As the current or future executive director or senior leadership team member of a nonprofit organization, the pressures you deal with from day-to-day are enormous. Every day you are called upon to create and sustain an environment that enables your staff to renew their commitment and refine their skills.

But where do you, the executive director or senior management team member, go to renew your commitment and refine your skills? 

You wield your machete incessantly and cut through the jungle to move your organization forward. But without climbing a tree once in awhile to clearly see the direction you want to move in and to determine how you want to use your machete, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and to lose sight of what’s truly important to you and to the organization.

What if there was a way to systematically climb a tree with a diverse peer network of other nonprofit leaders who, like you, were willing to share their successes and challenges, discuss crucial skills areas and distill best practices for how to run a high-performance nonprofit organization?

Now there is. The Executive Certification Program in Nonprofit Leadership is a course in Transformational Nonprofit Leadership. In this interactive course you will learn ‘transactional’ skills such as how to manage your staff, how to cultivate donors, how to build your board of directors and how to create a strategic plan –
all through the lens of the transformational leader.

The transformational leader is able to build these key relationships in such a way that their constituents – donors, staff, board, clients – are motivated and inspired to put in 110% effort toward achieving the organizational mission, are willing to take risks and innovate, and are loyal and committed to a cause championed by a leader whom they trust and feel acts toward them with empathy and emotional intelligence.

The Executive Certification Program in Nonprofit Leadership (ECPNL) is an interactive and experiential program. The ECPNL is a unique opportunity available for current and future nonprofit leaders to discuss crucial skills areas with a diverse group of nonprofit leaders who will share their successes, challenges and insights into how to run an effective nonprofit organization.

The Executive Certification Program in Nonprofit Leadership offers both Strategic (Leadership) and Tactical (Skill-building) session topics (see ‘Class Schedule’ below). The ECPNL includes facilitated panels, break-out sessions, case studies, small group work, lectures and leadership circles. The ECPNL will culminate in a final strategy paper that you will write on a critical challenge your organization is currently facing and your suggested recommendations for organizational development.

To be held at George Washington University, the program offers eleven half-day classes over the course of one week that begin with a discussion of how the participants have applied the leadership strategies from the prior session in their organizations. In break-out sessions of four people, each participant also has the opportunity in rotation to discuss current organizational challenges with peers.

Social activities, an evening networking reception and a graduation lunch create a sense of community and build a foundation for ongoing learning, strategic alliances and leadership growth.