Nonprofit Management Certificate. Learn How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs

OL 240: Online Certificate Program: A Certificate Program of 4, 8-Week Courses.

Current start dates are listed in the sidebar.

Expand on this nonprofit management certificate, Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs, through a live workshop.

Develop a Real Non Profit Project and learn how to Manage and Design Non Profit Programs with your own CSDi Coach and Mentor. Learn more about program fees and how to enroll here:
 Click Enroll Now in the OL 240 Design, Fund & Manage Nonprofit Programs Certificate Program
Nonprofit job skills you will learn:
Great Program Design = New Funding + Increased Services
Develop a winning, impact oriented project while learning to:
  • become your nonprofit’s go-to solution for community challenges
  • enjoy increased funding for your programs
  • increase online donations
  • grow, shine—and advance in your career
  • standout in an interview for a new job in the nonprofit world
  • get more done: less time—less stress
  • learn to manage projects
Who Should Join?
Advance your Career, Fund Nonprofit Organizations, Solve Challenges
The program is for non profit staff and job-seekers wanting to successfully solve community challenges, learn non profit program design and fund nonprofits. Participants have worked on programs as diverse as social services, community development, education, the environment, and social justice—and decided to enroll in the program because they were:
  • building skill sets & visibility for a new job or promotion
  • hoping to boost donor communications and donations
  • wanting to learn to develop projects that solve challenges
  • seeking time saving techniques for getting everything done
What you will Do:
Design your own Solution-Oriented Project & Attract Donors
The 4 courses in the program provide cutting-edge information on how to design and manage nonprofit programs, time-saving templates, training and expert consultancy—and lead you in developing a real project for your organization. You will:
  • use evidence-based activities for solving community challenges
  • write compelling project descriptions for increasing donations
  • boost online donations for nonprofits
  • facilitate meetings to connect with your beneficiaries and supporters
  • advance your career: design a real project for your nonprofit
  • present your project’s documentation during interviews for nonprofit jobs
  • download time-saving templates for getting more done at work
Each 8-week course costs $150.00 and begins monthly.
200 Organizations. We have had the pleasure of working with participants in our nonprofit training programs from over 200 nonprofit organizations in North America, Britain, Europe and Australia.
 
Nonprofit Program Management Certificate: Learn How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs. A Nonprofit Program Management Certificate of 4, 8-Week Online Courses for Non Profit Professionals.
A Nonprofit Management Certificate Program of 4, 8-Week Online Courses for Non Profit Professionals.
In 201 and 202 you will develop projects that fulfill your nonprofit goals and that have had community input as part of the process of developing a needs assessment. You will also develop a set of management and presentation documents—such as a budget, logframe and a fact sheet—for your donor communications.
In OL 203 and 204 you will research solutions to the special challenges in your project in order to refine your project’s activities. You will build impact into your project through continued community engagement. You will learn how to launch, manage and develop long-term sustainability in your project.
What Participants Say:
“I just want to take this opportunity to complement you on the practical ideas, knowledge and vast experience that you continue to share with us on each assignment. Many times your examples are the solution of choice for our community. I have been provided with constant support, practical solutions suitable for my project, feedback specific to our project submissions and unwavering encouragement.” Gillian Primus
 
“Thank you for all your effort in putting together a great program and all of the program resources. Thank you for everything – for making this possible, for your guidance, and for your continuous optimism and encouragement. I look forward to the opportunity to work with you again in the next session.” Wye Yee Yong.
 
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Links to the Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs:
 
Detailed Program and Course Information
Non Profit Professional Development.
If you work with a non profit on programs such as animal welfare, community development, the environment—or a food bank or homeless shelter—the Nonprofit Management Certificate Program 240 will help you develop sustainable, fundable, impact oriented projects.
 
Manage Non Profit Programs Skills Training.
Non profit organizational effectiveness in these kinds of programs can be limited by non profit staff’s poor access to mission-critical information and training. We deliver solutions by providing information, tools, time-saving templates, training and expert consultancy through blending direct communication, distance learning and e learning—and lead you in developing a real project for your organization.
 
Skills Needed for Nonprofit Jobs. In a survey that I conducted recently respondents voted the following areas where they felt the greatest need. You may face similar challenges:
  • Maybe you don’t have enough funding for all of the services you would like to provide
  • At times project impact has been low—and sustainability is elusive
  • Perhaps your staffing is low and you can’t find enough time to get everything done
  • Manage non profit programs: Sometimes projects can be difficult to manage—sometimes projects stall mid-term
  • It’s possible that your donor communications need to be improved and targeted for better donor engagement
 
Skills for Nonprofit Jobs. Projects that participants have developed through the Design and Fund Programs Certificate Program have included activities for the elderly, adaptation to climate change, alternative energy, bicycle paths, business skills training for immigrants, community development, conservation, elderly care facilities, financial literacy, formation of a farmer’s association, natural resource management, recycling, revitalization of an Iowa town, income generation, and vocational skills training.
 
