Accountability, Ethics, Evaluation, and Governance in Nonprofit Management Education: Trends and Treatment

Abstract

As the scope and influence of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have increased in recent decades, so has demand for the professional management of such organizations. Specialized, graduate-level education in nonprofit management is an outgrowth of this demand. With the environments, financial profiles, and intersectoral partnerships of NPOs becoming increasingly complex, nonprofit accountability, ethics, evaluation, and good governance have emerged as target areas for improving nonprofit management. Despite this targeted interest, how such topics are treated in the curricula of professional management training programs is virtually unexplored. Building on the work of O’Neill (1998), Mirabella and Wish (2001, 1999, 1998), and Wish and Mirabella (2000, 1998) on general trends in graduate nonprofit management education, this article explores the extent to which and how nonprofit accountability, ethics, evaluation, and governance are currently being addressed in U.S. nonprofit management education programs. The paper reports on findings from a survey of 153 colleges and universities and the analysis of documents including syllabi and course descriptions. Curricular inclusion of these topics is found to be associated with some institutional characteristics of the degree programs in which nonprofit management education is offered, including disciplinary setting and degree of specialization in nonprofit management.