October 18, 2001 | Read Time: 1 minute
CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, a nonprofit organization in San Francisco that provides management assistance to other charities, has introduced its first online course, “Budgeting for Programs and Proposals.”
The course features interactive learning exercises and is designed so that students can complete the course at their own pace. The course fee of $125 allows participants to gain access to the course for six months. Discounts are available for small charities in Northern California.
According to Nelson L. Layag, CompassPoint’s director of technology, most students complete the course in a relatively short period of time, and in the remaining months come back to review sections as they encounter specific budget issues in their jobs.
Students use an online message board to communicate with one another. They can also ask questions and get feedback on their assignments from a CompassPoint staff member via e-mail.
The organization logs all the questions that the tutors receive and plans to use them to improve the course. “If we see a question come up over and over again, then we know that we’re not getting the point across well enough,” says Mr. Layag.
CompassPoint hopes to eventually put all of its financial-management courses online and use the revenue they produce to develop Web-based courses in other fields.
To get there: Go to http://www.compasspoint.org/elearning.
