St.Petersburg, April 2000
table of contents
___________________________________________________________________________________
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. GENERAL Survey of the Third Sector in Russia
2. Program Concept
2.1. Training Programs Available
2.2. Major Characteristics of the NGO Management Diploma Program
2.3. Advantages of the Modular Principle of Organizing the Program
2.4. Draft of Curricula
2.5. Admittance to the Program.
3. Implementation plan
3. 1. Promotion of the Program
3. 2. Teaching Materials
3. 3. Library and Aid Equipment
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play an important role in creating an open and viable democratic society. Facing the challenges posed by the transition economy and society to this rapidly expanding sector, Russian NGO managers point out lack of managerial skills as their main problem in coping with these realities. The results of survey of NGO sector in Russia confirmed that there is a great interest in conceptual knowledge on management as science and profession. Existing short-term training programs and seminars can provide the participants with only rudimentary operational skills, rather than with fundamental practical and theoretical knowledge.
The Faculty of Management (FOM) of Saint-Petersburg State University was established in 1993 as an institution for professional management education in all three sectors of economy. The FOM has developed since 1995 a strong tradition of educating both undergraduate and graduate students for business and public administration careers and now has reached the point of expanding its educational programs to the third sector. For the time being such a program is under design.
We see the Diploma Program of training in NGO management to be most adequate option for developing a strata of professional managers in this sector in Russia. The Program allows to match basic management education with NGO-management specialized knowledge and skills. The Program will be realized in the modular format, built up of six modules of 512 academic hours of class work in total.
Implementation of the Program will involve promotion measures, design of special courses, translation and publishing books and readers, case writing, purchase of books and teaching facilities. The start-up budget is expected to be funded by granting sources.
The first admittance to the Program is planned as of 30 participants, whose tuition will supposedly be financed on a voucher scheme. These vouchers do not cover travel and accommodation costs for the participants from outside St.Petersburg, which may prevent them from applying to the Program. The problem requires further consideration.
Later on, the Program will become self-funded. This will be achieved through increase of the participants, paying fees individually or sponsored by their NGOs, by 3-5 persons annually. Thus the granting sources funding is expected to decrease from 100% in the academic year 2000-2001 up to 50% in the academic year 2005-2006.
1. GENERAL Survey of the Third Sector in Russia
This section presents in brief the results of a survey of non-governmental sector in Russia (December, 1999 - March, 2000). All major regions of Russia were covered. In order to obtain necessary information the Internet was widely used and managers of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and resource centers were interviewed via the phone and e-mail. Besides the information, collected independently, the survey includes the results of studies conducted by different resource centers and organizations.
On the whole, the third sector appeared to be open and ready for discussing the problem of education. All the respondents showed interest in the research and educational projects and emphasized the extraordinary importance of such projects for Russian NGOs. To explore the demand for educational programs 23 managers of NGOs were questioned via the telephone, and about 50 respondents received e-mail letters. Every one was addressed a personal message.
According to official data, about 274,000 NGOs are registered in Russia. However, only one third of them really work. The greatest growth rate of NGO was registered in 1997.
The number of NGOs varies across regions. Russian NGO sector is mainly concentrated in big cities. Of 89 regions, the largest number of NGOs was noted in Moscow – about 30,000 – and in St-Petersburg – about 12,000. Database of the Siberian Support Center for Social Initiatives includes 2,000 NGO; database of the Ural Center includes 1,500 organizations. There are some other regions with rather developed NGO sector: in the South-West of Russia (according to Krasnodar resource center, about 400 NGO exist only in Krasnodar and Krasnodar region), in the North-West (Vologda, Arhangelsk, Pskov, Novgorod, Petrozavodsk), in the Volga region (Nizny Novgorod, Yaroslavl), in the central part of Russia (Tver, Vladimir, Smolensk, Kaluga, Tula). NGOs are poorly developed in Caucasian republics and rural areas.
