Critical Issues in Nonprofit Management: Strategic Collaboration

Catalog description

Over the last quarter-century, the nonprofit, independent, or social sector—also often dubbed the “third sector” in juxtaposition to government and business—has become an ever-greater presence in nations all across the globe. In tandem, nonprofit management, and the role of local, regional, national, and transnational social entrepreneurs, has become internationally recognized as a critically vital field of study and practice. Coinciding with the rise of the “third sector,” it has become increasingly clear that leaders in all three sectors must work across three different types of boundaries: interpersonal boundaries, which involve relations with persons who differ from oneself demographically and in other ways; institutional boundaries, which involve working across government, nonprofit, and business organizations; and international boundaries, which involve both individual and institutional engagements that are carried on across national borders. This course focuses mainly on nonprofit management and the latest and best empirical research pertaining to the second stratum of boundary-spanning leadership: the theory, policy, and practice of cross-sector collaboration, what purposes collaboration may serve, and the steps involved in initiating, sustaining, and evolving collaborative enterprises and governance.