Building Bridges Initiative Cluster Evaluation:
Nonprofit Management Alumni Survey Report
(Part 2 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 1

• Executive Summary

• Introduction

• The BBI Survey of Nonprofit Management Alumni

• Profile of Students

Part 3

• The Benefits of Nonprofit Management Education

• Table 4. Alumni Career changes

• Conclusion

• References

Alumni Assessment of Course Topics’ Importance

Central to the BBI cluster evaluation is assessing the extent to which nonprofit courses reflect the interests and needs of the practitioner.  In the student survey, we developed a comprehensive listing of course topics utilizing the research of Mirabella and Wish (that described nonprofit courses as having an internal vs. external focus) and the Guidelines by NACC and NASPAA (that identified courses as unique to nonprofits or general).  Just as we asked the respondents in the student survey, in the alumni survey we asked respondents to first assess the importance of each course topic for managing or leading a nonprofit organization.  We then asked them to indicate if, in retrospect, each course topic should receive more, the same, or less emphasis in an academic program. 

Table 1 presents alumni ratings of the importance of course topics commonly included in nonprofit management programs. On the rating scale, “1” is considered very important and “5” is not important.  Thus, the lower the mean score (M), the more important students perceive the topic.  This table also includes the percentage of alumni indicating that the course should have had more, the same, or less emphasis in their program.

Alumni rated fundraising and development (M=1.5), governance (M=1.5), strategic planning for nonprofits (M=1.6), budgeting and accounting (M=1.6), legal structure (M=1.6), and ethics and values (M=1.7) as the topics most important for managing and leading a nonprofit organization.  Other important topics included evaluation and accountability (M=1.9), proposal writing (M=1.9), policy making (M=2.1), and marketing (M=2.1).  Topics seen as less important include: diversity (culture, ethnicity) issues (M=2.5), information systems for nonprofits (M=2.5), history of the nonprofit sector (M=2.5), economics and market issues (M=2.6), quantitative analysis (M=2.8), and international organizations and issues (M=3.1).

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Table 1. Alumni Assessment of Nonprofit Management Course Topics

Course topics that rated highest in importance were also likely to be those that alumni wanted emphasized more in their program.  Most alumni wanted to see more emphasis placed on funding and development (51%), governance (46%), and proposal writing (51%).  Other course topics that at least one-third of alumni indicate should be more emphasized include marketing (44%), legal structure (39%), evaluation and accountability (39%), strategic planning (37%), and volunteer management (36%).  Between ten-twenty percent of respondents said that organizational theory, government-nonprofit relations, history of the sector, economic and market issues, quantitative analysis, and international issues should be less emphasized.

Comparing the responses of alumni at Time 1, the student survey, Time 2, the alumni survey, there is little movement in the relative ranking of courses (see Table 2).  The same five to six courses ranked highest or lowest at Time 1 were also ranked highest or lowest at Time 2.   In fact, of the 21 courses, only five changed more than two positions from Time 1 to Time 2.  Strategic planning, ranked first in mean score in the student survey, fell to the fourth place in the alumni survey.  The importance of policy making dropped from ninth to twelfth and advocacy dropped from eleventh to fourteenth.  In contrast, human resources moved from twelfth to ninth and organizational theory moved from sixteenth to thirteenth.  

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Table 2: Time 1 and Time 2 Mean Score Ranking of Course Topics

Note:  “*” indicates a mean score change was statistically significant at a£.05

Ranking courses by mean scores alone can, however, veil significant changes in means scores from Time 1 to Time 2.  That is, a single course may have the same or similar ranking at both time points but its mean score may have changed significantly.  Indeed, this is the case for several courses identified with an asterisk (*) in Table 2.  For example, the course topic of “governance” is rated as more important when respondents are alumni compared to when they were students.   What is important here is the general tendency for courses rated as having lower importance at Time 1 to receive an even lower score at Time 2.  Course topics on diversity issues, information systems for nonprofits, economic and market issues, quantitative analysis, and international organizations and issues were rated low at Time 1 and even lower at Time 2.  

