"Organizations must look beyond their own boundaries. Adopting [a] network perspective forces them not only to consider how their agendas fit with broader social problems, but also to develop the skills for collaborating with diverse partners."
Discussion

The analysis of the course offerings reveal several important themes:

• If people - staff and volunteers - are an organization's most important asset, then the subsequent training to invest in this core belief is not aligned.
  
• If the sector is advocating for wide-scale policy change on topics such as reducing poverty, improving the environment, supporting the arts, etc, then effective cross-domain advocacy and collaboration (staff-to-board; board-to-board) is a skill not well developed in course curriculum.
  
• The sector has extraordinary capabilities to plan, administer and track how money is raised and budgeted. However, the sector is not developing the same proficiency/capabilities to plan, administered and report time and human capital.  
• All signs point to the core skills required for effective charities and NGOs in the 21st century are Knowledge Management and Change/Collaboration Management. However, the analysis indicated that very little headway is being developed to provide this training at a systemic level.
  

Next Steps

"Without exception, all of my biggest mistakes occurred because I moved too slowly.  The future is about collaboration and teamwork and making decisions with replicable process that offers scale, speed, and flexibility".

This research explored the current landscape of the types of skills and expertise that is currently being taught and its subsequent professionalization it establishes. With this information in hand, we can shift our attention to envision the type of future competencies future leaders and managers will require.

Our goal for 2010 is two-fold.

First, the scope of the skills analysis will be broadened. Training offered through intermediary organizations such as Volunteer Centres, Fundraising Professional Associations or United Way's will be examined. These intermediaries often provide a more hands-on approach to training and development.
 
Secondly, our team of volunteers will engage the schools examined in the research. This engagement will include a selected number of leaders in the sector to gauge their interest in exploring the emerging types of skills and expertise organizations require to successfully achieve their mission in turbulent times. Click here to view the list of people we are connecting with.