If you think you might want to start a non-profit or work in the nonprofit
sector after college, what college classes should you take? That's the topic
that I'll talk about in this video today. Welcome back! Once again my name is Amber
Melanie Smith, and I make these YouTube videos here to help aspiring
changemakers with tips and strategies to help you change the world and live a
life impact and purpose. So I've known since high school that I wanted some
kind of career that would allow me to make a difference in the world and it
wasn't until about halfway through my time in college that I realized that
going into the nonprofit world was going to be the best fit for me. But once I
figured out that going into the world of nonprofits was going to be my path I
started to figure out what classes I should be taking for the rest of my time
in college to help equip me to be the best nonprofit leader and change maker
that I could be. There are a lot of great reasons to work for a non-profit after
college whether you are going to start one in the hopes of working for it and
making it your full-time career, or working for an existing nonprofit. For
one, working in nonprofits is a legitimate way to make an impact in the
world. And it's a great career choice for those who thrive on helping others and
really love to make a dent in social problems.
Despite some of the misconceptions it is possible to make a meaningful salary
working for nonprofits. According to the 2019 GuideStar nonprofit
compensation report, even nonprofits with the budget of a smaller range of $250K to
$500K a year can expect their management and CEO positions to be bringing in
anywhere between $40,000 and $80,000 a year in their
salaries. Granted that's still not what you could make in a comparable position
in a business, and the nonprofit sector is working on being able to more
competitively pay its staff, but what the sector might be lacking in compensation
it hopefully makes up for in knowing that your work is making a difference
every day. The second reason to work for a
non-profit after college is that the nonprofit sector just really needs more
skilled trained leaders to take over for the generation that is retiring
now. Across the country the nonprofit sector employs about 10% of the American
workforce. That's a lot of potential jobs that could be available and in 2018 the
Concord leadership group reported that 70% of nonprofit leaders that they
surveyed we're planning on leaving their positions within the next five years if
we don't get more people trained and how to manage nonprofits effectively and get
them into those positions we're gonna have a huge leadership gap in the
nonprofit sector so if you want to work in the world of nonprofits whether that
is starting one and building it up from scratch or working for an existing one
what are the college classes that you should take first I'm going to talk
about some potential majors that you might consider as the foundation for
your learning then we'll talk about a couple of individual classes that might
help you hone your skills
so in terms of a major there are kind of two ways to go about this you could aim
to study nonprofits and nonprofit management in general and just become
skilled in all things nonprofit with the hope of working for any nonprofit or you
could become an expert in a particular topic or subjects that nonprofits might
be tackling so that you can come in as an expert in that particular thing for
example affordable housing or the environment if you're gonna go to the
first route the first thing you want to do is look for a college that even has
nonprofit management specific majors and courses you're looking for a college
that has a program called something like nonprofit leadership or social
entrepreneurship if you're already in college and not interested in or able to
change schools than a degree business with some additional courses on top of
that might get you pretty far there's certainly a lot of differences between
nonprofits and businesses but there are also a lot of similarities so coming in
as someone with a lot of business savvy could be greatly helpful for the second
way if you already kind of know what causes you care about or what issues you
might want to tackle through the nonprofit sector there are a wide
variety of potential majors you could take to become an expert in those areas
for example if you're interested in global poverty or micro-financing human
trafficking or hunger you might consider a major in international development if
you're interested in topics like civic engagement voting a political leadership
then a major in political science would be pretty good if you're interested in
community-based direct services you might consider something like Social
Work for that major you'd be tackling issues like domestic violence or
unemployment or homelessness in your city or if you're interested in working
for something like a nonprofit community clinic a degree and health and medicine
would be pretty appropriate for you a lot of other majors have a useful and
relevant crossovers to the nonprofit world these might include things like
computer science nonprofits need a lot of Technology engineering so you can
develop systems products that help a community economics
so you can understand how poverty works and finances work wildlife and
agriculture could help you make a dent in environmental issues and for arts and
theater majors keep in mind that many museums and theaters are nonprofit
organizations too so secondly I want to talk about what specific classes would
be useful in helping launch a career and nonprofits or even helping you start a
non-profit of your own
so one thing I always recommend to people who want to start a non-profit or
work for a non-profit is to become very knowledgeable about the issue or cause
that you care about so any of the specialization that I mentioned before
that would help you become an expert in an issue like global poverty or domestic
violence would be really helpful in your work for a non-profit but if you're
looking for classes that will help you build a good foundation for a non-profit
work I recommend some of the following sociology globalization social justice
poverty studies ethics social change theory principles of social problems
sociology of culture and public policy basics research and data analysis is
also a great choice because there's a lot of data that goes into knowing that
you're creating a program that is going to effectively tackle the community and
social issue that your nonprofit is tackling there's also one-off nonprofit
management classes if they're not already part of your major
for example nonprofit budgeting and accounting basics your ability to write
grants ask for donations and plan programs all rely on your ability to
create and understand a non-profit budget nonprofit fund Development basics
or nonprofit fundraising is also a really critical choice these classes
will help you understand the many ways that nonprofits can generate revenue
also how to cultivate relationships with donors businesses and more if you're
interested in the basics of fundraising I also have several videos on my channel
about that topic a lot of colleges I've seen also are
starting to offer nonprofit grant writing classes so that you can learn
how to craft a compelling grant application classes in board and
organizational leadership are really important too
these will help you understand what nonprofit boards are how they interact
with staff common issues and challenges that they might face and how to overcome
them marketing and communications or storytelling are also critical topics
that classes are talking about these days this is going to help you figure
out how to inspire others to follow your cause and support it knowing the ins and
out nonprofit marketing will help you gain
donations donors and more volunteer recruitment and retention volunteers are
the lifeblood of many nonprofit organizations across the country how do
you inspire people to give their time and their talents to your cause social
entrepreneurship classes a lot of nonprofits are or should be managed like
a business how can you take the principles of a business and apply them
to a non-profit to make sure that your nonprofit will be successful program
design and evaluation this deals with how you can design a program that you
know will meet the outcomes that you are seeking in the community how do you know
when you create a project or program that it's going to for sure help people
transition out of homelessness or get control over an addiction knowing how to
design an effective program and evaluate its success is a critical skill for
nonprofit work project management this is a great one that will help you in any
career this will help you figure out how you can keep your Board of volunteers
and staff on task to complete a goal finally I cannot recommend enough that
you seek out a non-profit internship because nothing beats real-world
experience internships are also a great Avenue for finding a mentor in the
nonprofit space who can help you find a job when you're come when you're done
with college or help you navigate other questions about the nonprofit sector
that's it are you interested in pursuing a career in nonprofits or going to
school to study nonprofits let me know in the comments below I did that myself
as I talked about earlier in this video and I loved it and that's some of the
amazing people and learned so much I really hope you liked this video once
again my name is Amber Melanie Smith please go ahead and give my video a
thumbs up and subscribe to this channel because I make lots of videos on the
topic of nonprofit social change creating a social impact getting
involved in your community and so much more
also don't forget that if you are on Facebook I have a Facebook group called
change the world or bust where myself and other changemakers are having
Mercy's about how we can make a difference and supporting each other in
our change making a journey thanks so much see you next time