Mapping the Field of Nonprofit Management and Philanthropic Studies in Canada: Cross-Country Comparison of Curricular Offerings

Abstract

This paper provides the most comprehensive mapping to date of the current state of nonprofit management and philanthropic studies (NMPS) education programs in Canada. One of the more significant findings of this study is both the number and types of Canadian NMPS programs offered in the historically French-speaking province of Quebec, versus the predominantly English-speaking parts of the rest of Canada. We hypothesize that differences in the structure of civil society between English- and French-speaking parts of the country may have led to a differentiation in both the number and types of NMPS programs offered in the two regions. Canada is an apparent hybrid of the “welfare partnership” model found in many “continental European” countries, such as France, and the Anglo-Saxon model predominantly found in the United States, the United Kingdom, and some other members of the British Commonwealth. Given this hybridity, we compare the course offerings of French and English-speaking Canadian NMPS programs with those of other member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OCED) employing Esping-Anderson’s regime types as a comparative framework. This comparison reveals no strong correlations between these regime types and the nature of their NMPS curricular offerings. We follow this analysis with a more comprehensive comparison of American and Canadian NMPS education and offer a brief historical overview of the latter. We found significant differences in the NMPS education between these two countries, both qualitative and quantitative. Most significantly, a much larger proportion of Canadian post-secondary education institutions have programs that include at least some NMPS curricula, whereas there is a much larger proportion of programs in American institutions with NMPS as their primary focus. We then conclude by suggesting two potential paths of development lie ahead for Canadian NMPS programs: one follows the current status quo, dispersing programs among many programs and actors, the other sees the establishment of more centres specializing in NMPS education in a few select institutions, and also possible consolidation in programs for which it is a more peripheral concern.