Curricular Content for Nonprofit Management Programs: The Student Perspective

Abstract

Nonprofit management courses appear in a wide range of graduate and certificate programs in the United States. The recent emergence of this academic field and the wide range of options for the institutional setting of nonprofit management programs have given rise to ongoing debates about these programs' content and focus. Recognizing that the student voice is often missing from these conversations about academic program development, we explored the perspectives of students enrolled in six U.S. nonprofit management programs on the relative importance of course topics typically included in nonprofit management curricula. Students rated as most important those course topics that are unique to the nonprofit sector and have an internal organization focus. Graduate students in nonprofit management programs and public administration programs with concentrations in nonprofit management express considerable agreement about the courses they see as important.

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