His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, the Governor General of Canada, was on hand on Aug. 22 to help kick off Carleton’s one-of-a-kind graduate program in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership (MPNL).
The program is designed to help current non-profit professionals enhance their skills and to produce the next generation of innovators in charities, social enterprises, philanthropic foundations and development offices, as well as the governments, financial institutions and businesses that interact with them.
Gonzalo Duarte said he had waited 20 years for a program like this.
Duarte said he was immediately attracted to the program because of its relevance to his career.
In 2001, he founded Compañeros Inc Nicaragua, a private social enterprise dedicated to professional leadership of international volunteer programs and community development projects. Compañeros Inc. has organized 1,000+ participant experiences and spent $1.3 million on close to 100 housing, water, education, placement and well-being projects involving 12,000 beneficiaries in vulnerable communities.
Melissa Gruber is the Advocacy and Communications Director for CARFAC, Canada’s association of visual artists. “Working for a small arts organization with a large mandate, I’ve had to make up a lot of things as I go. I’m hoping that this program will give me access to expertise to take my work to the next level.”
Bob Wyatt, executive director of the Muttart Foundation, has worked in the charitable sector for years and has just returned to school after 40 years. He decided to apply for the MPNL program to round out his academic qualifications which would allow him to teach at a more advanced level.
Adds Wyatt: “There are a number of potential “game-changing” events happening in and to the charitable sector, and that trend is likely to continue into the future. The ability to bring my new-found knowledge to those issues and being able to deal with them at both theoretical and practical levels would be a benefit to me, to The Muttart Foundation and to colleagues within the sector and government who are forced to deal with these issues.”
“I am excited to be part of this innovative new program,” says Emma Groia. “I chose this master’s because I believe it will give me the practical and professional skills necessary to jump start my career in Canada’s nonprofit sector.” Most recently, Groia worked for Save the Children UK where she focused on delivering new long term partnerships with major corporate donors.
Robyn Brophy says: “The MPNL program has given me the opportunity to continue to pursue my passion through both work and education. I hope to use this course as a stepping stone to further my work in positively impacting the lives of children in Canada.” Brophy has worked for a social enterprise that builds social capital in Edinburgh, Scotland, spent time as a Child and Family worker for a cognitive behavioural therapy program in Hamilton and worked as the Director of Camp Maple Leaf, a camp for underprivileged children. Currently, she is the Events Coordinator for the Children’s Aid Foundation in Toronto.
The MPNL master’s degree builds on Carleton’s strong foundation in the area of public policy and administration, while focusing on producing leaders who have the distinctive, sophisticated knowledge needed to effectively navigate non-profits through a rapidly changing environment.
After extensive research, Carleton found that there was a huge demand for a program like this. In 2010, Canada Advancing Philanthropy, a group of senior fundraising professionals from across Canada, had asked Canadian universities to submit proposals for a master’s program that might become the generally accepted credential for entry into upper levels of the field. The group endorsed Carleton’s proposal as its choice to provide Canada’s national program.
The program is offered by the School of Public Policy and Administration, the oldest school of public policy in Canada.
More information about the program, including registration information, is available on the website: carleton.ca/mpnl.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013 in News, Programs
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