4 F A L L 2 0 0 8 • C O L U M N S
Certificate in Nonprofit Management
In May 2008, the 16 students who were the first to complete the
Certificate in Nonprofit Management were honored at a ceremony in
Charlottesville. They are employed at a variety of organizations, from
ARC of the Piedmont to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. “I was a
classical musician thinking about getting more involved in arts admin-
istration,” says Adrienne Wager, an arts development officer at U.Va.
“The exposure I gained through the certificate program led me to
fundraising.”
To earn the certificate, participants must complete 35 contact hours
from a menu of noncredit courses. “We surveyed local nonprofit lead-
ers to find out what issues would be valuable to them, and we consult-
ed with our counterparts at Piedmont Virginia Community College
and the Charlottesville-based Center for Nonprofit Excellence to find
out how our three organizations could work together,” notes Kessler.
The result of these deliberations is a slate of day-long and half-day
courses that include such topics as successful grant writing strategies,
organizing a capital campaign, managing volunteers, and strategic
planning. SCPS also offers a number of courses designed specifically
to reinforce the skills of nonprofit board members, an area identified
from the surveys.
In good economic times, the certificate programs offered by the
School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) can make
the difference between a dead-end job and a rewarding one. These
hard-hitting programs give individuals the knowledge they need to
change careers, to qualify for a promotion, to prepare for profession-
al accreditation, or earn credits for graduate school.
Students like them because they are affordable, they take less time
to complete than a full-fledged degree, and they are practical.
Knowledge gained in the classroom can be put to use the very next
day.
When times are bad, SCPS certificate programs take on added
value. For individuals they can provide the crucial margin be