Courses Focused on Nonprofit Management
When looking for a local organization that offers the highest quality in non-profit management training, the first among a worthy slate would be the Duke University Nonprofit Management Program, a unit in Duke’s Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education department. The Nonprofit Management Program offers a structured and rigorous grounding in the establishment, operation, and development of successful nonprofits.
Training will be offered in 6-hr virtual courses or via 4- to 5-hr. MindEdge online courses
Duke Nonprofit Management Program:
CORE Classes & Key Electives (Virtual Classes – Online Zoom, 9 AM – 4 PM (ET) – 6 hrs., includes lunch break)
- Nonprofit – Financial Management – Wed, Apr 2, 2025 / 9am – 4pm
- Nonprofit – Planning and Evaluation – Tue, Apr 15, 2025 / 9am – 4pm
- Nonprofit – Board Development/Governance – Wed, May 7, 2025 / 9am – 4pm
- Telling Great Stories to Advance Your Cause – Tue, May 13, 2025 / 9am – 4pm
- Sustainable Strategic Planning for Nonprofits – Tue, May 20, 2025 / 9am – 4pm
MindEdge Online Courses (Asynchronous – Self-paced / courses are 4-5 hrs.) – To demo online courses, visit: http://dukenp.mindedgeonline.com/acl.php?A5D01A31
- Introduction to Nonprofit Management
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Principles of Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations
- Budgeting for Nonprofit Organizations
Course Descriptions:
Virtual Instructor-led Course Offerings (6-hrs.)
Nonprofit – Financial Management
This course provides an understanding of financial management for nonprofits and focuses on topics integral to nonprofit fiscal management. Learn finance terms as they relate to the effective operation of a nonprofit organization. Discuss how to track income and expenses to specific programs to fulfill expectations of funders, donors and the IRS. The role of the board, staff and committees are covered. Become familiar with the standards of excellence for nonprofit organizations and gain an understanding of financial statements, budgeting, and surviving an audit. Participants will gain an understanding of the broader financial realm of nonprofit organizations – where they work or volunteer.
Nonprofit – Planning and Evaluation
In this course, we will discuss the who, why, when and how of program evaluation. What does it take to incorporate an effective and comprehensive program evaluation? Why does program evaluation have an impact on services and sustainability? This course is designed to be very basic. Those in attendance will learn ways in which program evaluation impacts potential funding and organizational sustainability. Participants will walk away with a basic sample of program evaluation in which they can build on and use within their organization.
Nonprofit – Board Development/Governance
In order to be successful, nonprofit organizations require strong leadership from their Board of Directors. The Board’s responsibility is to oversee the effectiveness of management policies and decisions, including the execution of its strategies. Learn the key roles and responsibilities of the board and the essential areas of Board oversight. Discuss strategies to increase board members’ commitment to the mission and purpose of your organization, and how boards must be active and engaged to fulfill their legal and governance duties.
Telling Great Stories to Advance Your Cause
People support nonprofits and the causes they champion because of an emotional connection. Hope, compassion, guilt, fear, and other emotions drive people to tackle the world’s problems – or support others who are working on the front lines. That’s where stories come in. Facts and figures can be mind-numbing, but a story opens ears, eyes, minds and hearts. In this interactive course, you will learn how to find compelling stories about people your nonprofit is helping; tell great stories; create a story bank to pull in stories from clients and volunteers; use your stories for maximum effect. Learn tools to build stories that will not only spearhead your fundraising and advocacy efforts, but also strengthen your organization’s culture and reinforce its values.
Sustainable Strategic Planning
Participants will examine the parts of a strategic plan including the vision and mission statement, values and goals that will guide the organization into the future. Students will also learn important tools to analyze their respective nonprofit organizations to help them make decisions for setting a course for the organization’s future. Analysis tools include the SWOT Analysis, BCG Matrix, the Sustainability Matrix and the Strategy Canvas. There will be an opportunity for students to apply the tools through group work to evaluate an organization and understand the process of constructing a Sustainable Strategic Plan.
MindEdge Online Courses (4-5 hrs.) – To demo online courses, visit: http://dukenp.mindedgeonline.com/acl.php?A5D01A31
(Self-paced online courses must be completed within 10 weeks of registration and no later than August 15th.)
Introduction to Nonprofit Management
This course covers management best practices for leading a nonprofit organization. You will gain an understanding of the nonprofit sector and the issues that leaders face in this exciting and growing field. You will also be exposed to the major areas of responsibility for nonprofit leaders, including strategy, managing employees, fundraising, grant writing, board governance, and marketing and social media.
After completing this course, you’ll be able to do the following:
- Discuss the purpose and structure of the nonprofit sector
- Describe the governance of nonprofits, including the types of boards and the relationship between boards and executive directors
- Explain how nonprofits establish their vision and strategic direction
- Describe the nonprofit leadership role and what it entails
- Discuss servant leadership
- Outline key ethical issues faced by nonprofits
- Discuss how nonprofits managers handle staff and volunteers
- Outline the key financial issues facing nonprofits
- Describe the key legal issues facing nonprofits
- Discuss the importance of marketing and communication for a nonprofit
- Explain the basics of nonprofit fundraising
- Outline the grant writing process
Principles of Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations
When we think of marketing, we typically think of the activities that a for-profit company engages in. However, marketing is an important function for non-profit organizations as well. Marketing is the way that non-profits determine the needs of their clients and their donors. As in the for-profit world, nonprofit marketing includes advertising, promotion, public relations, and customer relationship management. This course examines how non-profits use marketing to publicize their mission and to gather contributions of time and money. The course also discusses marketing planning in the non-profit organization.
After completing this course, you should be able to: define what marketing is within the non-profit environment; explain the service-intensive nature of non-profit program activities; explain how the marketing mix is expanded for service products (the 3Ps of Services Marketing); describe the importance of customer satisfaction and how expectations play a role in satisfaction with service products; discuss the role of ethics in non-profit marketing; describe the importance of and explain the process of non-profit marketing plan; describe how target markets can be identified for donors; and explain how new service products are developed by non-profits.
Budgeting for Nonprofit Organizations
This course covers budgets and how they are used in non- profit organizational settings. You will gain an understanding of the uses and functions of budget and the relationship between strategic budgeting and tactical budgeting. You will also learn about the organization-wide budget and different budget systems. The course will continue on to slightly more advanced budgeting topics such as capital budgets, cash flow budgets, and opportunity budgets. You will also learn how non-profit organizations are using different budgeting techniques to handle operating challenges.
After completing this course, you’ll be able to: explain the uses and functions of non-profit budgeting; describe the different types of budgets used by a non-profit organization; recognize the use of the organization-wide operating budget and program operating budgets; analyze a non-profit Operating Budget; explain how an operating budget is created; describe how a capital budget is used and created; explain the importance of a cash flow budget and describe how it is created; describe how an opportunity budget may be used by a nonprofit organization; and recognize how the budget process can be managed for optimal results.
This grant is provided by “Durham Culture & Arts – Invest to Restart” a program of the Durham Arts Council supported by the City of Durham American Rescue Plan funds. Durham Arts Council will distribute funds through December 2025, to help support individual artists and arts and culture-focused nonprofit organizations and businesses as they rebuild, recover, and grow.