We found few differences among alumni respondents when we compared them based on socio-demographic information.  One trend we noticed is that full-time students tended, overall, to rate course topics as more important than did part-time students.  That is, the mean score for each individual course topic tended to reflect a higher rating by full-time students than part-time students. In particular, full-time students ranked several courses as statistically more important than did part-time students: Government and nonprofit relations, management information systems in nonprofits, quantitative methods, evaluation and accountability, diversity, and advocacy in the public policy arena.  What might account for this trend?  It is reasonable to assume that full-time students spend more time in classrooms and may be more singly focused on academic work than part time students.  Thus, academic work may be more important to full-time students and so they tend to feel stronger about the importance of courses in general.  It is also likely that part-time students, nearly all of who are also working, are judging the importance of topics as applied to their day-to-day organizational sense-making.  Thus, part-time students may be more critical of the importance of course topics.

An analysis of course importance by type of alumni degree – nonprofit/ philanthropy master’s, graduate degree with a concentration in nonprofit management, or certificate – found very few differences.  In fact, the only differences that emerged were (1) alumni with nonprofit specific degree programs rate the history of the nonprofit sector as more important than alumni from other types of programs and (2) alumni from graduate degrees with a concentration in nonprofits (i.e., MPAs, MBAs) rate course on government-nonprofit relations as more important than alumni from other types of programs. 

Simply put, alumni – regardless of their degree type, the university they attended, their age, or how long they have worked – tend to value the same course topics and these topics typically focus on the internal day-to-day management of nonprofit organizations.  

Did program content, as expressed by course topics, match the needs and interests of those being served?

Alumni most valued courses that emphasized core internal management practices that are fairly unique to the nonprofit sector.  This is the same pattern we noted in the student survey report.  Most of the graduate programs affiliated with the Building Bridges Initiative offer courses on these topics and, thus, are likely meeting the academic interests and needs of nonprofit practitioners.   

Seen as less important by alumni are courses that emphasize technical skills such as management information systems and quantitative analysis.  Alumni also gave lower scores to course topics that focus on the issues shaping the nonprofit context – courses such as economics, history, diversity, and international issues.  Most academicians and nonprofit leaders would likely support the continued focus on external or theoretical/historical courses because they encourage practitioners to look beyond the management needs of today to better position organizations for tomorrow.  Perhaps the value of what could be considered less-applied courses will be more valued by alumni in future years. Nonetheless, faculty may need to show, through examples, the importance and practicality of externally and theoretically focused courses.

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Connecting Practice and Knowledge

A goal of the Building Bridges Initiative was to develop better and more bridges between practice and knowledge in nonprofit management education.  Perhaps the most important set of connections that can be made are among the university programs, the nonprofit communities (from which many of students come), and the students (many of whom are nonprofit practitioners).

In this survey, and in the student survey, we identified eight ways that university programs can connect with the community.  We call this set of activities linking characteristics.  This list was drawn from practices associated with many of the BBI programs:

• Connecting coursework to practice  

• Involving practitioners in the program

• Collaboration opportunities for nonprofit leaders and students

• Networking opportunities for students and alumni

• Links between the program and nonprofit organizations

• Connecting research to practice

• Placement services for students and alumni

We also identified a set of traditional characteristics that can be used to assess the quality of any graduate academic experience.  These traditional characteristics are:

• Currency of course content

• Instructional quality

• Scheduling of class times

• Relationships with other students

• Relationships with faculty

• Academic rigor of the program

• Quality of research experiences

• Faculty mentoring of students

We asked alumni to assess how satisfied they were with the linkage characteristics and traditional characteristics of their program.  Table 3 presents the mean score for each characteristic. We used a 5-point scale ranging from very satisfied (1) to very dissatisfied (5).  Thus, the lower the mean (M) for any single item, the more satisfied students are with that element.  The table also includes the percent of alumni who were satisfied (1 or 2) and not satisfied (4 or 5) with each characteristic.

