EMNA Electives

3 credits
This course provides managers of nonprofit organizations with the legal knowledge they need to ensure compliance with the laws and regulations governing business relationships. The course covers the main areas of the law affecting employment relationships including, among other topics, discrimination law, labor law, contract law, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. The course also explains the variety of legal resources available to management to guide them as they make employment-related decisions.

3 credits
Building on the principles learned in introductory accounting courses, this advanced accounting course applies accounting theory and principles in the nonprofit sector. The goal is to aid nonprofit managers in providing useful information to financial statement users and internal decision makers. The course also focuses on the importance of control measures to assure the reliability and accuracy of the financial records and to prevent loss due to mistakes or misconduct.

3 credits:
This course will prepare nonprofit managers to deal with conflicts at work; both their own and those of their employees. Managers can learn to manage conflict to prevent its possible destructive effects and promote its many potential benefits. Students will apply recent and classical theories to current samples and cases.

3 credits:
This course permits students to assess challenging issues and opportunities of the nonprofit sector from presentations by twelve nonprofit leaders, each with a unique involvement in at least one specialty area.

3 credits.
Management in Nonprofit Corporations presents a highly specialized and unique set of challenges. Although primarily a service sector, customers/stakeholders/financial
resources are often other than the direct recipients of service. This poses a unique challenge for how the organization is organized, staffed, positioned, and led to deliver both mission and market-relevant outcomes. In addition, due to new and emerging external pressures, nonprofits are being forced to consider new paradigms, which are increasingly more strategic and entrepreneurial, often resulting in conflict between traditional mission aspirations and current market realities. This course will explore the managerial skills and organizational strategies necessary for successful nonprofit organizations.

3 credits:
The overall purpose of this course is to introduce the general theory and practice of negotiation. The course is relevant to a broad spectrum of negotiation scenarios that might be faced by MNA leaders in their professional and in their personal lives. The course presupposes that we all engage in negotiations professionally and personally, and that we can all improve our knowledge of and skill in this important area of our lives. The skills you develop in this course are intended to complement the technical and diagnostic skills acquired in certain of your other courses in the MNA program (accounting, finance, etc.). A basic premise of the course is that while a nonprofit leader needs analytic skills to discover optimal solutions to the problems he or she faces, a broad array of negotiation skills is needed to get these solutions accepted and implemented. The course will allow students the opportunity to develop these skills experientially and to understand negotiation through the lens of useful analytical frameworks. In addition to readings on various approaches to and aspects of negotiation, we will place considerable emphasis on learning by engaging in role-playing in one-on-one negotiation exercises and debriefing those exercises. Students will be encouraged to conduct most of those role simulations via Skype or other web-conferencing technologies if at all possible—since a good deal of important information in actual negotiations is communicated non-verbally – and some of the role simulations by phone or email.

3 credits:
Corporate partnerships are so much more than financial transactions.
True partnerships leverage the assets of each partner. In the context of partnership, there is so much more you can ask of business…from program grants to cause marketing; from in-kind donations to pro bono services; from volunteers to board members and so much more. This course will focus on the art of corporate partnerships and how to position nonprofits to work with business to advance mission.

3 credits
This course teaches students to describe the difference between constructive and destructive conflict, analyze conflicts using a communication systems approach that recognizes the various elements that contribute to conflict, and design ways of influencing the elements of conflict systems to manage or resolve conflict. Students learn an individual style of dealing with conflict, most significant challenges to effectiveness when faced with conflict and ways to improve conflict outcomes.

3 credits
This course will analyze the multiple funding sources available to nonprofit organizations and develop the student’s capacity to understand how these varied sources can be used to fulfill the organization’s mission and carry out its programs.The course will analyze the restricted nature of such program revenue and the advantages of an organization raising additional unrestricted funds to fulfill and enhance its mission.

3 credits
The focus of this course is on the actions and styles of leaders and managers as they attempt to influence individual and group behavior. Whether operating in a profit or not-for-profit environment, a major goal of the course is a deeper appreciation of the dynamics present within the organization and individual workgroups. As technology doubles every decade, the course will also examine how leaders manage change and position their organizations to survive and prosper in the future.

3 credits
This course will explore the innovative concepts, practices, and strategies associated with “Social Entrepreneurship,” including its growing trend both domestically and internationally toward multiple definitions and widespread applications in both the nonprofit and for-profit settings. Students will be challenged to develop their own innovative ideas/opportunities in terms of a social venture plan, first exploring the idea’s feasibility, then creating a business plan that will “be ready for implementation” at the conclusion of the course. Topics covered throughout the course and in preparation for the business plan include developing a strategic vision/mission, exploring the competitive market/landscape, as well as creating business models, including management, legal and funding issues, and developing a SRO (Social Return on Investment) framework.

3 credits
This course is designed to provide an overview of outcome and performance measurement systems used by nonprofit agencies. Emphasis will be placed on understanding issues related to needs assessments, how outcomes are measured, and how needs assessment and outcome information is used for program creation, continuation and funding. Particular attention will be paid to creating an evaluative culture and carrying out evaluations as a professional in non-profit management.

3 credits
From both a nonprofit and corporate perspective, this course examines the promise, potential and pitfalls of corporate nonprofit partnerships. Through real world example – including interviews with nonprofit and corporate executives — the course will enable students to explore the multiple dimensions of corporate nonprofit partnerships, the thinking behind them, the principles that guide them, and, ultimately, a process for designing them. Through analysis of real world partnerships, class discussions and relevant projects, students will gain insight into these multidimensional opportunities that are more than a one way financial transaction.  In fact, the best of these partnerships are mutually beneficial with multiple components including strategic program grants, cause marketing, in kind donations, pro bono services, recruitment of volunteers and board members — all potentially leading to the advancement of nonprofit mission.