“Tim and his online team are only an email away and based on my own experiences never failed to respond to my challenges, concerns, successes and queries. I know that my community members and I have benefited tremendously from our interaction with Tim and participation in the program. I do wish you continued success with your commitment and drive in providing excellent service, and valuable and practical knowledge.” Gillian Primus
 
Online Training for Nonprofit Staff. Although most participants in this non profit program are from North America or the U.K, we have had the pleasure of also working with non profit participants from: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
 
If you work on projects in developing nations OL 240 is not the best choice for you: OL 101—Designing and Funding International Development Projects is just the ticket.
 
Become the Solution
  1. Empower people in your communities to change their lives,
  2. develop impact-oriented projects from the ground-up,
  3. use proven methods that produce sustainable results,
  4. attract donors, and
  5. collaborate with course colleagues.
Real Projects in Real Communities. Our Distance Learning Courses are for staff from non profit and donor organizations—and people interested in the non profit world. They present an online field experience and lead participants in the process of developing empowered, sustainable communities. Online course participants learn to develop real projects in real communities.
 
What is a Community? Examples of communities could be:
  • urban agriculturalists
  • teenagers visiting a teen drop-in center
  • people visiting a food bank
  • recent immigrants learning to navigate a new country and a new culture
  • members of a town developing a trail system in an adjacent wilderness area
  • members of a small town in Nebraska in the process of revitalizing it
  • citizens trying to fund a community health center
  • local farmers forming a marketing association
  • young families in need of day care
Don’t have community access? No problem: we partner you with a fellow student who does.
 
Four Courses in the Design and Manage Non Profit Programs Certificate Program
Design and Manage Nonprofit Projects. In 201 and 202 you will develop projects that fulfill your nonprofit goals and that have had community input as part of the process of developing a needs assessment. You will also develop a set of management and presentation documents—such as a budget, logframe and a fact sheet—for your donor communications.
 
Sustainable Solutions. In OL 203 and 204 you will research solutions to the special challenges in your project in order to refine your project’s activities. You will build impact into your project through continued community engagement. You will learn how to launch, manage and develop long-term sustainability in your project.
 
Click on the course links below to see syllabi, course fees, and to enroll.
OL 201: Design and Manage Nonprofit Projects—From the Ground Up
Design, Fund & Manage Nonprofit Programs: Teacher and student in a middle school computer lab.
Nonprofit Online Certificate. The course will lead you through the development of a real project, in real time, and leave you with the practical tools to sustain it.
 
We are committed to results-based programs. You will learn to incorporate community-identified need into the design of your project and research project activities that have shown evidence of having worked at solving challenges.
You will use contemporary methods of developing sustainable, impact oriented projects. You will gain practical field experience using evidence-based activities by developing a real project in real-time.
OL 202: Design and Manage Nonprofit Programs—Planning for Impact
Design, Fund & Manage Nonprofit Programs staff member.
Embed impact into your project design with a powerful set of nonprofit management tools. Log frames, detailed budgets, timelines, a project description, compelling fact sheets, M&E plans, and outcome and impact statements. Learn steps to take now in preparation for painless project reporting later.
How to Fund a Nonprofit Organization. These tools will communicate to donors and stakeholders exactly what you are trying to accomplish and can be used for effective management of the project once funded.
OL 203: Design and Manage Nonprofit Programs—The Community Focus
Tim Magee meeting with community members during the Design, Fund & Manage Nonprofit Programs training workshop.
What are the clear definitions of the problem at the community level? What practical tools are available today for staff members to use in nonprofit program design? For practitioners who wish to begin working now at the community level to successfully solve the challenges that they face.
OL 204: Design and Manage Nonprofit Programs—Sustainable Implementation
Design, Fund & Manage Nonprofit Programs staff person visiting an elementary school classroom.
How do you best launch and manage nonprofit programs? The importance of community engagement and project co-management. Developing skill sets for your community to use in the project. Learning tools: monitoring & evaluation. Community empowerment through sustainability, follow-up & mentoring. In this course you will design and lead a capacity building workshop.
Nonprofit Staff Training. If one of the scenarios below applies to you, then this non profit training program is for you.
  • Are you considering a career change, a new job search, or vying for a promotion?
  • Would you like to boost your proposal writing & non profit project management skill sets to raise more funds?
  • Would you like to learn how to increase donations for nonprofits?
  • Would you like to learn more about designing nonprofit projects and implementing impact-oriented, non profit projects?
Tim Magee of Design, Fund & Manage Nonprofit Programs
Course Facilitation
The Nonprofit Management Certificate Program, Design and Manage Nonprofit Programs, will be led by Tim Magee, CSDi’s Executive Director, who has over 30 years experience in both working with nonprofits and leading nonprofit training programs. Mr. Magee is the author of A Field Guide to Community Based Adaptation published by Routledge, Oxford, England. Through this program Mr. Magee will give you dedicated help in:
  • Improving project design, management, impact and sustainability
  • Increase donations by creating better communication and engagement with donors
 
