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Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership

 

Courses

 

The Haas School of Business is proud of its deep tradition of helping students develop the skills and knowledge necessary to lead in community and public life.

 

A robust series of courses prepares our students in nonprofit and public sector management, leadership, and social entrepreneurship. Topics extend from social impact and the value of networks to governance, organizational strategy and financial management.

 

A sampling of current course offerings is listed below.

 

For graduate students:

 

For undergraduate students:

 

Graduate Classes

 

 

Social Sector Solutions ("S-Cubed")

 

S3 for Social Enterprises - Offered with FSG and Dalberg (Fall)

EW/MBA 292S-1 Fall

 

Social Sector Solutions for Social Enterprises (S3SE) is a  partnership with Dalberg Global Development Advisors and FSG Social Impact Consultants.  S3SE is designed as a strategy consultation to help social enterprise clients achieve greater impact by addressing their most important strategic challenges with data and values-driven decision making support.  The course develops students’ skills in management consulting, problem solving, and project management, while increasing their knowledge of the unique entrepreneurial challenges of social ventures. Social ventures for the purposes of this course are enterprises (nonprofit, for-profit, hybrid) that seek to integrate their business model and their social impact. Instruction covers frameworks for project management, problem scoping, problem solving, storyline, client management, team effectiveness, and assessing financial and social impact models of social ventures. The course is built around 5 student consultation teams that work with local clients on a current issue vital to the leadership of that client.  An experienced FSG consultant coaches each student team. Students will be able to rank order their preferences for client assignments once accepted to the class. (Nora Silver and Joe Dougherty and Lalitha Vaidyanathan)

 

Click here for the course webpage

Download S3SE Brochure

 

S3 for Nonprofit and Public Organizations - Offered with McKinsey & Co. (Spring)

EW/MBA 292S-1 Spring

 

The purpose of this course is to provide students with academic frameworks and practical hands-on experience in management consulting and consulting with nonprofit organizations. The course focuses on consultation teams working with select nonprofit clients to succeed in entrepreneurial ventures. The course is a partnership with McKinsey & Company, a world-renowned management consulting firm. Paul Jansen, McKinsey & Company Emeritus Director of the Global Philanthropy Practice co-teaches the class, and experienced McKinsey consultants coaching each of the student teams. (Nora Silver and Paul Jansen)

 

Click here for the course webpage
Download S3 Brochure

 


For more information, please contact Nora Silver, silver@haas.berkeley.edu.

 

 

Real World Impact Investing: The $100,000 Challenge

EW/MBA 292N-2 Fall

 

This is a unique course in which Silicon Valley’s Echidna Giving, an LCC devoted to distributing philanthropic dollars to drive improvement in education in the developing world, will provide the class with $100,000 (real dollars). The challenge is to invest the money to generate significant social impact. Students are expected to study the issues and landscape, learn about the theory and practice of impact investing, assess best practices in investing and education, identify and analyze investment opportunities, present recommendations, and leverage the investment for maximum social impact. Working in small teams, the class will recommend investments to a juried panel. (Kim Wright-Violich)

 

 

Social Entrepreneurship

MBA 292N-2 Spring (offered every even-numbered year)

 

This course explores how to utilize social entrepreneurship to generate social impact efficiently, effectively, and sustainably through two primary means: 1) organizational level growth and innovation and 2) catalyzing networks, requiring the mobilization of a vast array of actors and resources across organization and sector boundaries, and having the potential to generate rapid and sustained social impact. Case topics include social entrepreneurship in climate change/energy, microfinance, health, and international development. (Jane Wei-Skillern and Jennifer Walske)

 

 

Strategic Approaches for Global Social Impact

MBA 292N-2 Spring (offered every odd-numbered year)

 

The role of strategic thinking in order to achieve social impact is becoming increasingly critical: how to design effective solutions to the world's most pressing problems; how to ensure demand-driven sustainability; and how to measure the social return on investment? Entrepreneurs, venture capital funds, NGOs, foundations and corporations are all increasingly turning to business-driven approaches to achieve their social impact objectives. In that context, this course aims to (i) help students understand the analytical and strategic questions underlying important issues in global health, economic development, education and post-conflict recovery; (ii) develop and examine effective (and whenever appropriate, market-based) solutions to these issues, with an eye towards replicability, scalability, sustainability, and catalytic effect. The course will be project-focused, with teams selecting an issue of interest, developing a rigorous business case for their approach, and working with field experts to stress-test their ideas. (Shashi Buluswar)

 

 

