Nonprofit Management Education: What’s Missing

To the Editor:

I was very heartened by the extensive coverage you gave to the topic of nonprofit education in your January 8 issue (“Gaining Success by Degrees”). I wish to take issue, however, with a number of elements of the coverage.

First, there seems to me to be a pervasive preference among your writers to refer to the relevant organizations as “charities.” Today’s nonprofits generate support from a wide array of sources — not merely charitable giving — and they ought to do this if for no other reason than to gain control and stability over their own resources. Major nonprofit organizations with which I have worked, such as the American Red Cross, AARP, and Boys & Girls Clubs of America, derived funding from such diverse sources as direct revenue from the sale of goods and services, grants, cause-related partnerships with diverse businesses, membership dues, and, of course, individual and corporate giving in many forms. Their challenge is to maximize these resources over the long haul. This, in turn, requires complex strategic planning.

Second, your overview conflates marketing and fund raising. If a nonprofit thinks of itself as a charity, obviously it thinks marketing is synonymous with fund raising. But a broader, more enriching view of marketing as drawn from business schools is that it is any effort to influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences to meet organizational goals.

In the private sector this approach to marketing means influencing customers to spend money to benefit corporate stockholders, while in the nonprofit sector it means changing behavior to improve the lives of individuals and/or society by, for example, getting smokers to quit, the media to cover advocacy positions, corporations to become partners, and — of course — individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies to provide gifts and grants.

A third concern I have with your overview is that it underplays the value of nonprofit education in the international arena.

At least half of the 25 largest nonprofits in The Chronicle’s latest tally, such as the Salvation Army, Goodwill International, the Nature Conservancy, CARE, and World Vision, have an in-ternational focus. Their executives, and those who may someday join them, need to be trained to think globally and to act locally.

Finally, when considering future educational needs, your overview does not sufficiently recognize that a great many government and quasi-government agencies face challenges similar to those faced by nonprofits and need similar management training. Just like corporations and nonprofits, these organizations realize that they cannot succeed unless they can influence a diverse array of behaviors. This is the domain of marketing, and it is this view of marketing principles we ought to be teaching to future managers.

Alan R. Andreasen
Professor of Marketing
Georgetown UniversityWashington

To the Editor:

I am and will always be a proponent of lifelong education. However, I believe that the energetic, talented new professionals are drawn to nonprofits because no specific degree is required to cross its threshold. Many well and broadly educated liberal-arts majors find a home in the not-for-profit world and stay with it for an entire career.

Our best hope as senior mentors is that the profession continues to draw this diverse and creative group of new recruits. Our responsibility is to provide the benefits and salaries to keep them intrigued.

One benefit nonprofit groups should offer is continuing education, but I encourage those who want to further their careers to think broadly. Having a master’s degree in library science, a degree that generally teaches one where and how to find information, has saved me from disaster more than once. Of course I have supplemented my work experience with specific seminars and certificates to help me raise money for my organization. To paraphrase a familiar slogan, “think generally, act specifically.” This way we will continue to have a wonderful convergence of ideas, making our work food for the mind and the soul.

Jocelyn Toman Hoopes
Director of Distinguished Gifts
Archmere Academy
Claymont, Del.