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Building Bridges
Initiative Cluster Evaluation:
Nonprofit Management Alumni
Survey Report
(Part 1 of 3)
March
2002
R.
Sam Larson, Ph.D
Applied Research
601 Abbott Rd.
P.O. Box 4434
E. Lansing, MI 48826
E-Mail: larsonrs@msu.edu
Part
2
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Alumni
Assessment of Course Topics’ Importance
-
Table
1. Alumni Assessment of
Nonprofit Management Course Topics
-
Choosing
a Graduate Nonprofit Management Program
-
Table
2: Time 1 and Time 2 Mean Score Ranking of Course Topics
-
Connecting
Practice and Knowledge
-
Table
3: Alumni Satisfaction with Nonprofit Management Programs
Part
3
Executive
Summary
This
report builds on our findings presented in the Survey of Nonprofit Management
Students. We surveyed alumni
from six nonprofit management graduate and certificate programs affiliated with
the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI). All
of these alumni had participated in the earlier student survey.
We received 160 surveys for a 70 percent response rate.
Respondents
to the alumni survey closely mirror the socio-demographic profile of all
respondents to the student survey. Alumni
respondents were likely to be white/Caucasian women who were employed full time
(most likely in a nonprofit organization) and who had just finished (or were
about to finish ) their nonprofit academic program.
Three
research questions, developed from the goals and guiding principles of the
Building Bridges Initiative, guided this inquiry.
Question
1: Did program content, as expressed by course topics, match the needs and
interests of those being served?
Alumni
most value courses that emphasize the core internal, day-to-day management
practices of nonprofit organizations – a pattern that we also found in the
study survey report. Courses on
fundraising and development and
governance (e.g., board responsibilities) were viewed as the two most important
topics. Nearly half of the alumni
wanted to see more emphasis placed on these two topic areas.
Nearly half (48%) of alumni also wanted more emphasis on proposal
writing.
Less
important are technical courses – such as management information systems and
quantitative analysis – and course topics focused on the external environment
or conceptual domains – economics, history, diversity, and international
issues. These courses tend to become
less important as students become alumni.
Taken
together, these findings suggest that alumni want (and need) to develop skills
closely aligned with the pragmatic, day-to-day management and leading of an
organization.
Question
2: How well do academic programs
connect with the world of community practice?
When
alumni were students, they were looking for a program from a reputable
institution that focused on nonprofits and connected university knowledge with
practice knowledge. Alumni are
satisfied with their decisions, and nearly all would make the same decision
again. However, the active connections between the university
program and the field of practice – connections such as collaborative
opportunities for nonprofit leaders and students, networking opportunities for
students and alumni, links between the program and nonprofit organizations, and
connections between research and practice – are areas in need of more
attention. Admittedly, these are
difficult connections to make and maintain. It may take several more years
before programs can engage in this type of outreach.
Question
3: How have the management
capacities of alumni improved as a result of their educational program?
Perhaps
the most important finding in this study is the ample evidence that alumni have
garnered new skills and are thinking and acting different because of these
skills. Alumni are better able to
contribute to their organizations, are more confident in their management
abilities, and are better able to apply theory to practice.
Alumni tended to talk about new or improved skills in strategic planning,
human resources, and several financial domains (fundraising, budgeting, proposal
writing). And alumni use these
skills frequently – nearly half apply them on a daily basis and about
one-quarter do so once or twice a week. Finally, alumni are thinking anew about their career options
and most like what they see. It is
quite likely that programs such as those supported by the BBI are an important
means to curtail the movement of talented individuals out of the nonprofit
sector. That is, these programs may
be a retention intervention – helping the nonprofit sector to develop and keep
bright and motivated leaders.
Top
Introduction
The
Building Bridges Initiative aims to improve the quality of life in communities
through the better management and leadership of the nonprofit organizations that
serve our communities. Nonprofit
management education is a fundamental vehicle to enhance management and
leadership skills. While nonprofit
management program development is of increasing analytical interest, a valuable
contribution of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Building Bridges Initiative and
its cluster evaluation is a focus on the “users” or the demand side of
nonprofit management education programs.