Alumni indicated that, overall, they were satisfied with their programs (M=2.1).  Half of the alumni (52%) said they were satisfied and one-quarter (24%) indicated they were very satisfied.  Only 6 percent of alumni respondents indicated they were dissatisfied with the program overall. 

Alumni assessed the eight characteristics associated with the linkages between the academic program and the world of practice.  Each of these linking characteristics was rated lower than alumni overall satisfaction with the program.  The linking characteristics perceived as most favorable were the connection of coursework to practice (M=2.2/67% satisfied) and the involvement of practitioners in the program (M=2.3/59% satisfied).  Alumni seem less satisfied with collaboration opportunities for nonprofit leaders and students (M=2.6/44% satisfied), networking opportunities for students and alumni (M=2.6/48% satisfied), and links between the program and nonprofit organizations (M=2.7/48% satisfied).  Less than half of the respondents (42%) were satisfied with the connection of research to practice (M=2.7).  Alumni also indicated relatively low satisfaction with placement services (M=3.0/24% satisfied).

Alumni were somewhat more satisfied with the traditional academic characteristics of the program.  Alumni were most satisfied by the currency of course content (M=1.9/82% satisfied), scheduling of class time (M=2.1/74% satisfied), instructional quality (M=2.1/74% satisfied), their relationships with other students (M=2.1/68% satisfied), and their relationships with faculty (M=2.2/70% satisfied).  Alumni were somewhat less satisfied with the academic rigor of the program (M=2.4/60% satisfied), faculty mentoring (M=2.8/ 45%), and the quality of their research experiences (M=2.6/43% satisfied).

Over one-third of alumni were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (responded with a “3” on the 5 point-scale) with the following characteristics: placement services, quality of research experiences, and the connection of research to practice.  Perhaps alumni have had little exposure to these characteristics.  That is, alumni may not typically access placement services, may not have had research experiences, and may not have had an opportunity to connect research to practice.  What we may be measuring, then, is not a lack of satisfaction with an experience, but the lack of an experience.

Alumni responses to the linkage and traditional characteristics changed little from their student survey responses.  The rank ordering of these characteristics were stable: Characteristics respondents were satisfied with as alumni were those they also favored as students.

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Table 3. Alumni Satisfaction with Nonprofit Management Programs

In the student survey report, we found that when students evaluate potential academic programs, they value programs linked to the community, either directly or through courses or research. It seems, however, that these highly valued linkages need to be improved.

In the student survey report, we suggested that the linkage dimension is a recent and less conventional form of education and that faculty may be uncomfortable or unsure of how to operationalize linkages and, furthermore, that academic institutions may not highly value these linkages. We also suggested that students might be unfamiliar with these linkages and how to rate or value them. These rationales seem valid here, too.  Nonetheless, alumni and student responses point to a performance gap:  Academic staff need to improve the bridge between practice and research – between the university and the community.  

An analysis of alumni satisfaction to the linkage questions found few significant differences and no trends among responses based on age, sex, race, type of program, full- vs. part-time students, or work experience. 

How well do academic programs connect with the world of practice?

While there is room for improvement, alumni are satisfied with their academic experiences.  Alumni found course content current, instructional quality high, and coursework connected to practice.  It is reasonable to assume that alumni respond positively to these specific characteristics because they perceive and/or experience a bridge between academic activities and practice.  More active or involved programmatic linkages between practice and knowledge – such as collaborations between students and alumni, linkages between the program and nonprofit organizations, and connecting research to practice – could, according to alumni responses, be strengthened or improved. 

One of the most reflective measures of an academic program’s quality is to ask alumni if, in retrospect, they would attend the same college, enroll in the same program, and study the same topic. When we asked alumni these very questions, we found that the vast majority of alumni would attend the same college (87%), would enroll in the same degree (80%), and would study the same topic area (88%).  This finding further bolsters our perception that students are satisfied with their programs, especially with the college and the topic of study – nonprofits. 

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