"With these trends, there's a real need to train and educate nonprofit leadership," Jeanan Yasiri said.

As executive director of the new, privately funded Center for Nonprofits on the UW-Madison campus, Yasiri and faculty director Shepherd Zeldin are creating undergraduate majors and doctorates in nonprofit studies — something Yasiri said are rare.

The center, which is housed in the UW-Madison's School of Human Ecology, are also seeking private funds for summer boot camps to train for-profit executives who want to make a career switch into the nonprofit world but aren't looking to get a degree.

"We already know we'll have more students than we'll be able to serve," Yasiri said. "And we have a lot of baby boomers who spent 25 years in corporate America or government who may be retiring, may be pushed out or may be concluding that they want to spend the rest of their life in meaningful service."

Jane Nemke, 55, wishes such a boot camp had existed last summer when she left her 20-year career in marketing and business development to become the executive director of the Exchange Center, a Dane County nonprofit focused on teaching positive parenting skills.

"You have to be a bit cause-driven and you're going to take a cut in pay ... but it's truly the point I was at in my life," Nemke said. "I want to do something that matters."

At the Exchange Center, Nemke put her business skills to work, streamlining, automating and improving systems — but there is plenty she is learning on the job.

For nonprofits, high demand for services does not equate to financial success. In fact, it often causes more fiscal pressure. There are many more stakeholders that need to be consulted, and grant requirements can define and shape service delivery. Equipment such as software or computers may not be as up-to-date.

Even the vocabulary — including long lists of acronyms — was new.

"If there had been a boot camp, that would have been very helpful," Nemke said. "The nonprofit world is more complex than you might think."

Wisconsin is 15th among states in its number of nonprofits (around 33,000), and the sector is the state's fifth-largest employer, according to JoAnn Stormer, head of the Wisconsin Nonprofit Association. United Way estimates that Dane County is now home to around 1,000 nonprofits in the social-service realm and more than 3,000 total.

While all businesses fret about baby boomers retiring, the repercussions are more severe among nonprofits.

"The depth or number of staff to bring up to leadership positions isn't there. In a large business you have middle management, but we don't necessarily have that," Stormer said. "Like a ball team, if you have nine players on the field and two on the bench, you don't have a lot of backup."

Simply by existing, the Center for Nonprofits may draw students to nonprofit leadership, said Steven Skolaski, president of the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation, which has provided funding for the center. "This makes them aware that there is a career out there in nonprofits."

Its doctoral students could also help local nonprofits with research, said Kathy Martinson, United Way of Dane County's director of community building. "It professionalizes the nonprofit sector by having a degree program," Martinson said. "There's a lot that isn't known or studied about the nonprofit sector."

After years working for large medical groups, Tom Ludwig, 50, was not seeking a career in nonprofits. Then he was drawn to a job as clinical operations officer at the nonprofit Access Community Health Centers. At this new job, he was immediately struck by the passion people had for their mission but said he is still learning how to negotiate the external environment of funding and grant sources. And every day at work is now different.

"I've had to be a jack-of-all-trades," Ludwig said. "I can go from signing large purchase orders to plunging toilets."