In many regions NGOs are supported by resource centers (RC) which provide informational support for NGOs. The presence and development level of resource centers can serve as an index of the development level of NGOs as an socio-economic sector in the given region. According to Center of Independent Social Research, there are about 400 resource centers in Russia. The most active, open and efficient centers are those in St.Petersburg, Moscow, Perm (Ural region), Novosibirsk (Siberia), Petrozavodsk, Arhangelsk, Pskov, Novgorod (all North-West), Nizhny Novgorod (Volga region), Stavropol, Krasnodar (both South-West), Tula, Vladimir, Kaluga and Tver (all Central region).
Resource centers provide wide range of services to the organizations, institutions and individuals related to the third sector, such as: informational support (RCs usually maintain modest libraries, publish newsletters, magazines and books), consulting and training in different aspects of NGO operations.
All the functions of NGOs operating in Russia can be divided into two extensive categories: offering aid and providing informational support. In most cases NGOs carry out functions of the both categories.
On the whole, organizations of the social aid (mainly self-aid), charitable, cultural organizations, scientific organizations and human rights organizations are the most widespread NGOs in Russia.
The prevalence of one or another category varies across regions. For instance, ecological organizations predominate in the Far East and in Siberia that can be explained by the high significance of natural resources of these regions. Trade unions and organizations of the social aid prevail in the central part of Russia.
There are three main types of NGOs in Russia. To the first type mainly belong both NGOs existed in the Soviet period (before 1985) and relatively new NGOs appeared during Perestroyka (1985-1991). This group presents a small percent of NGOs, but carries out about large amount of all the operations and has the biggest number of clients. These NGOs have been receiving considerable financial, administrative and managerial support from the federal government and local authorities. Examples: Red Cross, Russian Society of the Handicapped, Russian Society of Veterans of Second World War, Social-ecological Center, “Chernobyl” Union, etc.
To the second type belong new NGOs mainly established after 1994 on private individuals’ initiative as a reaction to the collaps of the social security system. The organizations of this type do not have direct financing from federal and local budgets, but they are rather stable and open to the society. They try to obtain financial and other aid from various sources. The main characteristic of NGOs of this type is their striving for self-financing and self-assertion through democratic means and legal methods. Examples: “World without violence” (Tula), Institute of Humanitarian Sciences (Tver), etc.
Finally, the third type of NGOs includes those that are easy to identify but hard to monitor and investigate. These organizations are mobile, constantly emerging and than either going to the shadow or stop their existence without a word of warning. The main characteristics of these organizations are as follows: the lack of the staff employees, property and declared budget.
Russian NGOs do not usually have more than 10 employees. Organizations with only two or three staff employees are found quite often. NGOs with more than 20-30 staff employees are considered to be large. According to the CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) research, less than a half of the organizations have staff employees. Furthermore, the term “staff employee” is not clearly defined. Many NGOs combine employees and volunteers in the staff category. It should be mentioned that approximately 20 percent of NGOs have no volunteers. NGOs in Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow and St.Petersburg as the most financially developed (and able to pay salaries), experience the greatest shortage of volunteers. Russian NGOs often view volunteers as a temporary phenomena caused by the financial crisis. They do not often find it possible to have volunteers in the times of prosperity. As a result, the voluntary movement is developing very slowly in Russia. Chairmen, managers and board members of Russian NGOs take the main part of work. Few of the NGOs have got an experience of distributing power and responsibility among their members or employees or of managing large groups of people.
According to Mr. Lev Shlossberg, Director of Pskov Center of the support for NGOs “Vozrozhdenie”, the main problem of non-governmental sector in Russia is low professionalism. Although management of NGOs has some peculiarities but on the whole it is similar to management of business organizations. At the same time, most of the managers of Russian NGOs have poor and fragmentary training (if any) in professional systemic management. Most of them have a degree (or even two degrees) in humanitarian sciences but few of them have degrees in management, economics and finance. This common feature results in many other problems.
The managers of NGOs do not view management as a system and, consequently, it does not exist as a system and tradition. Many NGOs still do not have a developed management system.
