University of Georgia Institute for Nonprofit Organizations : Academic Programs

The Master of Arts in Nonprofit Organizations is an advanced professional degree for those desiring careers as leaders of nonprofit organizations. The curriculum for this program includes core courses in key aspects of this field, supplemented by supervised internships and electives for specialization.

The primary objective of the Master of Arts in Nonprofit Organizations is to educate graduate students for careers in the nonprofit sector. To this end, the curriculum provides

Essential background knowledge of the scope, dynamics, and distinctiveness of the nonprofit sector.
Key skills in the administration and leadership of nonprofit organizations, such as working effectively with staff and volunteers, fund raising, program evaluation, and ethical judgment.
Practice and application in actual nonprofit organizations through internship opportunities.

The Master of Arts in Nonprofit Organizations provides students with an understanding of the nonprofit sector, skills to help them become more effective and productive in these organizations, and opportunities to apply and refine this learning through internships. The educational objective is to graduate students with the background, knowledge, skills, and experience not only to succeed in their careers in nonprofit organizations but also to become leaders in this sector of our nation.

For application information, click here.

The curriculum for the masters degree program includes an interdisciplinary set of courses on key aspects of nonprofit organizations, internships for field study and experience with selected applications problems and supervised research projects, and electives for specialization. Core courses include management of nonprofit organizations, legal environment of nonprofit corporations, managing and developing human resources--including staff and volunteers-- quantitative research and evaluation methods, fund raising and development, and ethics of nonprofit management. Internships will be developed in partnership with executives of nonprofit organizations in the north Georgia region.

Graduate students in the UGA Master of Arts program in Nonprofit Organizations will be expected to develop and demonstrate their mastery of content and skills through a variety of core courses, internships, electives, and supervised research projects. Monitoring progress will draw upon course performance, individual self-assessments, the views and reactions of others (students, faculty, professionals), and coded assessment instruments and exercises. The curriculum is designed to be completed over three semesters and one summer. This allows sufficient time to educate generalists in nonprofit organizations and at the same time permit some degree of further specialization (for example, in human resources management or financial management). Part-time students are welcome. The scope of the curriculum and the areas of emphasis reflect our discussions with faculty and managers of nonprofit organizations as well as comparative analyses of other leading universities' programs in this field.

Some courses are offered at the Gwinnett campus, though most are in Athens. For information about the Gwinnett campus, click here . For information about application to the UGA Graduate School, click here .

of the Institute is for graduate students in other majors who complete four of the core courses in the nonprofit curriculum. This certificate program will help meet the need for understanding the nonprofit organizations that provide employment for many graduates. The program consists of a minimum of four courses of 3 semester hours each, drawn from the core courses of the Master's degree curriculum of the Institute. In some cases, one of the courses toward the Certificate may come from a different field if the relationship to the nonprofit sector, issues, or management is clear. Students must be pursuing a graduate degree in some other college of UGA to apply for this certificate program.
Download the Request for Certificate in Nonprofit Organizations Form

Academics...Programs