Training to lead nonprofits

Members of “Gen Y” have sparked a surge in nonprofit management and leadership courses at colleges and universities around the country.

Last year, Arizona State created the first named undergraduate degree in nonprofit management. About 100 students are enrolled in the program, with the first graduates expected in 2011.

“We’re getting students that want to know at the end of the day that they’ve made the world a better place,” says Robert Ashcraft, the director of the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation at ASU. “They can’t imagine themselves in a cubicle in a corporation.”

ASU graduate students Korbi Adams and Jessica Brzuskiewicz are just two examples of the "Gen Y" surge in nonprofit environments.

“The community engagement stuff — it lit my fire,” says Adams. “I thought that was what I wanted to do: to combine arts and an outreach in nonprofit management.”

Brzuskiewicz is finishing an internship at the American Cancer Society in Portland, Ore. She has interviews lined up in the nonprofit and government sectors, but would prefer to stay in the nonprofit world, she says.

“Perhaps in our generation there has been a shift of values and that giving back, creating sustainable communities and just feeling good with your work are now what young people are looking for when they enter the work force,” Brzuskiewicz says.