Earning Criteria

• Workshop #1 - StrengthsFinders 2.0 - Participants learn the value of a strengths and asset-based approached - versus a deficit-based approach - when building themselves, their teams, their organizations, and their communities. Using the CliftonStrengths assessment, participants discover their own unique strengths and explore how those strengths serve them and others.
• Workshop #2 - Strengths-Based Leadership - Participants explore the full range of 34 strength themes, how those strengths fit into 5 leadership areas, and the advantages of having a full range of strengths on your team.
• Workshop #3 - Boards and Governance - What unique characteristics define a non-profit? What is the role and responsibility of the board? Who should serve on a board and how can one prepare for board service? What is the role of an executive director vis-a-vis the board and how can you build and manage an effective board? This introduction to boards and governance explores these and other issues.
• Workshop #4 - Nonprofit Finance - This workshop focuses on the unique financial and reporting requirements that govern nonprofits. Participants learn how to use Guidestar, how to read and interpret 990s, and how to run ratios to monitor their nonprofit's financial health.
• Workshop #5 - Development and Fundraising - This workshop introduces participants to the importance of developing a strategic fundraising plan, review the various forms of fundraising and their respective return on investment, and drive home the importance of donor mining, management, and retention.
• Workshop #6 - Marketing and Communications - Participants learn how to identify their audiences, develop a strategic marketing plan, use multiple mediums, build a brand, and tell the story of your organization in order to drive growth and engage clients, donors, and volunteers.
• Workshop #7 - Human Resources through an Equity Lens - This workshop focuses on the fundamentals of HR function with a particular eye toward the recruitment, on-boarding, retention, and succession of a vibrant and diverse workforce.
• Workshop #8 - Managing Yourself, People, and Projects - This workshop is filled with tools, tips, and technologies for organizing yourself, your teams, and your projects for greatest impact.
• Workshop #9 - Motivating Your Team: Driving and Measuring Impact - Participants learn the art and science behind building and developing teams to realize their greatest potential and impact. Emphasis is placed on understanding your role as a leader based on your team's experience, capability and performance.
• Workshop #10 - Effective Workplace Communication: Getting and Giving Feedback - Participants assess their communication style and practice how they can more effectively communicate with their teams. Focus is placed on offer feedback to, and requesting feedback from, subordinates, colleagues, and supervisors.
• Workshop #11 - Collaboration and Partnership - This workshop examines the range of partnerships and collaboration, why an organization might benefit from such arrangements, the pitfalls of the partnership process, the need to identify and engage a broad range of stakeholders, and the potential for collective impact models to lead to systems change.
• Workshop #12 - Change Management - Significant change is not possible unless all stakeholders are engaged in the process. This workshop uses John Kotter's fable, "Our Iceberg is Melting," to examine the many roles leaders, staff, and community members play in advancing, or stalling, organizational change, and the importance of developing a coherent, clear, and persuasive rationale, vision, and strategy that brings everyone along in the process.
• Workshop #13 - Analyzing Systemic Power in the Nonprofit Sector - This workshop invites participants to consider the role of nonprofits in the United States and the systems that nonprofits wittingly and unwittingly support, benefit from, and perpetuate including systemic oppression and racism. The session touchs on the nature of charity and philanthropy, the "nonprofit industrial complex," and the need for systems change.
• Workshop #14 - Crucial Conversations about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - This workshop focuses on anti-racism and healing justice. Participants explore their own biases, develop awareness of organizational practices, and find the voice to be powerful proponent of anti-racism in their workplaces and communities.
• Workshop #15 - Path to Executive Director - This final workshop gives participants an opportunity to explore the rewards and challenges of nonprofit leadership with mentors in the field and consider their own career goals and trajectory.