Overview

The Course Director is Professor Paul Palmer, who is also the academic leader on the Charity Accounting and Financial Management course.  The course team is also made up of other leading professionals in the field. John Hailey is the academic leader for this course. He has extensive research and consultancy experience and has worked in over 50 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. Other visiting lecturers include Rick James who has worked extensively for INTRAC (International NGO Training and Research Centre), most recently as Principal Capacity Building Specialist. The course team draws upon staff in the Centre for Charity Effectiveness like Caroline Copeman and Andrew Forrest, and the wider Business School including Professor Jenny Harrow, Peter Grant (Grantmaking academic leader) and Stephen Lee (Fundraising academic leader) and Atul Patel (Voluntary Sector Management academic leader).

The internal course team is supported by leading sector practitioners, for example Geraldine Peacock, Stuart Etherington and Stephen Bubb together with professional firms, all of whom bring their skills to each of the courses.

Introduction by John Hailey, Programme Leader

Significantly subsidised, and therefore excellent value for money, the programme will deliver:

  • A sound understanding of the issues facing NGOs and the impact and implications of the management and organisational challenges they face
  • Up-to-date skills and techniques to recognise strategic challenges and identify appropriate strategies to address them
  • Exposure to leading experts in the field as well as opportunity to  network and study with peers from different but related backgrounds, bringing a deep and immediately relevant insight into NGO management
  • Recognition at the end of the course with a Postgraduate Diploma or MSc degree in NGO Management

Course structure and content

Postgraduate Diploma

The Postgraduate Diploma is offered on a part time basis and is taught over a period of 12 months. The Diploma consists of five core modules, common to all Centre for Charity Effectiveness postgraduate courses. These modules provide essential management skills. You also study three specialist pathway modules.

All courses are taught at Cass Business School and will require attendance one weekend a month commencing on the Friday afternoon at 13:00 to 21:00 and finishing on Saturday at 18:00.

In addition to the above timings, your attendance is required:

  • On the Induction Day
  • For Action Learning Set meetings (usually alternate months, on the Friday morning of the teaching weekend
  • For the Resource Management module exam

Term dates

October 2012 intake

Induction/Introduction to Learning

05 October 2012

Voluntary Sector Policy

06 October 2012
09 -10 November 2012

Marketing & Fundraising

07- 08 December 2012

Resource Management

11-12 January 2013
08 - 09 February 2013
08 - 09 March 2013

Exam*   12 April 2013

Specialist Pathway Modules

18 - 19 April 2013
17 - 18 May 2013
14 - 15 June 2013

Shadowing

to be completed by August 2013

Strategy, Diversity & Governance

19 - 20 July 2013
06 - 07 September 2013

*All other modules are assed by coursework

Module outlines

Introduction to learning

This module aims to enables the student to:
  • Map out your learning and development needs
  • Set these needs within the context of the programme
  • Learn new learning and study skills
Syllabus:
  • The Theory of Learning
  • Assessing your learning style
  • Learning and polishing study skills
  • Making use of all the available tools
  • Drawing up a Learning Contract

Voluntary Sector Policy

This module aims to enables the student to:
  • Develop an informed and critical understanding of the public policy environments in which voluntary organisations operate, to which they variously respond or help shape
Syllabus:
  • Policy concepts and the contested nature of public policy
  • Developments in new public management and public policy trends - marketisation, modernisation, joint working, partnerships
  • Fissures, links and building blocks in public policy networks in and for voluntary organisations
  • Policy actors in governmental and voluntary organisations and models of governmental/voluntary sector relations in UK and international contexts
  • Structuring and restructuring policy problems; new and enduring responses (eg faith based provisions, cross sectoral working)
  • Reputational impact on policy advocacy; the impact of mergers, alliances, closures and scandal on organisations' policy roles
  • Policy outcomes - the voluntary sector as provider, evaluator and critics
  • Lesson drawing in public policy and forecasting public policy futures; the voluntary sector as provider of policy evidence, policy learner and policy leader and advocate
  • Sectoral policy contributions to the development of civil society

Resource Management

This module aims to enables the student to:
  • Provide students with an understanding of the principles of resource management within the specialist context of charities
Syllabus:
  • Definitions and the legal framework of charities and voluntary organisations
  • The role of the Charity Commission
  • Sources of finance for the charity sector
  • Introduction to general accounting principles
  • Charity accounts and regulatory framework
  • Understanding, interpreting and analysing charity accounting statements
  • Costing and budgeting in voluntary organisations
  • Risk assessment
  • Outsourcing
  • Appraising, appointing and dismissing auditors and other resource consultants and experts
  • IT Strategic appraisal and implementation
  • The nature of Human Resource Management
  • Human resource and personnel issues including training and development, reward and retention and effective selection and recruitment

Marketing and Fundraising

 This module aims to enables the student to:
  • To provide you with the concepts, underpinning knowledge, skills and techniques to plan and develop marketing and operations systems
  • Enable you to analyse marketing needs, evaluate marketing plans, in the context of applying marketing concepts to your own organisation
Syllabus:
  • Effective Marketing Information Systems
  • Development of a marketing strategy
  • Product/Service policy and new product development
  • Role of Communications
  • Branding
  • Pricing as a value-added marketing tool
  • Capacity planning - resources planning and allocation
  • Total Quality Management
  • Stakeholder/Customer care

