Course Information & Schedule - Fall 2010

The Nonprofit Leadership Certificate consists of 12 sessions. Most (11) of the sessions will be offered as half-day (3.5 hours) sessions with one session being a full-day program.

In order to receive certification, students must attend all 12 sessions. While it is recommended that all sessions be completed in one semester, students must complete a minimum of 9 sessions in the current semester and any remaining sessions in the next available semester.

Students can expect to spend at least two hours a week outside of class time on each required course.

Please choose from the following Sessions to learn more:

Session 1: The Nonprofit Difference
Session 2: The Mission of Leadership
Session 3 & 4: Leadership Strengths (Strengthsfinder)
Session 5: Leadership Styles (DiSC)
Session 6: Leading & Developing People & Teams
Session 7: Values of Leadership
Session 8: Living Leadership
Session 9: Ethics of Leadership
Session 10: Leading Change - Part 1
Session 11: Leading Change, Part 2 - Changing Leaders
Session 12: The Journey of Leadership

Session 1:

The Nonprofit Difference
Date: Friday, September 24, 2010, 8:45 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor:  Cynthia B. Nunn

Discussion and activities explore the nonprofit difference --how the history and culture of 501(c)(3) organizations impact the art of leadership, with a focus on governance structures and the respective roles of the nonprofit chief executive and volunteer board leadership.

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Session 2:

The Mission of Leadership
Date: Friday, October 1, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Tom Pearce

What are the most current and viable theories of leadership for today's nonprofit CEO? This session takes a look at key concepts and their application within nonprofit culture.

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Session 3 & 4:

Leadership Strengths (Strengthsfinder)
Date: Friday, October 8, 2010, 9 am to 4:00 pm
Instructor: Nadine Bell

This session centers on creating a personal-professional development and action plan for cultivating individual leadership style and values. Emphasis is on leading from strengths, self-care for integration and balance, authenticity, modeling healthy leadership, and time/energy management.

NOTE: This is an all-day session and counts as two credits. 

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Session 5:

Leadership Styles (DiSC)
Date: Friday, October 15, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Carl Youngberg

Honest assessment of our behaviors can support our engagement with the complementary strengths of those on our team for maximum effect. This session’s activities help identify the strengths and behaviors that shape leadership style and can be molded for greater impact.

NOTE: This session is a pre-requisite for Session 6.

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Session 6:

Leading & Developing People & Teams
Date: Friday, October 15, 2010, 1 to 4:30 pm
Instructor: Carl Youngberg

Accelerated change in today's world requires leaders to reevaluate their notions of effective leadership. Nonprofits need managers at every level -- staff and board -- who are dedicated to the mission, focused on the business, and able to get results, build partnerships, and mobilize their own teams. Discussion and activities focus on developing the leader as coach, transferring ownership to a working team, and managing conflict.

Pre-requisite: Session 5 - Self-Styling Leadership (DiSC).

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Session 7

Values of Leadership
Date: Friday, October 22, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Maria Dixon

Honoring organizational values is fundamental to the vitality of a nonprofit’s mission and its culture. Leading a diverse workforce requires today’s leaders to cultivate and communicate passion for the mission, trust, integrity, inclusiveness, and accountability, ensuring a deliberate articulation and practice of these values as vital to the health of the organization.

Session 8:

Living Leadership
Date: Friday, October 29, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Jenny Scott

Discussion and activities center around cultivating and communicating values such as passion for the mission, trust, integrity, inclusiveness, and accountability, and acquiring skills to advocate in the public interest. Focus is on the continuum of practices nonprofit leaders may engage in to legally and effectively raise the profile of constituents and issues served by their organizations.

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Session 9:

Ethics of Leadership
Date: Friday, November 5, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Carol Clyde

The role of nonprofit organizations has been described as speaking for minority voices within a democratic society, ensuring representation of concerns that might otherwise be silent or powerless (Lester Salomon). Recent public alarm about corporate and nonprofit accountability has undermined the belief that principled leadership naturally follows from lofty missions. Nonprofit leaders frequently face decisions about significant value conflicts, as well as choices among alternatives that are equally justifiable, or about situations that entail significant consequences for their agency’s assorted stakeholders. This session includes discussion of ethical leadership practices, including stewardship of resources for mission fulfillment, values-based decision-making, and establishing an ethics-based organizational culture.

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Session 10:

Leading Change – Part 1
Date: Friday, November 12, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Nancy C. Wonders

Community conditions change and yesterday's assumptions and practices no longer work. Innovation is needed, and innovation means change -- and transition. This session focuses on the skills, resources and practices nonprofit CEOs can access in order to anticipate and adapt with agility. Emphasis is on ways to leverage change from the CEO's pivotal placement --between board and staff, as well as between internal operations and external performance.

NOTE: This session is a pre-requisite for Session 11.

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Session 11:

Leading Change – Part 2, Changing Leaders
Date: Friday, December 3, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Nancy C. Wonders

Continuing the discussion of change, this highly interactive session explores the leader's role in both catalyzing and undergoing change. Exercises promote development of critical skills for having “the real conversation” at every level, and honoring the transformation that is catalyzed as a result.

Pre-requisite: Session 10 - Leading Change - Part 1.

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Session 12:

The Journey of Leadership
Date: Friday, December 10, 2010, 9 am to 12:30 pm
Instructor: Cynthia T. Johnson

Accessing our effectiveness as leaders means addressing with depth and accuracy questions posed by philosopher Parker Palmer: “Who is the self that engages in leadership? How does this self impact the practice of leadership, for good and bad?” This session introduces reflective practices that support a healthy relationship between one’s “talk” and one’s “walk” as a leader.

Activities address the personal-professional commitment to leadership as "joining of soul and role," practicing integrity through aligning values, and making the inner journey along with outer decisions and responsibilities.

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