Internet Classes Click for Charities

More and more employees are taking on-line courses to improve skills

Donna Ancypa was studying to earn a certificate in non-profit management at Virginia’s George Mason University when she received a job offer she couldn’t refuse — to become a fund raiser for her alma mater, Oberlin College, in Ohio.

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But even after having moved 400 miles away, Ms. Ancypa continued to take her class at George Mason — through the Internet.

“It’s worked out perfectly,” says Ms. Ancypa, who managed to keep up with her studies for the on-line course even though her move took place two days after the class had begun.

Ms. Ancypa is among a small but growing number of non-profit employees who are taking advantage of on-line courses on subjects such as fund raising, running a non-profit organization, financial management, and managing volunteers.

It’s a trend that is likely to continue, thanks in part to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which is spending $12.5-million to make academic programs on non-profit management more accessible to those who work in the field.

Kellogg’s project, called Building Bridges Between Practice and Knowledge in Nonprofit Management Education, provides support to 18 universities and institutes.

Several of the grantees, including George Mason University and the University of San Francisco, are using their five-year grants to develop academic courses on the Internet.

The hope is that on-line courses will give new educational — and ultimately professional — opportunities to non-profit employees whose location or schedule prevents them from attending classes on a college campus or at an institute.

“As everyone knows who works in the non-profit world, we don’t have time to go to class,” says Beth Buchanan, who is earning a certificate in managing volunteers through an Internet course offered by Washington State University.

Ms. Buchanan, who coordinates several volunteer programs for the elderly that are supported by Lutheran Social Services in Bremerton, Wash., is able to squeeze in a couple of hours of study in the evenings, plus several hours on weekends.

Although the certificate is costing her $640, Ms. Buchanan says the investment is worth it, not only because she has learned new skills, but also because she expects to be able to earn more once she has a certificate.

“In the non-profit world, your salary often reflects your education level,” Ms. Buchanan says. “Ultimately, what I’m hoping to get is that necessary piece of paper that says I’m trained to do the work I’ve been doing for the last 15 years.”

But salary is not the only draw. Since many charity employees come to their jobs because of their interest in a particular cause, but without any special training, Internet courses allow them to broaden their skills.

“I was a total novice,” says Linda Tatu, who started a social-services center in Buffalo, N.Y., with her husband in 1993.

Ms. Tatu participated in a series of Internet courses in writing grant proposals that were being offered by Educational Funding Strategies, a consulting company that specializes in on-line training. She says she learned, among other things, how to conduct research on foundations to help determine which ones would be likely to support her charity.

Relying on advice from the course, she made sure to include letters of recommendation from a local Catholic priest and a Catholic hospital when she sent in a proposal to a Catholic foundation. She won the grant.

The on-line courses currently available for non-profit professionals vary greatly in what they cover and how they work. The total number of students who have taken such courses is not known, but most classes attract small numbers of students — anywhere from six to 25 students per course. Instructors say class size should be kept small, so that students do not become overwhelmed by on-line correspondence.

Some university programs cost thousands of dollars and take months to complete. Several are non-credit programs in which students can earn certificates, but others offer graduate credits that can be counted toward a degree in public administration or non-profit management.

The number of courses required to earn a certificate varies from program to program, with most requiring students to complete four to six courses. Several allow students to work at their own pace, while others follow a specific timetable. And while some programs require students to spend some time on campus, others can be completed entirely on line.

For example, at Washington State, where Ms. Buchanan is enrolled, students may take from six months to two years to earn a certificate in volunteer management, and they never have to set foot on campus. Participants can sign up for the four courses, which cost $175 apiece, on the first of every month through a rolling admissions process.

Some courses not associated with a university are even more flexible.

The series of workshops offered by Educational Funding Strategies has “no grades, no tests, and no required assignments,” says Marilyn Gross, who teaches them.

The lessons on grant-proposal writing, fund raising, and board leadership are conducted entirely by electronic mail, and Ms. Gross recommends that students devote anywhere from three to eight hours a week to studying. Most of her assignments involve reading articles on fund raising and proposal writing, as well as visiting numerous Web sites devoted to non-profit issues.

“It’s very low-tech and very low-key, and for a lot of people that’s perfect,” Ms. Gross says. Her program is also much less expensive than those offered by many colleges and universities — $95 for a four-week course, and $195 for an eight-week course.

A series of courses offered through the Management Assistance Program for Nonprofits, in St. Paul, is even more loosely constructed.

The series, called the Nonprofit MBA, was developed by Carter McNamara, a consultant to non-profit leaders in the St. Paul area. It consists of 12 courses on subjects ranging from board development to producing a long-range plan for an organization. It is free and accessible to anyone with recent versions of World-Wide Web software.

