Kellogg grant

For more information, contact Judith Bailey, 216-368-4442 or jcb4@po.cwru.edu.

Posted 8-4-98

$800,000 grant to CWRU'S Mandel Center will expand services

CLEVELAND--An $800,000 grant to the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University will enable the center to provide more assistance to area nonprofit organizations and to develop several new programs aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of nonprofit managers, staff, and board members.

The four-year grant is part of a $12.5 million nationwide initiative by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation entitled "Building Bridges Between Practice and Knowledge in Nonprofit Management Education." The initiative's goal is to strengthen connections between nonprofit organizations and higher education.

"The lion's share of our funding goes to community services, including an expansion of our Nonprofit Management and Governance Clinic," said John Palmer Smith, Mandel Center executive director. "It will enable us to offer more hands-on assistance to nonprofit organizations to help them deal with important issues such as strategic planning, marketing, and governance."

The center is inviting local nonprofit leaders to serve on an advisory committee to help plan the clinic expansion and other new community service initiatives the grant provides for. These include:

Nonprofit Leadership Roundtables in which nonprofit leaders and others can address issues of emerging importance to the nonprofit sector, such as devolution, managed care, welfare reform, accountability, and nonprofit advocacy.
A feasibility study for a proposed Nonprofit Leadership Ohio program, similar to Leadership Cleveland, which develops leadership resources within the community. The proposed program would provide nonprofit organizations statewide with opportunities to advance their leadership capacity.
A feasibility study to explore the need for a Nonprofit Trustee Certification Program that would prepare nonprofit trustees for their leadership responsibilities.

"To our knowledge, there is no academic program such as this in the United States today," Smith said. "The proposed certification program responds to concerns expressed by nonprofit executives both here and nationally to increase accountability of lay leaders, address the growing competition for good volunteer leaders, and provide growth and development activities for them."

John Yankey, director of community services at the Mandel Center, said that planning for these initiatives includes a series of focus groups with nonprofit managers, trustees, and others to assess needs and preferences. "We're basically in an information gathering mode, which will continue through the end of the year," he observed.

Expansion of the nonprofit clinic's operations and launching of the new community service initiatives are expected to take place in 1999, starting with the leadership roundtables. If Nonprofit Leadership Ohio is deemed feasible, it would likely begin with a pilot program in Cleveland, according to Yankey. A decision on whether to develop the Trusteeship Certification Program should be made by early in the year, he noted, and a pilot program could get under way by the end of 1999.

Mandel Center officials say potential partners on the various community service initiatives include the Business Volunteerism Council, United Way Services, the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations, and the National Center for Nonprofit Boards.

In addition to the community service projects, the Kellogg grant will fund an expansion of the center's Working Paper Series, which encourages research and scholarship, and allow for a comprehensive review of the curriculum of the master's and certificate of nonprofit management programs. The center will also study the feasibility of developing an undergraduate concentration and doctoral level studies in nonprofit leadership and management.

Founded in 1985, the Mandel Center is a University-wide academic center sponsored by the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, the Weatherhead School of Management, the School of Law, and the College of Arts and Sciences. Darlyne Bailey, dean of the Mandel School and chair of the Mandel Center's governing secretariat, said that she and the deans of the other sponsoring schools commend the Kellogg Foundation for its continuing support of the nonprofit sector. "Now, more than ever, we all need to actively support our nonprofits," she said. "The Mandel Center is an exemplar of how to do this well."

The Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations. Its programming activities center around the common visions of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy communities.

To achieve the greatest impact, the foundation targets its grants toward specific focal points or areas. These include: health; food systems and rural development; youth and education, and higher education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. When woven throughout these areas, funding also is provided for leadership; information systems/technology; efforts to capitalize on diversity; and the family, neighborhood, and community development programming. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and southern Africa.

-CWRU-

Founded in 1985, CWRU's Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations is a University-wide academic center sponsored by the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, the Weatherhead School of Management, the School of Law, and the College of Arts and Sciences. A national resource for education and research on the management of nonprofits, the Mandel Center offers the Master of Nonprofit Organizations (M.N.O.) degree, a Certificate in Nonprofit Management, and executive education programs designed for client needs. The center sponsors national research conferences, a Distinguished Public Lecture Series, a newsletter and the quarterly journal, Nonprofit Management and Leadership.