CURRICULUM MODULES

Technical assistance in identifying, understanding, and applying a broad spectrum of management skills and practices

NPDC’s educational programs have been created for leadership track NPO managers and others wishing to broaden their skills and knowledge.

Offered under the supervision of Educational Programming Committee chair, Professor Robert D’Intino of Rowan University, our curriculum modules are available as stand-alone workshops, as onsite programming for individual NPOs, and as a comprehensive Certificate Program.


Program participants learn to identify, understand, and apply a broad spectrum of management skills and practices in a dozen critical areas of NPO program management, including NPO creation, fundraising, governance, communications, finance, program impact, succession planning, law, accounting, human resources, volunteer recruitment and utilization, as well as the emerging area of social entrepreneurship and social ventures.

  1. Strategic Planning:
    Introduction to developing a stakeholder-driven Strategic Plan that can establish and drive board decision-making. Topics include gathering stakeholder data, creating a SWOT analysis, developing a shared vision, establishing strategic goals, creating a complementary tactical menus, friend-raising, organizational life cycles, and evaluating program and organizational effectiveness.
  2. Fund Raising and Development:
    Introduction to fundraising concepts, practices and tools, including creation and use of Endowments. Topics include understanding funding trends, classifying and motivating donors (i.e., individuals, business organization, funders, and foundations), creating and utilizing a Case Statement, and analyzing and deploying alternative fund raising strategies.
  3. Board Governance:
    Introduction to how boards should (and actually) work, responsibilities of board membership, and legal expectations deriving from board members’ fiduciary responsibilities. Topics include recruiting and election, expectations (i.e., “Give, Get, or Get Off”), tools for evaluating board performance, succession planning, and term limits, and insurance requirements for NPOs, including Workers Comp, Officers & Directors, Errors and Omission, and General Liability.
  4. Communications—Marketing and Branding:
    Introduction to development of a multi-tiered communication program—both internal and external, including an Internet presence (i.e., web site and social media outreach), traditional media (earned and paid), development of a value proposition (USP) and “elevator speech,” preparation of a SWOT analysis, identification and prioritization of target markets, development of a creative strategy and media mix, budgeting, and evaluation, including mid-course corrections.
  5. Elements of Successful Leadership:
    Introduction to the pathways to becoming a successful leader, including traits of successful leaders who motivate, earn trust, and get results. Topics include the responsibilities of key senior managers, the relationship between staff and board, and identification of key management issues.
  6. Finance:
    Introduction to understanding and analyzing an NPOs financial history and needs. Topics include budgeting, cash flow, reading and interpreting financial reports (e.g., P &L), understanding and communicating the fiduciary responsibilities of all stakeholders, including separating financial duties to protect an organization, and allocation of operating expenses across programs.
  7. Success Metrics and Program Impact:
    Introduction to the evaluation of program impact, including metrics, CQI, and change management. Topics include evaluation tools and step-by-step program assessment.
  8. Human Resources and Employment Law:
    Introduction to the role of HR in Non Profit Management. Topics include understanding workplace laws and legal relationships, including creation of an Employee Handbook, creating a positive work environment, and utilizing a step-by-step process for addressing performance problems and making best hiring decisions. Additional topics include FMLA, ADA, diversity inclusion in hiring, “firing without fear,” at-will employment, discrimination investigations (including potential classes), and medical marijuana.
  9. Volunteers:
    Introduction to the recruitment and management of volunteers, including vetting and background checks, skill/need matching, and recognition.
  10. Legal Issues for NPOs:
    Introduction to the broad spectrum of legal issues that may confront NPOs—from obtaining 501 c 3 status to state and federal reporting requirements, including many of the key rules and best practices for maintaining your tax-exempt status, including registration of an NPO, governance, fundraising and record-keeping requirements, protecting your organization’s trademarks and copyrights, financial oversight by the Board, and basics of risk management.
  11. Accounting:
    Introduction to the accounting and reporting requirements of NPOs, including reports and audits. Topics include creating transparency, filing Form 990, and other state and federal requirements.
  12. Starting an NPO:
    A crash course in “everything” someone hoping to create an NPO needs to know. This modules draws on content from modules 1 through 11.

BONUS MODULE #1— Social Entrepreneurship:
introduction to the growing world of social entrepreneurship initiatives and social ventures. Topics include the rapid growth of social entrepreneurship throughout the world and its ability to enrich communities by employing traditional business skills on behalf of the social sector and whether business entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs use similar skills and tools and how their measured outcomes differ.Also exploreshow social entrepreneurs address market failure and the absence of viable markets with innovative and unconventional perceptions and solutions, using the case study approach to examine the operation of successful examples of social entrepreneurship and how the knowledge acquired from these successes can be used to solve other important economic and social problems.

BONUS MODULE #2—IRS Information Seminar for Small and medium Size NPOs
Presented with the cooperation of the IRS’s Office of Exempt Organizations, this workshop does notcover how to apply for tax-exempt status or compliance requirements for non-501(c)(3), but it doescomprise five sessions, including Tax Exempt Status, Unrelated Business Income (UBI), Employment Issues, Form 990 Series, and Required Disclosures. CEUs, CPEs and CLEs may be available upon request.

Curriculum Notes:
• Each Module can be free standing and includes six hours of classroom instruction.
• Standard pricing is $125/module for full program; customized pricing for individual modules or groups of modules is available upon request
• CE eligibility is TBD.
• Certificate requires completion of all twelve (12) core modules.