Training for Nonprofit, NGO & Community Leaders

Our capacity-building and empowerment training program is for anyone who wants to build their capacity for social change so that your community program can thrive and grow. Earn your Certificate in Social Impact Leadership & Organizational Management today!

Choose Your Program and Start Today

 

   

  • Courses Available
  • Program Length*
  • Personal Coaching**
  • Course Homework***
  • Homework Feedback***
  • Offline Access
  • Scholarships & Discounts****
  • Course Certificates
  • Program Certificate
  • Monthly Payment Plan

Independent Learner

$69 per course

  • Courses Available Your Choice
  • Program Length* One Year
  • Personal Coaching** Available for Purchase
  • Course Homework*** Optional
  • Homework Feedback*** Yes
  • Offline Access Yes
  • Scholarships & Discounts**** No
  • Course Certificates Yes
  • Program Certificate Yes, if all courses are taken
  • Monthly Payment Plan No

Engaged Learner

$650

  • Courses Available All Courses
  • Program Length* 2 years (or less if you want!)
  • Personal Coaching** 4 calls + weekly Q&As
  • Course Homework*** Optional
  • Homework Feedback*** Yes
  • Offline Access Yes
  • Scholarships & Discounts**** Yes
  • Course Certificates Yes
  • Program Certificate Yes
  • Monthly Payment Plan Yes

We also offer group training for staff, volunteers, or board members through our Organizational Learners Program.

Over 96% of our trainees receive scholarships.

Don't let your finances hinder your growth as a leader. 

Courses

Understanding basic computer use, and an introduction to best practices in time management. 

Key Themes:

  • Getting started with email
    • Using folders and email organization
    • Email etiquette
    • Email security and privacy
  • Cloud servers and storage
  • Time management
    • Using a calendar and to-do list

Suggested Time to Complete:
30 days or less

* This course also includes an introduction to using Cultivate's online training platform. The course is included for free for all our learners. 

Understanding who you are and establishing your potential as a leader of an impactful community-led development program.

Key Themes:

  • Qualities and practices for effective and authentic leadership
  • Building confidence and self-awareness
  • Accountability
  • Rest and balance in leadership

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
60 days or less

Understanding the principles and best practices for asset-based community-led development, no matter its focus or activities.

Key Themes:

  • Types and stages of community development work (relief, development, advocacy)
  • Principles of asset-based community-led development
    • Learned helplessness and dependency vs. empowerment
    • Community buy-in and program ownership, capacity building
    • Collaboration, transparency, access and equity, adaptability
  • Responsibilities of community development practitioners
  • Using appreciative inquiry to tackle challenges

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
60 days or less

Identifying the programatic focus and activities of your nonprofit or community organization based on community input, planning and launching the program.

Key Themes:

  • Effective program design
    • Start small and recognize your limitations
    • Start with why
    • Determine your guiding values
  • Conducting community assessments
    • Understanding needs and assets
    • Practicing various data collection methods (forums, surveys, focus groups, interviews, etc)
    • Mapping the community's needs and assets
  • Identifying the community's felt needs, its root causes and critical effects (a problem and solution analysis)
  • Creating a business plan
    • Mission and vision statements
    • Program descriptions
    • Program objectives
    • Target market analysis
    • SWOT analysis
    • Program operation plans
    • Client marketing and communications
    • Human resources acquisition
    • Expense budgets
  • Complexities in planning and program execution
  • Program launch strategies

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
90 days or less

Understanding the culture of your potential donors and supporters.

Key Themes:

  • American cultural norms, beliefs and practices
    • Individualism, matters of time, self-reliance, views on the goodness of humanity.
    • Matters of time and money, professionalism, communication styles, prioritization of data and paperwork. 
    • Building trust through transparency and accountability.
  • Understanding American philanthropic history and context
    • History of philanthropy, American wealth and poverty, matters of faith and politics.

* Cultivate's training is for anyone, anywhere. However, we understand that most nonprofit and community development leaders want to be able to receive donations from American donors or donors from Western countries. We offer this course to help our international trainees better understand the culture of their potential donors.

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
30 days or less

An introduction to finding potential donors through online campaigns, crowdfunding, events, and fundraising through individuals, businesses, faith groups, and others; making the ask; donor stewardship.

Key Themes:

Part 1:

  • Fundraising best practices and income generation.
  • Principles of fundraising
    • Relationships, impact, trust, clarity, urgency and social connection.
  • Principles of storytelling
  • Understanding the different types of funders
    • Individuals, businesses, religious organizations, civic groups, foundations
  • Creating a diversified funding strategy
  • Networking, research and finding donor prospects
  • Crowdfunding and events
  • Donor stewardship and retention
  • Fundraising with individuals - meetings, online campaigns, appeals, and other means. 
  • Understanding American expectations and laws for charities.

Part 2:

  • Creating an income budget and plan
  • Fundraising with businesses and other organizations. 
  • Grant writing.

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
120 days or less

* This course is currently being revised and updated, therefore part 1 is currently available and part 2 will be finalized in the coming months. Anyone who enrolls in this course will have access to both parts, regardless of when they enroll.

