Developmental contexts of nonprofit management education

Abstract

The 1980s and 1990s saw the beginning and rapid growth of nonprofit management education. Literature on this topic has focused principally on directly practical concerns such as rationale, curriculum, faculty, students, funding, alumni, and employer satisfaction and the best place for such programs within universities. Broadening that discussion, this article clarifies why nonprofit management education took the form it did and happened when it did by setting it within three contexts: professional education, management education, and the post–World War II growth of the nonprofit sector.