Strategy, Diversity and Governance

This module aims to enables the student to:
  • To develop a broad knowledge and conceptual base in the field of strategy development, diversity and governance
  • Introduce practical tools to help improve the quality of an organisation's strategic response to the changing environment
  • Introduce practical tools to help improve the ability of the organisation and its managers and leaders to build a diverse workforce
  • An enhanced appreciation of the constraints and opportunities offered by the changing governance and service-delivery frameworks which affect voluntary organisations
Syllabus:
  • Improving an organisation's strategic response by use of strategy and diversity management and theory
  • Approaches to developing strategy
  • Approaches to managing diversity
  • The changing environment of the voluntary sector
  • Case studies on the application of strategic planning and diversity

Shadowing

This module aims to enables the student to:
  • Have the opportunity to spend 4-5 days shadowing a senior NGO manager or undertaking relevant fieldworkconsultancy exercise with members of an NGO's senior management team
  • Develop their perspective on the role and practice of senior NGO managers
  • Consider the ethical and environmental issues faced by senior managers
  • Study at close hand the way change is managed at a senior level
  • Analyse alternative approaches to improving their own and their organisation's effectiveness
Syllabus:
  • Design of Shadowing/Fieldwork Exercise proposal linked to Learning Contract and negotiation with senior manager of shadowed organisation (approved by the Academic Leader)
  • 4-5 days shadowing senior manager or fieldwork consultancy exercise - observing and learning from the experience
  • Reflections using all the theories and models learnt on the programme
  • Preparation of reflective report containing analysis and recommendations for improved effectiveness

NGO Management - Strategic Issues

This module aims to enables the student to:
  • Understand the key strategic issues facing the NGO Sector
  • Analyse the organisational challenges facing international NGOs
Syllabus:
  • The development environment and strategic trends
  • NGOs: organisational types and structures
  • The issues of managing NGOs in the current-aid architecture
  • Implications of the changing role of INGOs and civil society
  • Applying NGO principles and values
  • Governance and working with NGO Boards
  • Accountability and impact assessment for NGOs
  • NGO Capacity building: trends and effectiveness
  • Developing strategies and strategic plans
  • Building partnerships and managing inter-organisational relations

Managing NGOs: People and Practices

This module aims to enables the student to:
  • Critically appreciate the issues NGO managers face
  • Develop the skills and competencies to work effectively with different people and the processes and practices involved
Syllabus:
  • Managing effective, accountable and sustainable NGOs
  • NGO Leaders and Leadership Development
  • NGO management competencies
  • Dimensions of cross-cultural management in NGO context
  • Managing People & Teams in NGOs
  • OD and organisational change in NGOs
  • Promoting organisational learning and innovation in NGOs
  • Current issues in monitoring & evaluation

MSc conversion

Upon successful completion of the diploma, you will be given the option to continue to the MSc. This requires completion of the Research Methods for Managers module.

This can be followed by a further six months of personal, supervised research and the presentation of a 10,000-word dissertation.

Alternatively, you can opt to take a taught Masters which allows you to choose specialist modules from one of the other Charities programmes.

Term dates

Research Methods for Managers

January & February 2014

Dissertation or Taught Masters Option

completion by the end of September 2014

Our course professionals

The Course Director is Professor Paul Palmer, who is also the academic leader on the Charity Accounting and Financial Management course.  The course team is also made up of other leading professionals in the field.

John Hailey is the academic leader of this course. He has extensive research and consultancy experience and has worked in over 50 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific.

Other visiting lecturers include Rick James who has worked extensively for INTRAC (International NGO Training and Research Centre), most recently as Principal Capacity Building Specialist. The course team draws upon staff in the Centre for Charity Effectiveness like Professor Ian Bruce,  Andrew Forrest, Ruth Lesirge and Atul Patel and the wider Business School including Professor Jenny Harrow, Peter Grant (Grantmaking academic leader) and Professor Stephen Lee (Fundraising academic leader).

The internal course team is supported by leading sector practitioners, for example Geraldine Peacock, Stuart Etherington and Stephen Bubb together with professional firms, all of whom bring their skills to each of the courses.

Students

Students for all five courses, students will be highly motivated individuals who bring a wide range of professional competence, skills and experience from a wide range of charitable and not-for-profit organisations. Gender is evenly balanced across all the courses and there are no age barriers.

Students will normally have a good first degree, a related professional qualification or at least three years, wholly relevant experience. If you have more than three years relevant experience, two professional references are acceptable.

Course fees and expenses

Course fees

The full cost of a Cass Business School MSc is normally at least £17,500. However, due to generous support to the school from its sponsors, students on the NGO management will pay £8,250. The post-graduate diploma costs £5,500 with a further £2,750 graduate conversion fee for the MSc. A deposit of £250 is payable on acceptance of a place and the balance is payable in two instalments, the first on registration and the second in April.

Salary Sacrifice Scheme

Please note that self-funded students are able to gain substantial savings on the cost of course fees if they participate in a 'Salary Sacrifice Scheme' with their employer. Cass Business School cannot legally provide individual advice on how to benefit from this government scheme. For more information, see below.

Find out more about the Salary Sacrifice Scheme [pdf]

Course expenses

The weekend modules will incur additional accommodation and subsistence expenses for those participants living outside London.

Application deadline

There is no application deadline for this course. However, we advise you to apply well in advance, as competition for places is high and applications are considered on a continuous basis.