Nonprofit Management Centers: Moving beyond the Periphery.

Nonprofit management centers, dedicated to teaching the management of nonprofit organizations have become a mechanism through which higher education can become more responsive to the communities it serves and move beyond the boundaries of academic departments. This paper examines how centers can become more permanent or sustainable parts of their institutions while maintaining their positive distinction of flexibility and responsiveness. This paper is based on published literature about academic centers and draws on interviews of center directors and staff from six nonprofit management centers. The focus is on institutional stability and academic credibility. The paper assumes that centers are seeking sustainability and it proposes how centers might become sustainable through attention to funding, organizational fit, and community connections. Not all centers will want to sustain themselves; some may wish to become integrated into other segments of the university. Academic stability is most likely to be achieved when the mission of the center is consistent with that of the university and remains stable over time, with strong faculty connections to the university as a whole. (Contains 10 references.) (SLD)