As
stated last year in our report, Survey of Nonprofit Management Students,
research and evaluations of nonprofit management programs focus primarily on the
supply side of academia – the number of courses being offered (Wish and
Mirabella, 1998a, 1998b; Mirabella and Wish, 2000) and the organization and
management of the centers or programs that offer these courses (i.e., Larson and
Long, 1998, 2000; O'Neill, Young, and McAdam, 1988; O’Neill and Fletcher,
1998). “Users” or students in
nonprofit management programs have much to tell us about desired outcomes
associated with the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).
For example, students can provide information about the relevance of
curricular offerings, the accessibility of programs, and the ways that programs
bridge theory and practice in- and out-of the classroom.
In the student survey, we reported that:
The
characteristic that distinguished student respondents was their employment
status – they were working students and most were employed full-time and
most were employed in the nonprofit sector.
Students
were "place-bound" with most, 71 percent, seeking a program within a
one-hour drive of their homes and workplaces.
Students'
race and ethnicity (80% white/Caucasian, 16% students of color) closely
matched the employment composition of the nonprofit sector.
Students
continued their education primarily for personal development and skill
acquisition and less so to increase their income.
Of
the students employed while attending classes, 50 percent
received some type of financial support from their employer and 44
percent received time-off for
educational purposes.
Students
chose their programs because of the program's nonprofit focus and the
program's reputation. Students
were also attracted to the linkages of the program with the nonprofit sector.
Course
topics that focused on internal operations unique to the nonprofit sector,
such as fundraising and development, strategic planning for nonprofits, and
governance, were viewed as being most important for managing and leading
nonprofit organizations.
Most
students were satisfied with their educational programs, though there was room
for improvement, especially in the development and strengthening of linkages
of the program with the nonprofit sector.
The
Nonprofit Management Alumni Survey Report builds on our findings from the
student survey.
The
questions guiding the alumni study were developed from the following Goals and
Guiding Principles of the Building Bridges Initiative:
Goals
-
Deepen
the impact of education programs on improving nonprofit-management
education.
-
Continue
the commitment to improvement in higher education.
This will be done by supporting stronger relationships between the
needs of the community and the contributions of higher education
institutions.
Guiding Principles
-
Respond
to the field and grow out of the needs and desires of those who are being
served.
-
Intentionally
address issues of diversity and inclusion.
-
Build
bridges, partnership, and collaborative efforts in support of educational
programming.
The
three research questions that address these goals and guiding principles are:
-
Did program content, as expressed by course topics, match the needs and
interests of those being served?
-
How well do academic programs connect with the world of practice?
-
How have the management capacities of alumni improved as a result of
their educational program?
Top
THE Alumni Survey Report
The
BBI Survey of Nonprofit Management Alumni
For
the nonprofit management student survey, we studied students enrolled in six
nonprofit management graduate and certificate programs at these BBI grantee
institutions: Case Western Reserve University, George Mason University, Indiana
University (IUPUI), Portland State University, SUNY-Albany, and Western Michigan
University. Students enrolled in
Spring/Fall 1999 and/or Spring 2000 nonprofit management courses at the six
institutions were invited to complete the survey.
The
student survey was conducted during February-May 2000 so that most respondents
had at least one academic semester exposure to nonprofit management programs.
We mailed 520 surveys, ten were undeliverable, and 256 useable surveys
were returned to us for a response rate of 50 percent.
At
the close of each survey, we asked students for their mailing address.
Of the 256 respondents, 238 listed their address.
In May 2001 we mailed each of these 238 student survey respondents a copy
of the alumni survey. Ten of the
surveys were undeliverable. Of the
228 surveys delivered to alumni, 160 useable alumni surveys were returned for a
response rate of 70 percent.
