Your Course of Study
Building A Strategic Perspective – Participants focus on the concepts and skills needed to lead and manage a nonprofit organization. As active partners with the faculty, you and your colleagues utilize the HBS case method to refine these concepts by exploring how others are tackling the challenges that confront their organizations. Drawn from the actual experiences of a broad range of nonprofits, the case studies are supplemented by faculty presentations and group exercises, as well as by preparation and classroom discussions with other participants.
Peer Consultation Sessions: Applying Strategic Concepts to Your Organization – Breaking into small groups, you and your SPNM peers work together on challenges that each of you has identified and described as critical to the success of your respective organizations. During the workshop, you begin to formulate a plan to address your specific issue upon returning to work.
Leading Change: Moving from Strategy to Implementation – As an experienced leader, you are aware of the organizational challenges associated with translating strategic plans into practice. After exploring management issues in the initial sessions, you will focus on implementing strategy and leading organizational change.
Conceptual components include:
Products, Services, and Markets – Defining customers and constituencies, understanding customer needs, and creating an excellent service organization.
Financial Management and Control – Assessing financial performance, establishing methods of fiscal accountability, and developing appropriate performance measures and management control systems.
People and Organizations – Creating strategic collaborations with nonprofit and for-profit organizations, assessing organizational performance, and identifying the characteristics of high-performing nonprofits.
Change Leadership – Defining your mission and aligning the organization behind it, creating a successful partnership with the board, mobilizing resources for change, and managing for sustainability and growth.
"As a nonprofit leader, you're trying to create outcomes for people. The program helps you keep these goals in the front of your mind and internalize them. When you return to your organization, you are better able to connect these goals to the decisions you make, the priorities you set, the way you manage—and how you measure your impact on making a difference in people's lives."
Scott Haldane [President and Chief Executive Officer], YMCA Canada, Canada