Course Information for the Philanthropy and Nonprofit Organizations Certificate Program, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

Program Courses

PDP courses are offered online, remotely, and on-campus. Please refer to the Schedule Notes for course delivery information.

IMPORTANT: The registration process for all professional development courses requires you to register for your course and update your emergency contact information in CAESAR, Northwestern University's Student Enterprise System.

Tips for Troubleshooting Registration

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENT*:

Registering for multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a mandatory, integrated step to access Northwestern University systems. Northwestern uses the DUO Mobile smartphone application for multi-factor authentication. Steps to install the DUO Mobile App can be found here. Once you have completed the MFA registration process, you will have access to systems like CAESAR and CANVAS, Northwestern’s Learning Management System.

*It is a student’s responsibility to ensure access to Northwestern systems after registering for a PDP course. If you do not have a smartphone capable of downloading and using the DUO Mobile app, you may want to consider a YubiKey that can be purchased from several online retailers.

Please contact pdp@northwestern.edu with any questions.

PHIL_NP 378-0 : Major Gift Fundraising from Individuals, Corporations & Foundations

Description

This course emphasizes applied fundraising. It will explore all aspects of a major gift program’s implementation, from systems and strategies to the execution of major gift fundraising. Students will gain a practical understanding of systems and processes they can share in an interview, if they are embarking on a career change to nonprofit development, or apply their knowledge to their current development role.

This course is appropriate for:

• Those new to the development field, perhaps exploring a career change.
• Development professionals interested in honing their knowledge and skills.

Specific course objectives include, among others:

• Define a major gift and understand the practice of major gift fundraising within a campaign and an ongoing comprehensive development program
• Understand how individuals, private foundations and corporations give to nonprofit organizations, their motivation and how to cultivate these potential prospects
• Apply key components to write a compelling case for support
• Probe ways to leverage AI for the purpose of ideation, problem solving, and process acceleration
• Distinguish between donor-centered and community-centered fundraising principles 
• Identify the characteristics of a major gift prospect, summarize the concepts of how to analyze the potential of your donor pool for a major gift opportunity, and articulate what is necessary to build a major gift portfolio
• Recognize how a relationship management system is a useful tool to track major gift activity and assignments
• Demonstrate effective solicitation strategies through interactive classroom exercises and discussion.

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

Additional Information:

This is a five-week course offered during the Fall quarter.

This course is graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.