Each
student survey respondent was given a unique identifier code.
This code was used on the alumni surveys to identify participants who
responded to both the student and alumni surveys.
Aside from comparing socio-demographic characteristics of alumni survey
respondents to all student survey respondents, when
comparing responses between the student and alumni surveys, we only include
those participants who responded to both surveys. The
student survey is considered the Time 1 response and the alumni survey the Time
2 response.
About
half (47%) of the respondents were alumni – they had completed or graduated
from their program. Another quarter
(24%) of the respondents were in the final term of their program.
Sixteen percent were half-way through their program, nine percent were
taking time off from their program but planned to continue it, and only four
percent chose not to complete their program.
In this paper, then, alumni refers to respondents to the alumni survey, most of who had,
or were about to, complete their academic program.
The
remainder of this section presents the findings from the alumni survey.
Top
Profile
of Alumni Survey Respondents
We
begin our discussion of alumni survey findings with a description of the
respondents and a comparison of alumni respondents with all
respondents (n=256) to the student survey.
As
noted in the student survey report, little demographic data of nonprofit
management students – or alumni – is aggregated across multiple
institutions. The data gathered
from the alumni survey are not representative of all nonprofit management alumni
or nonprofit management academic programs and, therefore, should not be
generalized beyond this study. This
profile does, however, present a snapshot of nonprofit management alumni not
available elsewhere.
We
asked alumni their sex, age, race, educational background, about their current
and past employment, and about their program. Our findings show:
- Sex: Most
of the alumni survey respondents were female (81%).
This split is very similar to that of the student survey (n=256)
where 80 percent of respondents were female.
- Age:
Alumni ages were distributed somewhat equally across three age
categories: early career
students (36% between 18-29), mid-career students (32% between 30-39 years
of age), and later-career students (32% age 40 and older).
Alumni age distribution closely mirrored student age distribution.
- Race/Ethnic
Group:
Alumni respondents were predominantly white/Caucasian (85%) followed
by African-American (6%); Asian Pacific Islanders (2%); Hispanic (2%);
Chicano-Mexican American (2%); Other (2%) and Native American (1%).
For analytical purposes, we combined all minority respondents in an
“alumni of color” category. Thus,
in this report we will looked for differences between white/Caucasian (85%)
alumni and alumni of color (15%). Race/ethnicity
of student survey respondents was nearly identical to these proportions.
- Education:
As stated earlier, about half (47%) of the alumni respondents had
graduated from their program, another 24 percent would complete their degree
within one term, and 16 percent were halfway through their program.
Nine percent were not currently enrolled but planned to finish their
degree and only four percent had chosen not to complete their program.
One-third of the alumni respondents (34%) had been or were enrolled
in a nonprofit or philanthropy program (MNO), 42 percent had been or were
enrolled in a graduate degree (e.g., MBA, MPA, MSW) with a concentration in
nonprofit management, 24 percent were or had been enrolled in a certificate
program, and six percent had been or were in other types of programs.
These latter proportions are similar to those of the student survey
findings.
- Employment:
Nearly all alumni (99%)
had been employed prior to enrolling in their academic program and most had
been employed full-time (84%). At
the time they completed the alumni survey, only eight respondents (5%) were
not employed, and only two of the eight unemployed respondents indicated
they were seeking employment. Most
alumni respondents were employed in the nonprofit sector (64%), with far
fewer being employed by a government agency (13%) or a for-profit
organization (7%). Nine percent
of the alumni respondents were students or interns and three percent were
self-employed. Overall, alumni
had similar employment patterns to student survey respondents though a
smaller percentage of alumni respondents were associated with for-profit
organizations.
Respondents
to the alumni survey closely mirror the socio-demographic profile of all
respondents to the student survey. Alumni
respondents are likely to be white/Caucasian women who were employed full time
(most likely in a nonprofit organization) and who had just completed (or were
about to complete) their nonprofit affiliated academic program.
Index
Top To Alumni Survey Part 2
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