Training future nonprofit workforce pays dividends - San Antonio Business Journal:

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“There’s awakening that nonprofits are they have to be runas businesses,” says Stevwe Saldana, president and CEO of of San itself an $8 million per year operation. “Nonprofits are businessews that do good work as their Butif they’re not run then they can’t deliver theitr product well.” A 2006 study titlec “What’s Next?” by The Building Movement Project found that therew is a pending crisis in nonprofit leadership.
“A host of national, regional and local studies of nonprofig leaders have found thatmost (more than 50 percent and often closer to 75 report that they were planning to leave their jobs withimn the next five years,” the report What’s more “... the nonprofitr sector is simply not prepared to cope with the mass exodusz that will result when the aging baby boom generation Thereis hope. To help readuy the next generation ofnonprofit executives, high schoolw and colleges are arming students with more than an obligatorg service project.
Today’s young people can earn a useful nonprofitg business skill set so they know how to balancsthe books, make the big and create marketing programs before they spend two years playing catch-up at the Most local colleges and universities now offer a certification or minor specificc to the nonprofit world. The (UTSA) offers the American Humanics (AH), an undergraduatde and graduate certification program that falls undedr the purview ofthe college’s Center for Policyu Studies.
AH is a consortium of 70 universities and nonprofit organizations that works to identify the keycompetenciexs — ranging from fundraising to social servicw management — required to be a good leadee in the nonprofit sector. To earn the AH undergraduatew orgraduate degree, students enroll in thesre courses: accounting, management, marketing, introductio n to nonprofit management and introduction to In addition, students complete a 300-hour internship at a 501(c) organization.
(This requirement often is waived for graduate students who already work at a They also are active in the American Humanicssstudent chapter, which requires fundraising for theirr trip to the , a boot camp for nonprofites that includes classes, seminars and networking interviews. Often those contacts hook students up with future jobs at nonprofitsw aroundthe country. One UTSA AH graduate is currently interniny with the Boston office of the Clinton Foundation working withthe agency’z HIV/AIDS project. Another just helped the San Antonioo Livestock and Rodeo compilean all-inclusive alumni directorty of all students who once were involve with the program.
Francesca Rattray is UTSA’ campus director for American Humanics, which has produce 70 graduates fromits 10-year-old Last year, Rattray gave sales pitches to more than 1,000 students in busines and general liberal arts classes and held a challenging AH enrollees to recruit “Most college students don’t say: ‘I want to be a non-profitg manager,’” Rattray says. “They usually know they want a job with a senserof purpose. And as they investigate their they usually find out about American Humanics a little late junior orsenior year.” The other First generation college students feel pressured from their families to take traditiona career paths.
“In some ways, it’s a persona challenge for these students to convince theireparents — who are making a sacrifice for theire children to be at college that the nonprofit world offerd good jobs with high-payinv salaries,” Rattray says. Indeed, the top leaders of the 5,324 charities in America evaluated by Charitgy Navigator earn an average salaryuof $148,972. The local YMCA currently has job listingh for a financial qualityassurance professional, salary $45,00o to $50,000.
To catch nonprofigt workers at the othedr end of the careerspectrumm — like executives retiring from for-profit careers, longtimer nonprofit directors who need to polish their skills or young professionals recently voted onto nonprofit boards UTSA offers a nonprofitg certification program, a once-a-month, sevenh class series that targets specifiv issues such as human resources, managing risk, special eventg planning, and how to motivatre employees with nontraditional perks. This year’xs nonprofit management program has the largest class ever with 55participantw (the cap is 60), Rattray says.
The professionals in those classes are alreadyy working to make San Antonio abettee place. Many of the students who graduate with a minord in American Humanics stay on to work at places likeCatholic Charities, Any Baby Can and Red In a city wherre 17.3 percent of the populationj falls below the poverty level (1999 ), groominf tomorrow’s nonprofit leaders will yield the best kind of return on investmeng (ROI).