 
Nonprofit Certificate Online Program 240:
Online Nonprofit Management Training: Design and Manage Nonprofit Programs Syllabus
 
OL 201 Course Syllabus How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs
  • Week 1 Learn to navigate the course website, download the week’s documents, and form partnerships.
  • Week 2 & 3 Clearly identify the community that you hope to work with in the nonprofit needs assessment. Read the document on participatory needs assessments and conduct an informal assessment with a few community members to uncover a real challenge. List the needs identified and organize them into a clearly described nonprofit challenge that you are going to solve with your project design. We want this as real as possible.
  • Week 4 Develop a theory of how you plan to solve your new challenge, and research 3 solution-oriented activities that would fulfill the premise of your theory.
  • Week 5 Research one peer-reviewed paper for each of your three project activities and see if scientists have found evidence that your proposed activities have been effective in solving the challenge. Write a one paragraph summary of the papers’ findings.
  • Week 6
    1. Share your proposed project concept locally with colleagues to gain feedback and constructive criticism.
    2. Return to the community with your project concept and get their feedback and hopeful buy-in.
    3. Pick one of your evidence-based activities and write a simple one page guide on how a field staff person could implement it.
  • Week 7 Write a workshop lesson plan for introducing this activity into a community, and then make an illustrated, How-to card to give to community members.
  • Week 8
    1. Share your project with someone that you would like to sell it to: a donor, your boss, your professor, someone in the development/nonprofit world for feedback.
    2. Lay out your challenge, proposed solutions, and activities in a simple matrix (logistic framework) that I will supply. This will prepare you for the next course: OL 202 where you will transform your project into a set of management documents that can formally be presented to fund programs.
OL 202 Course Syllabus How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs

Week 1. We will take the project challenge, proposed solution, and activities that you developed in OL 201, and transform them into a simplified logframe.
Week 2.
1. The focus will be on outcomes and impact, how the current world of development sees them. We will see how we can use them to improve the logframe.
2. We will incorporate outcome and impact statements into the logframe, and begin adding indicators and means of verification in preparation for developing a monitoring and evaluation plan.
Week 3.  We will take the activity list from the logframe and create a budget, and then apply costs to each of the different activities.
Week 4. 
We will take our detailed budget and transform it into a visual timeline/schedule.
Week 5.
1. You will each write a compelling project fact sheet for presentation to donors that is no longer than 2 pages. This concise, quick-to-read document can present a focused message to a donor.
2. Make a list of 2 colleagues, 2 potential non profit partners, and two donors that you can share this working project proposal with. Make an appointment with 1 of them.
Week 6.
1. Share your project informally with a donor, your boss, your professor, someone in the development world for feedback. We will discuss why it is a good idea to visit a donor at this preliminary stage, and why you should wait on writing an actual proposal.
2. We will polish this family of documents by including the constructive feedback, and by making sure that the docs are absolutely parallel to each other. We will then carefully print them out and make an appointment with a donor to present your project.