Most of the projects are being worked out in accordance with the planning system of the Soviet period. Therefore, the managers often draw up plans in sake of planning itself; avoid working out in details or do not take into account the necessity being clear and precise; leave out potentials of human and economic resources; plan only results instead of stages of achieving the goal, etc. Many NGOs do not think of their project’s future. Most of them do not have a special employee responsible for fundraising. Poor everyday planning results in ineffective input of time and energy and in various conflicts.
Russian NGOs do not often realize importance of the regular analysis of their performance.
The quality of other NGO members’ expertise and skills makes another serious problem for the Russian third sector. Many of the members (especially volunteers) do not nave necessary skills. According to Mr. Yury Voloshin, Director of Krasnodar resource center, the majority of NGOs in this region do not even know how to draw up documentation necessary for receiving charitable aid. As a result, when the Center wants to provide charitable aid, the procedure can take quite a long time.
As to the relationship with clients, Russian NGOs are far from perfection. According to the CAF data, most of the organizations do not have an employee or member responsible for office attendance to clients. Clients often feel that the servicing itself is quite chaotic. Not all organizations have definite reception hours for different groups of clients. On the whole, most of the organizations do not pay due attention to the people, who need help.
One of the vital problems is weak links between NGOs and local authorities.
The problem of publicity is pointed out by the Center of Independent Social Research. Many of Russian NGO managers do not realize the importance of publicity.
One of the main reasons why the Russian third sector is confronted by many difficulties is the lack of specialized higher education.
The official list of educational undergraduate programs does not contain “Management of NGO” but it contains “Management in the Social Sphere”, which is closest to the management of NGO (St.Petersburg State University, State Academy of Management in Moscow, Institute of Management and Business in the Far East, Tyumen State University in Siberia and others). However, all the NGOs point out low effectiveness of that education for them. According to Ms. Elena Obraztova, Vice-rector of the International Institute “Women and Management”, it comes from the discrepancy between the content of educational programs and real management practices. “Management in the Social Sphere” includes mainly management in tourism and public organizations and rarely covers the issues of management in the third sector organizations.
Managers and employees of NGOs try to fill in gaps in their knowledge and skills with the short-term training programs and seminars. Such training and seminars are often organized by resource centers. Usually training has the form of individual or small group classes. A training program takes two days on average. Most of the respondents, who have ever participated in such training give positive reference to their effectiveness. At the same time, training programs do not pay much attention to conceptual side of transferred knowledge. Therefore, they can provide the participants with the most necessary skills, but not with fundamental practical and theoretical knowledge.
Training is most developed in those regions where RCs work actively: Moscow, St.Petersburg, Perm (Ural region), Krasnodar (South-West), Novosibirsk (Siberia), Nizhny Novgorod (Volga region), Pskov, Novgorod (North-West), Tver and Vladimir (Central part of Russia).
On the whole, applied disciplines turned out to be a priority, as the managers of NGOs wanted to receive practical knowledge and skills that could be immediately put in practice. However, our research has shown that underestimation of theoretical disciplines comes from rather misunderstanding than a determined position. Shortcomings of managers’ education in the third sector became apparent in the course of research: some of the managers were not able to range disciplines as they did not clearly understand the meaning of such terms as “marketing”, “management” ,or “public relations”. At the same time, the majority of respondents realize the necessity of special education for managing NGOs. Many of them would like to take part in these programs themselves and to involve their employees. It is especially typical for the organizations with the large number of employees.
2. Program Concept
2.1. Training Programs Available
Training in the area of non-government organizations (NGOs) management at the Faculty of Management (FOM), St.Petersburg State University, can currently be carried out on the following levels:
Level one - short-term certificate course. The standard requirements are that the course program should be of 72 to 100 academic hours (here and afterward we mean classwork hours). On completing the course, successful graduates are awarded University Certificate. Trainees may choose either day-time or evening classes.
Level two - certificate course. The course program should be of more than 100 academic hours. Successful graduates are awarded University Certificate in the chosen professional area. Both day-time and evening classes options are available.
