Center for Nonprofits aims to educate philanthropists

By James Edward Mills

When it comes to philanthropy, the business and nonprofit sectors both have a lot to learn. Renee Moe, vice president of resource development at United Way of Dane County, said each could benefit from a better understanding of the other.

"Nonprofits are focused on serving the needs of their clients," Moe said. " We have a lot of small organizations that don't always have the time or the budget to acquire the professional development skills and core competencies that most businesses take for granted."

And businesses as well as private foundations, she said, could stand a few pointers on providing for the less fortunate. "They're not necessarily equipped," Moe said, "to know how best to support the charitable organizations that are important to them."

Agencies like the United Way do what they can to bring the skill sets of nonprofits, businesses and government agencies together in order to do the good work of community service. But charity organizers say that these sectors, each with its own interests and priorities, sometimes fail to connect with one another on areas beyond the scope of their expertise.

Fortunately, a new organization has been formed in the Capital Region to help these groups work together. The University of Wisconsin Center for Nonprofits aims to provide academic resources that will bridge the gaps between institutions that share the common goal of a civil society. Executive director Jeanan Yasiri said the center would offer education, research and community networking opportunities to improve the overall effectiveness of nonprofit organizations and the institutions that support them.

"Our center is looking to create a professional development curriculum in the nonprofit sector," Yasiri said. "We plan to take the research and scholarly activity that we do in the center and identify how we can make it useful to those in the nonprofit sector, which would include philanthropists, business people, government agencies, people who are stewards of the sector."

Housed in the School of Human Ecology, the Center for Nonprofits will offer both an undergraduate and a graduate degree program. Drawing upon the expertise of scholars from many academic disciplines across the UW campus, the center will offer professional training the goes well beyond that of an MBA.

"The reality is the nonprofit sector is different. And managing it and the organizations within it requires a whole other level of understanding," Yasiri said. "A lot of times it requires a very deep understanding of social issues, sometimes environmental issues, sometimes human, family development or youth issues. It also requires an understanding of community leadership and collaboration."

This careful study of the nonprofit sector, Yasiri said, will enable the center to amass and disseminate information useful to charitable fundraising professionals.

Sound investment

The UW Center for Nonprofits was made possible by a grant from the Rennebohm Foundation. Trustee Mary Gulbrandsen said she considers the contribution a sound investment in helping charitable organizations to serve their communities.

"As those not-for-profits fulfill their mission and add value to those communities, I think they have an obligation to respond to donors, to be accountable and transparent to the community that they're serving," Gulbrandsen said. "I think that by studying and by teaching in this field, people become better, more efficient and responsive to the community and to their donors."

The main goal of the center is to raise the profile of philanthropy as an important part of our society, said faculty director Professor Shepherd Zeldin. "What we're trying to get across is that the nonprofit sector is truly as vital to communities as the business for-profit sector and the public government sector," he said. "The three work hand in glove. And when each of those three sectors is strong, then that's when civil society is created as well as economic health."

The Center for Nonprofits aims to hire new faculty and recruit its first class for fall 2009.

Using an interdisciplinary approach, Zeldin said he intends to make the center a clearinghouse for information that will train the next generation of philanthropists who will work through all sectors of society. He hopes to bring together several undiscovered resources at the university and the community at large into a single course of study.

"It's in public administration. Some of it is in social work. Some of it is in cooperative extension. In the community it's also hidden," Zeldin said.

"Some of it is in the United Way. Some of it is in the Madison Community Foundation. A lot of it is in many organizations that exist right now. What we are committed to doing is to bring all those folks together to end of bringing strength to the nonprofit sector."

James Edward Mills is a Madison freelance writer.

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