OL 203 Course Syllabus How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs
Design, Fund & Manage Nonprofit Programs Clipboard Week 1: Design a Participatory Community Workshop to share information, collect local knowledge and to learn about community vulnerability, assets and traditional strategies; develop a Baseline Survey to better understand pressing local needs. Download and adapt a Workshop Lesson Plan.
Planet Earth illustration Week 2:  Community. Lead the participatory workshop. Present a range of potential community -based activities. Encourage feedback: What needs and perceptions did community members express? Start the buy-in process. Conduct the Baseline Survey.
Digging a vegetable garden bed Week 3: Project Refinement. Use the community feedback & baseline results to incorporate activities into your project designed to strengthen the community. Research scientifically-based best practices and solutions to the community’s special problems. Can these work alongside and/or support local strategies?
students in a classroom Week 4: Feedback and Ownership. Incorporate your refined strategies into your project logframe, budget and schedule. Return to the community for feedback on your design. Show how your strategies can work to solve their special challenges.
Image of a tree Week 5. Sustainability. Plan and organize a workshop to develop a community-based project team. Prepare a presentation that uses appropriate knowledge transfer techniques. Partner with experts in the specialties you intend to offer to the community.
a group of students Week 6. Leadership. Team Building Workshop. Develop a community-based planning and oversight committee – the community team that you will partner with. Examples could be a committee on activities for the elderly, alternative transportation, bicycle paths, business skills training for immigrants, community development, conservation, elderly care facilities, financial literacy, recycling, or youth employment.
OL 204 Course Syllabus How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs
A chart about community Week 1: Non Profit Project Management – the community perspective. Managing a project whose outcomes are projected in terms of decades needs to be carefully planned. If we play too large a role in the project process, it will make it more difficult for the community to take over when we leave.
students in a classroom Week 2: Engaging the community in project launch. If we’ve planned the project properly the community will think that this is their project and that we’re just there to provide the service they requested. We need to maintain that relationship in order to ensure that the community is fully engaged in the process.
harvesting in a vegetable garden Week 3: Skill Sets. Design a family of workshops on the solutions your community will use in the project.  The solution activities we select need to be able to be implemented by a broad range of people types.  These workshops will provide the community with all the information that they need to continue these activities for decades.
Nonprofit Management clipboard Week 4: Project Launch. Lead the participatory workshop and introduce the community based  skills designed to address the community expressed needs. Continue to  encourage community feedback to develop lessons learned and to continue building community ownership of the process.
a meeting of elders in a Guatemalan village Week 5. Learning tools: Monitoring and evaluation. In the last course we conducted a baseline survey. We now need to do two things: determine what information we’re looking for in order to evaluate short-term outputs and long-term impact, and manage the process of collecting this information.
image of two people shaking hands Week 6. Community Empowerment: Project hand-over. Our 3 years is up, our budget spent & it’s time to leave. Have we empowered the community to participate in outcome continuation at this point?  Have we worked with them to identify milestones that will allow them to stay on track? Can we provide follow-up without taking the project back? Have we introduced supporting partners where they can seek future technical support?
 
 
How to Enroll in the OL 240 Nonprofit Management Certificate Program: How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs
Two simple steps and you’re in!
Develop a Real Non Profit Project with your own CSDi Coach and Mentor while you learn about non profit program planning.
 Enroll Now in OL 201 Nonprofit Management: Designing Non Profit Projects and Funding Non Profit Programs Click Button-Red
It’s easy to enroll in our courses. There are only two things to do: pay the course fee and fill out the student information form.
 
This Nonprofit Management Certificate Program, How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs, is composed of four, 8-week courses. They are taken sequentially—since your project develops from one course to the next. Enroll in the courses one at a time: Start your Nonprofit Management Certificate Program with OL 201.
 
Each of the four courses is $150.00 and all four courses can be completed in 8 months.
 
Simply click on the “Enroll Now” button to pay the course fee.
 
Then, fill out the Student Information form at the bottom of the enrollment page to complete enrollment.
 
We will quickly send you a confirmation email. You will receive your login instructions for How to Design, Fund and Manage Nonprofit Programs on the Monday the course begins. Courses start at the beginning of each month. Exact start dates are in the right-hand column on the ‘Enroll Now’ page.
 
In the next course, the second course of the series, OL 202: Project Architecture: Planning for Impact, you will transform your project with the real nonprofit management tools of a logframe, a budget, and a fact sheet (letter of inquiry) into a project ready to formally present to a donor.
 
Non Profit Certificate Program. Your Non Profit Certificate or Non Profit Diploma. Course participants who successfully complete courses on time will receive a course certificate for each course and a diploma upon completing the entire sequence of 4 courses by email within 30 days of course completion.
 
The course leader, Tim Magee, Executive Director of the Center, has led hundreds of nonprofit staff through our online learning programs—and its sister International development Program. Certificates and diplomas through the non profit diploma program will be issued through the Center.
 
Each 8-week course is $150.00.
 
 
This CSDi training program is offered in 4 venues to best suit your needs:
If you have a question don’t hesitate to contact us.
 
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What Students Think:

“Thank you for all your effort in putting together a great program and all of the program resources. Thank you for everything – for making this possible, for your guidance, and for your continuous optimism and encouragement. I look forward to the opportunity to work with you again in the next session.” Wye Yee

“As you know, as a real beginner in designing non profit projects, without your project example templates I could never have written even a single word by myself.” Moise

“I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude for the knowledge addition to our careers and the time you take to correct our assignments. This has opened doors for us to venture into designing our own projects, and I’m very sure we shall never go POOR. You’ve indeed taught us how to FISH—not provided FISH.” Dianah

“This program was absolutely awesome! The course content, instruction, example projects, on-line resources and the most valuable – your timely guidance on the assignments were all perfectly done.” Boris

“I’m so excited with the whole experience this training has provided me. The interaction with the community, sharing their lives, their enthusiasm in participating and opening up to me – and with lots of hope in seeing me engage with them.” George

“This training program is an absolute cracker. After undertaking the course, I was able to relate and transform community need into a project idea that could attract donor funding. The exercise of transforming goals into a simple logical framework was particularly exhilarating and smooth. It was indeed an eye opener for me.” Perry

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