Level three - NGO Management Diploma Program of professional training. The normative requirements are that the program should be of 500 or more academic hours. These programs are designed for the individuals with university-level degree in any field. On completing the program, the participants will defend their qualification projects. Successful graduates are awarded University Professional Training Diploma, which entitles them to new professional activity. The syllabus provides for the option of evening or modular formats.
Level four - MBA Program for NGOs. The program constitutes a sort of post-graduate education that meets the highest requirements of professional training. Successful Program graduates qualify as MBA, which entitles them to new professional activity and holding senior or middle managerial positions in the NGOs. The program is designed for the individuals with university-level degree in any field with no less than two years of experience in business or NGOs. The program should be of 1000 academic hours as a minimum (the total duration is 2 years). At the end of the program participants will defend their qualification projects.
We believe the NGO Management Diploma Program (level three) to be optimal at the starting period of Diploma-level programs on NGO management in Russia, while levels one and two are focused on giving narrow-specialized knowledge and skills and can be viewed as a form of recurrent training for the Diploma Program graduates. Besides, programs of these kinds are intensively offered by various resource centers throughout Russia.
Level four (MBA Program of professional training) may, in turn, be also viewed as the next stage for the Diploma Program graduates.
The key advantages, that make the Program high competitive, are, as we see it, in that the Program allows to match basic managerial education with NGO-specialized knowledge and skills. As follows from the review, focusing on separate, however important, issues of the performance of Russian NGOs' management and staff, has become the main imperfection of many short-term training courses. Our Program allows the participants to:
realize the role of NGOs in the society, as well as relationships between private, government and non-profit organizations,
see their own role as managers and experts for sustainable NGOs,
obtain integral understanding of fundamental ideas and concepts of the NGO management,
systematize practice-based knowledge,
develop skills in managerial decision-making in rapidly changing environment,
develop skills in team-work,
become better educated and envisioned.
Another program’s attraction for the participants (as compared to short-time training programs) is the opportunity to have State Diploma in their professional field from the top national state University.
A good reason to choose the Diploma Program is also the FOM’s six-year experience in developing professional training programs (both commercially and state-supported based) in general management, financial management, marketing, personnel, public administration. Since 1995 FOM successfully runs Diploma-level training programs (9 months duration) in Business and Public Administration with about 200 alumni up to date. Since 1998 FOM participates in Presidential Initiative Program for Russian managers. In 1999-2000 academic year 90 managers participated in these programs. Two of the current programs are functioning in the module format, the rest are in the evening one. FOM recently has signed an agreement with city administration of St.Petersburg to train 250 managers and officials of city and regional administrations. For the time being, the Faculty employs 76 professors in management, marketing, finance, social psychology, PR, etc. The previous experience makes us confident that the FOM will not be confronted by any serious problems while executing the Program. The FOM has a complete set of basic courses, and faculty members successfully deliver them to the participants of training programs. This brings us to the necessity of placing an increased emphasis on developing specialized courses.
2.2. Major Characteristics of the NGO Management Diploma Program
Being actually a program in general management, the Program is oriented to leaders and managers for NGOs. The main attention is heeded to systematization and synthesis of various aspects of managing NGOs, rather than to detailed study of narrow-specialized issues of their performance.
The Program is practice-oriented; familiarizing with the core managerial ideas and concepts is not of academic, but of the applied nature.
The Program is of the university type; its philosophy is aimed at developing skills in independent managerial decision-making on the basis of fundamental knowledge.
The Program is Russia-oriented; each study course should make for successful performance in current Russia. The content of study courses reflects, at the same time, the latest international advances in theory and practice of the NGO management.
Training within the Program is interactive and provides for the trainees' energies in the process.
The Program will be carried out in the modular format.
