around the globe to enhance their skills, increase their effectiveness and strengthen their organizations and their communities. Many issues currently challenge the sector’s work at the most basic level.
There is increased pressure for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to demonstrate that the resources they receive make a lasting impact through measurable results.
- New questions are being asked about the legitimacy and accountability of civil society work.
- CSOs face growing expectations for improving the ways they involve marginalized groups and diverse and diaspora communities in their governance, structures, programming and policies.
- Governments and foundations are increasingly demanding that CSOs collaborate and partner.
- Leaders must grapple with increasing competition within the sector to secure financial resources and to mobilize new sources of funding.
CIVCS was launched in July 2007 with a graduate level, one-week, intensive course, Governance and Management in the Non-Profit and Voluntary Sector (PADM5109). It received an overwhelming response and was attended by more than 60 participants who are practitioners in the non-profit and voluntary sector, funders, policy-makers, as well as full-time and part-time graduate students. The course was taught in five one-day modules:
• Public Policy and Government Relations
• Governance and Leadership
• Selected Management Topics
• Communications and Media Relations
• Financing Strategies
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