Institute of Non-Profit Management enriches Ukrainian Catholic University (10/05/03)

Institute of Non-Profit Management enriches Ukrainian Catholic University

by Matthew Matuszak

LVIV - With a one-week intensive workshop in July, the Institute of Non-Profit Management - the newest addition to the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, has opened. Charles Neubecker of Plano, Texas, who has 32 years of experience in international business, taught the institute's trial course. The institute started a pilot one-year certificate program in September.

The institute "is something really important," said Mr. Neubecker, who retired from Caltex Petroleum Corp. in 1999. "Anywhere in the world, including in the U.S., non-profit organizations in general do not have the same level of management that for-profit organizations have. All modern management techniques and tools should be applied in the non-profit field as well."

Eighteen teachers, staff and older students of UCU and its institutes gave up part of their summer vacations to study management techniques. "They were the best students I ever had," Mr. Neubecker commented. The students met four hours a day, for five days, and had much outside homework to do. "It was like a full-time one-week course," explained Mr. Neubecker.

"They took to it very well and got a lot out of it," said Mr. Neubecker. "They were introduced to a lot of new ideas: mission, vision, the values of the organization, budgeting, important decisions for the future."

The students worked in four teams. Each day they were presented with a hypothetical problem involving a hypothetical institution. The next day they presented their solutions to the teacher and the other students.

The students were very dedicated to their studies, according to Andriy Borovets, director of the new institute and himself a participant in the workshop. "There was big interest. The students stayed and worked late into the evening" on their assignments, said Mr. Borovets, previously director of a Lviv telecommunications firm who now is director of university operations at UCU.

Mr. Neubecker conducted the classes in English; there was no translation into Ukrainian. He is very aware of the students' and staff's linguistic abilities as he was a volunteer teacher at UCU's English-language Summer School for the last three years.

This trial course was just the first step for the institute, which is starting a year-long certificate program in the fall. There will be three courses each semester, and up to five weekly workshops taught by visiting professors. Students will attend classes on evenings and weekends. Finances, operations, and public relations will be among the topics covered.

The course on "community exploration," noted Mr. Borovets, will be a particularly innovative topic for Ukraine. The students will visit different non-profit organizations, for example psychiatric hospitals and soup kitchens, and "figure out what's going on in the community." They will talk to clients, observe happenings, and later report back to their peers and teachers. They will try to assess what is good, and what is wrong in these institutions, he explained.

About 30 students from UCU, Lviv non-profit organizations, the charitable organization Caritas, and other church-related institutions are enrolled in the program.

"There are now a number of business schools in Ukraine that work almost exclusively with the profit sector," Mr. Borovets said. "However some of the curriculum and resources could be adapted for the non-profit sector. Already we have begun discussions for collaboration with one of the best management programs in Kyiv."

"The Institute for Non-Profit Management, thus, will serve the many young people who want to dedicate their lives to society outside the state sector, as well as the civic structures these young people bring into existence," Mr. Borovets said. "We hope the impact will be wide and deep, affecting both groups and individuals."

Legal consultation for non-profit organizations will be another program of the institute, Mr. Borovets explained. A lawyer will serve UCU and the non-profits, teaching them how to register with the state and, generally, how to carry out their mission in the context of Ukraine's post-Soviet system.

Mr. Borovets said he hopes that in the future there will also be internships abroad for some of the students, so that they can travel, for example, to Poland or Hungary, to see first-hand how successful non-profit organizations operate.

Mr. Neubecker plans to return to Ukraine next spring to teach a workshop on budgeting for the students of the institute's certificate program.

Further information on the Institute of Non-Profit Management is available on the Internet at www.ucu.edu.ua/inpm. For further information on the Ukrainian Catholic University, contact the Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation, 2247 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622; phone, (773) 235-8462; fax, (773) 235-846; e-mail, ucef.org; website, www.ucef.org.

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