2.3. Advantages of the Modular Principle of Organizing the Program
The suggested module principle of organizing the Program is advantageous in the following:
It allows the management and the staff of NGOs, who can not afford staying away from their organization for a long time even for training purposes, to participate in the Program,
It gives the management and the staff of the organizations, operating in different regions of Russia, a chance to join the Program. This is particularly important for the representatives of NGOs in far-off localities or in the countryside, who do not always have access to resource centers or educational institutions,
It allows, within each module, to concentrate attention of the participants on a certain group of problems, which makes adopting new knowledge and new skills easier, and also allows to well match getting basic managerial knowledge and skills with those specialized. In this connection, we suggest the following consistency of modules:
Module one - general economic and managerial disciplines intended to familiarize the participants with the basics of both market economy and NGO management within it.
Module two - basic functional disciplines, intended to familiarize the participants with the main functional aspects of the NGO management.
Module three - deals with the analysis of most common problems of NGOs and contains a series of integrate disciplines.
Modules four and five include specialized disciplines in NGO Management.
Module six suggests completion of the qualification project and its presentation. At the same time, a small number of specialized disciplines will also be scheduled.
FOM is well experienced in modular-based programing for professional training.
The suggested module pattern of professional training in NGO management can be characterized by the following points:
Training time is 9 months, October through next June.
The Program is built up of 6 modules, 5 of which are given to training itself, while module six is designed for the participants to prepare and defend their qualification projects on the problems of managing the NGOs.
Each module provides for 12 days of training (Monday through Saturday, Monday through Saturday), 8 academic hours a day. Each of the first five modules consists of 96 academic hours.
The total volume of all modules makes 512 academic hours, which meets the Federal standard requirements for this Diploma.
Slot between modules is about 1,5 months.
2.4. Draft of Curricula
|
|
Courses |
Control |
Teaching Hrs |
Examination/Test Hrs |
New Designed Courses |
|
Basic courses in Economics and Management |
1.
Fundamentals of Economics |
Examination |
36 |
4 |
|
|
2.
General Management |
Examination |
28 |
4 |
|
|
|
3.
Fundamentals of Marketing |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
|
|
|
4.
Fundamentals of Financial Management |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
|
|
|
5.
Financial Accounting and Reporting |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
|
|
|
6.
Strategic Management |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
|
|
|
7.
Commercial Law |
Examination |
28 |
4 |
|
|
|
8.
Psychology of Organizational Communications |
Test |
24 |
2 |
|
|
|
9.
Business Planning |
Test |
16 |
2 |
|
|
|
|
Subtotal
|
|
228 |
32 |
|
|
Special Courses |
10.
Management of Non-Governmental Organizations |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
+ |
|
11.
Legal Environment of NGOs |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
+ |
|
|
12.
NGOs’ Political Advocacy |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
+ |
|
|
13.
Marketing in NGOs |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
+ |
|
|
14.
Financial Management and Fundraising in NGOs |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
+ |
|
|
15.
Organizational Behavior and Fundamentals of Human Resource Management |
Examination |
24 |
4 |
|
|
|
16.
Taxation and Accounting in NGOs |
Test |
20 |
2 |
+ |
|
|
17.
Social Psychology and Applied Conflictology |
Test |
20 |
2 |
|
|
|
18.
Informational Technologies in NGOs |
Test |
20 |
2 |
+ |
|
|
19.
Project Management in NGOs |
Test |
16 |
2 |
+ |
|
|
20.
Team Management |
Test |
16 |
2 |
|
|
|
21.
NGO Leaderdship |
Test |
16 |
2 |
+ |
|
|
22.
PR in NGO and Organizational Image |
Test |
16 |
2 |
+ |
|
|
23.
Social Investing and Social Capital |
Test |
16 |
2 |
+ |
|
|
|
Subtotal
|
|
284 |
40 |
|
|
|
TOTAL
|
|
512 |
72 |
|
|
Project Supervision |
6
hours/person
|
|
|
180 |
11 |
2.5. Admittance to the Program.
The Program is designed for leaders, managers, and staff members of NGOs. Volunteers with sufficient practical experience in NGOs and interested in developing their knowledge and skills will be considered as candidates, given an official letter from the leaders of NGO they work with.
Admittance to the Program will be effected through competition.
The applicants:
will be higher school graduates or undergraduates in the final year
will have no less than three years of practical experience with NGOs.
