not want to know what the Development Department is all about? And far too many new Executive Directors find themselves to be _the_ Development Department. They must know what comprises the fund-raising process before they walk through the door. An aspiring non-profit manager would learn to know how to develop a mission statement and how that document is the basis of a long-range strategic plan, complete with understanding budgets, forecasts, and the like. All of that knowledge gained through the school's curriculum most often leads to the need to address an operational deficit, and that is accomplished by knowing how to develop a fund-raising plan. A non-profit management program which gives short-shrift to the teaching of the fund-raising process, is a non-profit management program which will have its graduates fall far short of obtaining the full scope of management knowledge they need in order to succeed.

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