Community members in the morning session listen to tips about non profit management (top left).  Strategic planning information is being reviewed by Joan DeMerchant, translated by Hugo (top right). One of eleven members of the MPA class take notes about getting volunteers (bottom left).  Summer Evans teachers the class the importance of giving credit to volunteers (bottom middle).  Mauro Muller (far left) and others learns the value of strategic planning, mission, vision, and values (bottom right).

3/8/06

By Al'Lavee Miller

The nonprofit management class, known by the locals as non- governmental organization, is a course about learning how to run organizations well.  The class is taught by a rotating staff of Master's of Public Administration faculty and students: Joan DeMerchant, Summer Evans, Richard Eley, Kourtney Woodbury, and Janaina Prado.  DeMerchant is a adjunct professor at Park University.  Besides teaching, she is a consultant for nonprofit organizations.  This class allows her to teach her profession.  Two sessions are taught a day.  They have roughly eleven students in the morning and five students in the afternoon.  The class has also learned the importance of volunteers, laying a foundation for running an organization well, and strategic planning.

"It's extremely important for them as a nonprofit to survive, and to function effectively and efficiently," says Evans.