Names of successful applicants will be revealed through:
evaluation of CVs
entrance testing (to be designed)
interviewing..
The criteria for admittance to the Program are:
satisfactory personal motivation for studying on the Program
willingness for and capability of working in NGOs
general cultural and educational level allowing to meet the curriculum requirements.
3. Implementation plan
3. 1. Promotion of the Program
The success of the Program greatly depends on the efficiency of its positioning on the market of educational services. According to the survey of the third sector in Russia, a lot of organizations offer various short-term courses and seminars on topics of interest for NGO leaders and managers.
We regard the following as the main competitive advantages of our Program:
Systematic management education based on fundamental and special courses delivered through modern teaching techniques.
High reputation of The Faculty of Management as one of the leading University-level business schools in Russian Federation.
The opportunity of being rewarded State Diploma of Saint-Petersburg State University.
The information about the Program will be spread via direct-mail or through resource centres since NGOs keep up intensive contacts with them. Close links between FOM and resource centres is also of great importance; the staff of resource centres and the professors they involve are best fit for successful launch of similar programs in other regions. We find it expensive and ineffective to use media advertising at the present stage.
The promotion of the Program will involve several measures as follows:
Formation of database of NGOs and resource centres with information about their location, phone/fax, e-mail, name of the leaders, personnel numbers, field of activity, date of registration, involvement in the Program, information of previous contacts.
Issuing an advertising booklet. The booklet should be rather short (4-6 pages), coloured, bright, attractive, and informative. The advertising booklet of Schulich MBA for NGOs can be taken as a prototype. 30-100 copies of the booklet should be sent to each resource center and 1-2 copies to the most promising NGOs. The initial print should be of 1000 copies. The booklet should be reissued every year in order to include new information and the graduate’s comments on the Program. During every academic year short and low-cost newsletters should also be printed.
Designing and placing the Program’s page on FOM Website with the booklet information as well as the terms of participation in the Program, curricula and sample of application form. Besides, the FOM is going to open a special e-mail address for everyone concerned in the Program. The Internet and e-mail should become the main means of communication between FOM and the trainees (during the intervals between modules) since they live in different regions of Russia and CIS.
Installation of a separate telephone line with a full-time assistant on duty who will answer questions about the Program and help to fill in the application forms.
FOM intends to keep on close contacts with the Program graduates by integrating them into the FOM Alumni Association. We see several advantages in doing this. First, their positive comments on the Program and success of the NGOs they head or work with will encourage other potential participants to join the Program. Second, their participation in the Alumni Network will make for better contacts between for-profit companies and NGOs, which, in turn will improve the NGOs’ positions in the society. Third, contacts between them within the Alumni Networkwill provide rotation opportunities which will be helpful in establishing real market of NGO managers.
3. 2. Teaching Materials
The set of core courses has been designed and taught during 1995-2000 successfully by FOM professors within the diploma-level programs of professional training. Therefore, the emphasis should be put on designing special courses. The curricula is presented in the second part of the present report. It might be slightly corrected after design of all courses is completed.
In order to ensure stability and continuity of the teaching process, the main role will be given to the FOM professors, who have long been involved in teaching practice, have a perfect command of the subject and well experienced in teaching adults. Practical experience of professors will also be welcomed.
Also, FOM is going to attract practitioners from the most successful NGOs and employees of resource centres. The database on such employees is being currently formed. We are going to use so called “combined courses” as it is being done in Schulich School of Business. Every course will be supervised by one of the FOM professors, who will draw up the course outline and teach the theoretical part while practitioners will conduct seminars and case studies. It will make the classes remarkable and exciting and will make it possible to draw the trainees into discussions more actively.
During the start-up period, the professors will work out and present in advance:
the detailed curriculum,
set of teaching materials (synopsis, slides/ transparencies),
courses’ readers for self-studying (cases, articles),
list of main textbooks the trainees should be provided with.
The professors, lecturing special courses, should take one week, training in one of the partner Universities of Europe, the USA or Canada with established traditions of teaching similar programs for managers of NGOs.
