Course Descriptions
Note: A detailed course outline is available for most courses, especially those currently being offered. Please contact us if you would like to receive an outline.
Financial Management for Community Organizations
Determining what it really costs to provide services to the community, keeping track of these costs once a program is underway and reporting to managers, boards and funders in a meaningful way is an increasingly important challenge to non-profit organizations in today's environment.
The Financial Management course is designed for those whose work is not primarily concerned with accounting or bookkeeping; that is, executive directors, managers or board members. It focuses on budgeting, interpreting and making decisions based on financial information. This course is designed to assist participants in understanding and improving their organization's financial management practices. Course topics include:
- board and external reporting
- financial statements
- general accounting concepts
- programming
- budgeting
- internal control
- financial analysis
- managing cash flow and investments
- classification of costs (e.g. fixed, variable, operating and capital)
- non-profit accounting issues (accounting for grants, fee-for-service funding, donations and gifts-in-kind)
- dealing with bankers and auditors
- computer software for financial management
Work will be required between workshop sessions and participants will be evaluated on the basis of assignments requiring application of financial management practices to their own organizations.
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Transformative Communication for Non-Profit Leaders
Strong relationships within organizations and between organizations depend on meaningful conversations, conversations that enable us to understand others and where they are coming from and to help others understand us and know where we are coming from. Ideally conversations that are important should promote real learning. This is true whether our conversations are between two people or among many. Good conversations can help us to link hearts and minds in order for us to tap into the collective wisdom of our organizations and communities.
This course focuses on employing the communication concepts found in three contemporary books: The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Peter Senge and others, Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen and Dialogue, The Art of Thinking Together by William Isaacs. The course will employ self-assessment instruments, reflective exercises, conversations and role playing. It will also make use of some creative or non-verbal exercises in exploring our experience with interpersonal communication.
The course will enable participants to explore:
- their own communication patterns and how they differ from that of some others
- the effectiveness of interpersonal and strategic communication within their organization
- the emotional content of important conversations
- communication in conflict situations
- how to facilitate deeper group conversations
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Leading and Managing Non-Profit Organizations
Individuals at the helm of today's non-profit organizations must operate with an external as well as internal focus. This involves authentic interpersonal communications, a clear sense of mission, and the ability to work in collaboration with others in building a stronger community.
This course is designed for current and future executive directors. It will assist participants in reflecting on their own leadership practices and gaining insights into how to work with others in building healthier, high performing, adaptive and value-based organizations.
Course topics include:
- reflecting on one's own leadership styles
- organizational change and change management
- managing conflict and negotiating with others
- working collaboratively inside and outside your organization
- ethical challenges and practices
- coaching, mentoring, and team building
- building a "learning organization"
- strategic thinking, managing complexity
The course requires a high degree of involvement in one's own and others' learning both inside and outside the workshop sessions. This will be facilitated through the use of small group and individual work, readings, cases, self-assessment instruments and experiential exercises.
The course is normally offered in a format that involves four, 6-hour or day-long workshop sessions over a 4 month period. Participants will be required to do some reading, exercises and preparation between the sessions. An on-line course bulletin board will be used to facilitate communication and group discussion outside of class.
A more detailed course outline is available from the Program Manager.
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Strategic Planning for Community Organizations
The strategic planning course focuses on developing is a set of thinking/learning/action change processes that an organization, group, system, or community might embark on to help attain its mission. As such, the course is a departure from more traditional approaches that result in strategic planning documents with a particular time horizon that contain environmental scans and SWOT analyses.
All organizations exist in a complex environment and operate as "living systems." Creating an organizational "culture" that embraces change involves deep teamwork, strategic dialogue, solution-oriented leadership, learning/acting on the "edge," and collaboration. There are all practices that will generate the kind of mind-sets and organizational relationships that will thrive in constantly changing conditions. Demonstrating such practices is essential to the success, if not the survival of organizations involved in the complex work strengthening the social, economic, and cultural fabric of their communities.
This course provides a learning experience where participants' can acquire the skills, concepts, and tools that will help them facilitate, direct, and participate in strategic change processes within their organizations, teams, groups, agencies, or communities. This course is strongly "experiential" in its approach to facilitating such learning.
The Strategic Planning course course will enable participants to apply the concepts and tools in their own organizations. As a result, they will be better positioned and better able to work with and respond to the interests of their communities. Course topics will include:
- different approaches to strategic planning
- designing the planning process to fit specific organizations and work teams
- assessing the organization's current reality
- developing a shared vision amongst stakeholder groups
- appreciative and problem-solving approaches to change
- building teamwork from the ground up
- aligning the organization's culture and leadership style to its goals
This course is designed so that participants can custom fit learning materials to the strategic processes currently underway, about to begin, or in the implementation stage in their own organizations. Participants will be evaluated on the basis of a project or intervention and work will be required between sessions.
Strategic Planning is normally offered in a 4 or 5 day workshop sessions over a 12 week term. This course is also available on contract to a community non-profit organization, group of organizations or sponsoring body.
For further information please contact Grant MacDonald, Program Director, at (902) 494-1683. For email contact click here.
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Improving Non-Profit Governance (Online or Blended Delivery)
The governance of non-profit organizations requires attention to increasingly important and complex practices especially since there are few, if any, models that offer a proven recipe for organizational leadership. Available both as an online program or in a blended format (face-to-face classroom sessions and online), this program is Canada’s leading professional development program in non-profit governance. It offers the advantages of peer learning, active facilitation, customized learning resources and tools, and the opportunity for practical application and feedback.
Designed for executive directors, the course may also be of value to board members and others that work with volunteer boards. It involves discussion and sharing of experience between participants, access to the latest governance tools and examples, together with some structured exercises and assignments that will engage participants over a four to five month period in understanding how best to participate in, coach and support their boards in the process of governance.
The course will assist participants in:
- assessing the governance needs of their own organizations
- improving board dynamics
- helping the board take more ownership for its own management and renewal
- coaching the board and board chair
- clarifying the board-staff relationship
- creating a more appropriate executive director evaluation process
- strengthening accountability to, and the involvement of, members and external stakeholders
The course requires a commitment of three to five hours of work a week over a four to five month period some of which is spent with fellow participants online or in the classroom, some working with your board, board chair or governance committee.
A more detailed course outline is available from the Program Manager.
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