Strategic Management of Nonprofit Organizations

EW/MBA 292A-1 Fall


This course introduces students to strategic leadership issues in the nonprofit sector. The course covers key issues in founding, leading, managing, and governing nonprofit organizations and new nonprofit ventures. Major topics include: mission and theory of change, governance and accountability, strategy and strategic planning, nonprofit financial management, resource development, alliances and networks, capacity building, impact and leadership. (Colin Boyle)

 

 

Nonprofit Boards: Governance and Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations

EW/MBA 292B-1 Fall, Spring

 

This course examines the roles and responsibilities of members of nonprofit boards of directors. Generally, they establish strategic direction, raise money, and exercise financial oversight. Students will identify and develop the leadership and management skills necessary to be an effective board member. Using board assessment instruments and self-assessment activities, the class will seek to determine "fit" between different types of boards and class participants. (Lynne LaMarca Heinrich, Fall; Paul Jansen, Spring)

 

 

Financial Management of Nonprofit Organizations

EW/MBA 292-F Spring

 

In order to be an effective leader in the nonprofit field, one must have a solid grounding in financial management. This course is designed to develop the core financial management skills needed by board members and seniors managers in large and small organizations. Students will learn the tools and techniques for effective planning and budgeting as well as how to control, evaluate and revise plans. The course will address current regulations and issues that impact nonprofit financial management. The use and development of internal and external financial reports will be studied with an emphasis on using financial information in decision-making. Tools and techniques of financial statement analysis, interpretation and presentation will be discussed and practiced. (Brent Copen)

 

 

Social Impact Speaker Series

MBA 294 Fall

 

This Speaker Series is designed to introduce students to the many forms and industries in which social impact is central. The purpose of the course is to allow students to learn about trends and innovations across sectors and in diverse industries, all focused on social impact. (Haas Net Impact Club & Nora Silver)

 

Undergraduate Classes

 

Cal Strategic Philanthropy: Real Money, Real Impact

UGBA 192N (undergraduate) Spring

 

Based on an award‐winning curriculum developed by UC Berkeley undergraduates (Bears Breaking Boundaries Innovation Award 2009), the course teaches participants how to be effective philanthropists. The class contributes $10,000 to nonprofit(s) selected by the class. To prepare for the contribution, students engage in interactive exercises and discussions to determine how to best expend the funds for maximum impact, guided by the instructors and renowned guests offering a variety of perspectives and frameworks. Students form teams to research and indentify, perform due diligence, and recommend nonprofit organizations. The $10,000 contribution is a generous gift of the Learning by Giving Foundation. A second component of the course is the class’s creation of a symposium on effective philanthropy for the broader UC Berkeley undergraduate community. (Colin Lacon and Kim Wright-Violich)

 

Click here for the class webpage.

 

 

Social Enterprise & Entrepreneurship

UGBA 192N (undergraduate) Fall

 

This course explores the idea and practice of social entrepreneurship, an emerging field where business models are increasingly being used to address important unmet social and environmental needs. The course exposes students to the growing breadth and depth of activity in the global social enterprise movement, where innovators are developing a new frontier of hybrid organizations that combine nonprofit motives and business methods. Course content examines the context and foundation for social entrepreneurship and explores the opportunity for social enterprise solutions in a number of areas, including healthcare, finance, education, technology, international development, and workforce development. Course design integrates instructor lecture, articles/cases/other reading materials, class discussion, guest speakers, and group projects where students develop a social enterprise business plan. (Jim Schorr)

 

 

Leading and Managing Nonprofit Organizations

UGBA 192A (undergraduate) Spring

 

The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the basic business workings of nonprofit organizations—the economic, social and political environment in which they operate, strengths, opportunities, and challenges within the nonprofit sector, and major functional areas, jobs, and volunteer opportunities in nonprofit organizations. This course introduces students to the major functional areas of non‐profit organizations and emerging research about strategies and practices of high‐performing non‐profit organizations. (Ben Mangan)

 

 

Strategic Management in the Global Social Sector

UGBA 196.2 (undergraduate) Fall

 

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the managerial challenges of the NGO (nongovernmental) sector working in international, economic and social development. The course will arm students with a set of practical skills and tools with which to strategically manage, analyze and help solve critical problems in the global social sector. The course will help students understand careers options by introducing them to some of the most interesting organizations in the field, how they work, and how they approach their important strategic challenges. (Shashi Buluswar)

 

 

Microfinance Decal

(undergraduate) Fall

 

Students gain a broad, objective overview of the field, including the history and context, successes and failures, and key domestic and international players. The course is a mixture of guest speakers, lectures, and media. (Student leaders)

 

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