Participants can complete the courses whenever they want, or not at all. Every so often, Mr. McNamara sends an electronic message to those who are taking a course to find out how they are doing.

Mr. McNamara says he is not worried about the possibility that someone might download his program and alter or customize it — a potential problem that most of the programs try to avoid by implementing security measures such as limiting access to those who are enrolled and by copyrighting the course material.

“I keep a master copy, but it’s a community resource rather than an institution,” he says.

Mr. McNamara, who runs a problem-solving group for non-profit executive directors, says he created the courses after listening to his clients’ major concerns, as well as to their suggestions. Most wanted practical information that they could take back to their offices, so he designed assignments to help non-profit managers meet specific goals, such as putting together a fund-raising plan or a list of board policies.

Several of the other programs also take a practical approach to teaching.

Ms. Buchanan, the coordinator of volunteers, says she has been able to immediately apply in her job what she has learned from the volunteer-management course at Washington State University.

For one of her assignments, she was asked to develop an annual plan for recruiting volunteers, which she showed to her supervisor at work. “She loved it,” Ms. Buchanan says. “We’re adopting it.”

Internet courses have yielded other unexpected benefits, instructors and students say.

Students tend to be more thoughtful in answering questions posed by an instructor over the Internet than in the classroom, says Russell A. Cargo, director of the Nonprofit Management Program at George Mason University.

“In a classroom setting you have peer pressure not to dominate a discussion, and you have time constraints,” he says. “This on-line format allows students to be much more considerate and thorough. They evidently reflect before they type in an answer.”

Another benefit is that courses on line teach students how to gain access to a nearly infinite amount of useful information through the Internet, such as foundation Web sites, scholarly articles about issues in the non-profit world, and resources for improving research and writing skills.

But virtual classrooms have their glitches, too.

The vast majority of the courses and training sessions that teach non-profit skills currently rely heavily on text, with few high-tech bells and whistles, such as graphics or video, to provide relief from the written word. Those who run the programs say this limitation is necessary for now, because many people in the non-profit world work on slow computers that are unable to execute more-sophisticated functions. That will probably change as advanced computer technology becomes more widespread and accessible.

Cost is also a big issue for people who run or work at small charities, which rarely have money to cover employees’ educational expenses. Tuition, in such cases, usually comes out of one’s own pocket.

Another difficulty: Both students and instructors say on-line assignments can be hard to complete. When there is no class to attend in person, they say, competing obligations such as work or family matters are more likely to get in the way.

“Thank goodness my wife and my employer were extremely supportive,” says J. Bart Morrison, assistant executive director of the Clark Foundation, in New York, who earned a certificate in non-profit management through an Internet course offered by Case Western Reserve University. “From the outset you have to work at balancing your priorities. Then you’re more likely to be successful.”

Taking a course on line from a bedroom or home office can also be isolating. Some students say that although they communicate frequently with their instructor and classmates through electronic mail and on-line discussion groups, or even by telephone, it is impossible to recreate the sense of camaraderie that often develops in a classroom.

“It is a compromise,” says Mr. Morrison. “If I had my druthers, I would have enrolled in a program where we’re all in a classic collegial environment and we would spend the whole year together, or more.”

But, he adds, the benefits of being able to keep his full-time job and spend time with his family outweighed the drawback of having to study alone.

To help alleviate the feeling of isolation, some university programs require students to meet at least once on campus with their instructor and classmates.

Case Western, for example, requires students to spend the first and last two weeks of the program on the university’s Cleveland campus.

“It was really hard to invest those weeks, but well worth it,” says Mr. Morrison. “I’m a firm believer that human contact is an important part of learning.”

The University of San Francisco and Indiana University have similar requirements.

But at George Mason, Mr. Cargo says he purposely steered clear of such a requirement for the non-profit management courses he teaches.

Instead, his on-line courses rely on an electronic “conference area,” where he posts weekly lectures, assignments, and questions and where students post their answers, comment on one another’s work, and engage in discussion. Students are required to participate in the weekly exchanges, but they can post their comments at any time during the week.

Such electronic exchanges are a popular feature of on-line courses, but they risk becoming overwhelming, says James Perry, a professor of public affairs and philanthropy at Indiana University, who teaches an on-line class on managing human and financial resources.

During one recent week, Mr. Perry and his 15 students posted 90 messages.

“That was a little too many for people to handle,” he says. “You have to be careful to manage the level of participation so that people aren’t overwhelmed with information.”

Even those who most vigorously champion virtual classrooms say they doubt it will ever replace the real one.

“It’s not a substitute for human interaction,” says Ms. Gross. “It’s an adjunct, it’s an enhancement. There’s a big piece missing for me when I’m teaching and I can’t see people’s faces, I can’t see the person snoring, or the person raising their hand to ask a question.”

But, she adds, “it gives a lot more people the opportunity to expand their skills.”