Forming the set of materials for instruction is encountered by several objective difficulties:
The lack of both original Russian and translated textbooks covering the issues of management of NGOs. As a rule, few of the NGO employees (especially from far-off regions) have more or less good command of English.
The lack of cases on Russian NGOs. Use of foreign cases, even translated into Russian, is of somewhat limited value because of substantial differences between the NGOs’ practices across the countries. Unlike profit and public sectors, the non-profit sector is highly dependent on national peculiarities of legal, financial, social and other aspects.
Therefore, we intend to translate into Russian and publish two textbooks on management of NGOs within the start-up period. The book choice will be made later so that we can be authorized by the proprietors to do this. The preliminary list of textbooks for translation is given below. If translation of the whole book is impossible for some reason we will have to confine ourselves to a few key chapters.
Title/Author/Publisher
Management control systems in non-profit organisations Mary T. Ziebell,
Don T. DeCoster Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc.
Management control in non-profit organisations Robert N. Anthony, David W.
Young Irwin, Inc., Illinois,1988
Financial management for non-profit organisations Jo Ann Hankin, Alan G.
Seidner, John T. Zietlow John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1998
Also writing of six cases during the start-up period is suggested. Although the
FOM professors have already enough experience in writing cases, they do not
often have time needed for collecting information about a certain NGO’s
performance. We find it right to adopt our Canadian colleagues’ experience in
establishing partnership between Faculty professors and practitioners for
writing cases. A professor thus gains access to information about a certain
NGO’s performance.
We are planning to translate and publish two readers: “Management of NGOs” (12 articles x 25 pages) and “Cases in NGO Management” (10 cases x 20 pages).
Particular attention should be paid to the quality of training. Therefore, we find it useful to work out two evaluation forms which should be filled in by the trainees twice: immediately after the completion of the course and after the lapse of 2-3 months. The second enquiry is aimed at getting feedback from the trainees in order to appraise practical orientation and value of the course. Such feedback can be obtained after the trainees’ attempt to put into practice the knowledge and skills acquired through learning process in the NGO Program.
3. 3. Library and Aid Equipment
Library
The FOM library currently houses about 50 000 publications on Economics, Finance, Marketing, Theory of Management and other disciplines. Practically, the majority of management textbooks published in 1990s in Russian and majority of those in English are presented in the library. However, when carrying out the NGO Program we are likely to be confronted by two main problems:
The library lacks textbooks and periodicals on management of NGOs.
The number of copies of core textbooks available in the library prevents from providing each participant of the NGO Program with necessary set of readings. It should be also mentioned that employees of the third sector can not buy the necessary textbooks because of their relatively high price (from 5 to 30 USD).
Consequently, additional sets of textbooks on core disciplines and special literature on NGOs should be purchased during the start-up period. The list of publications has been already drawn up in order to estimate the purchase cost. However, it will be corrected when the professors present lists of reading for the courses they teach. When building up the budget we proceeded from the assumption that textbooks will be placed at the trainees’ disposal only for the period of studying and then will be returned to the library. Thus, only new publications will be purchased in the following years.
Means of communication
Taking into account the fact that the majority of participants are expected to be from various regions, the Program should be provided with telephone, fax and e-mail communications. As mentioned above, FOM is going to install a separate phone line and to provide the Program with a fax machine and e-mail address. The budget provides for a substantial number of long-distance calls at all Program stages.
Classroom and office facilities
The Program is going to buy an overhead projector and multimedia equipment. Although the FOM has three computer classes, they are usually overcrowded in the evenings. Therefore, we find it desirable to purchase twenty additional PCs with the network equipment and a printer. One workstation and furniture are needed for equipping the office of the NGO Program.
Copying equipment
The previous teaching experience shows that the efficiency of training considerably increases if trainees are provided with various supplementary study materials for either working in class or for self-studies. For this purpose a set of copying equipment should be purchased.
Contact information:
Deputy Dean for Finance and Development
Sain Petersburg State University
School of Management
e-mail: olga.udovichenko@som.spb.ru