This course offers training on financial management for nonprofits, NGOs and community organizations. In this introductory course, trainees will learn how to manage and use donated funds within established best practices of financial management. This course also offers an Excel template for nonprofit accounting which you can use in your initial bookkeeping, before upgrading to another accounting and financial management software program. 

Key Themes:

  • Understanding key financial management terms
  • Basic bookkeeping (using Microsoft Excel)
  • Cash flows and budgeting
  • Financial reporting
  • Designated funds
  • Ethical considerations of financial management
  • Security, privacy, accountability, and internal controls
  • Working through contingencies and establishing reserves
  • Establishing financial procedures and policies
  • Financial accountability and transparency
  • American expectations and cross-cultural dynamics in financial management
  • Fiscal sponsorship

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
60 days or less

Download the Course Info Sheet Here.

How good communication can help you, and what methods are available to fundraise, raise awareness, connect with supporters, and gain a following for your work.

Key Themes:

  • Principles and best practices of communications for nonprofits and community organizations
  • Storytelling and focusing on impact
  • Donor cultivation and stewardship
  • Mailings and newsletters
    • Using MailChimp for electronic newsletters
  • Annual Reports and Publications
    • Using Canva for graphic design
  • Blogs and websites
    • Creating a free website for your program
  • Social Media – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn
    • Using social media calendars and scheduling software
  • Creating a communications strategy and calendar
  • Using a Customer Management Database (or CRM) in Excel (we provide a free template to get you started)

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
90 days or less

Understanding the importance of measuring your program's impact on the community, and how to measure your impact in simple yet effective ways. 

Key Themes:

  • How evaluation helps you in fundraising, program design, strategic planning, etc.
  • Cultural implications and expectations of evaluation
    • Western views of the value of data (builds trust and accountability, proof of programmatic activity)
    • Evaluation reports for foundations  (pre and post grant award)
  • Principles and best practices
    • Plan and don’t change metrics often, engage and motivate clients, minimize bias from clients, anonymity, comparison of data sets across sectors and time, separate data collectors from program managers, ethics (client safety, consent and privacy), collecting data throughout the program cycle.
  • Determining what to measure. Creating a logical framework analysis, theory of change, and logic models.
  • Understanding the difference between outputs and outcomes/impact.
  • Differentiating between client satisfaction/feelings/beliefs, client learning, client skills development and client behaviors.
  • Methods of evaluation - surveys, focus groups, interviews, large group forums, observations, case studies,  within programmatic activities,
  • Using the Most Significant Change method - what it is, its value, how to use it.
  • Understanding the difference and value of qualitative and quantitative data.
  • Timeline of data collection.
  • Analyzing data - finding averages/means, other mathematical calculations, comparing client data across time, using spreadsheets, finding trends and outliers.
  • Reporting data - formal reports, stakeholder communications (clients, wider community, staff, donors, etc), program changes, grant reports. 

Suggested Time Needed to Complete:
90 days or less

* This course will be available by July 2023. Click here to be notified when the course is available.

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Download our Program Guide or read below to learn more about our capacity-building program for nonprofit and NGO leaders.

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Participant Requirements

English proficiency (if you can understand most of this website, that is enough!)

Computer access (courses can be read on a phone, but a computer is necessary for most activities)

Be able to pay for internet (you can expect to use about 500 mb of data per week)

Still deciding which program to enroll in?

Independent Learner

  • For anyone, at anytime. Choose the courses you want to take and start immediately.

    This option is ideal for people who are motivated to work independently or want to try out our program. 

  • Cost:

    $69 per course

  • What you get:

    • Access to any of our courses, including downloads, templates and activities.
    • Access to WhatsApp chat groups to network with and receive support from other trainees, and ask questions to our coaches. 
    • Access to course activities to complete on your own, so you can practice and retain the information you have learned.
    • Access to curriculum to read offline if you prefer to save data.
    • Certificates for each successfully-completed course.
    • Certificate of Accomplishment in Social Impact Leadership & Organizational Management is awarded to those who successfully complete all our courses.

  • Additional Options

    • Personalized coaching sessions on any of our topics are available for additional purchase ($75 per 60-minute session or $18.75 for a 15-minute session).
    • Personalized feedback from your coach on your choice of curriculum documents or activities you complete (such as your business plan, fundraising or communications strategy, theory of change or logical framework analysis, community assessment and needs & assets mapping). Feedback is charged at $75 per hour. 

Engaged Learner

  • For anyone, at anytime. Access all our courses and start immediately.

    This is ideal for people who are motivated to work independently, but are looking for some support from our coaches and to network with other program participants. 

  • Cost:

    $650

  • What you get:

    • Access to all of our courses, including downloads, templates, and activities.
    • Access to WhatsApp chat groups to network with and receive support from other trainees, and ask questions to our coaches. 
    • Access to course activities to complete on your own, so you can practice and retain the information you have learned.
    • Up to 4 personalized 60-minute coaching sessions focused on your topic of choice plus unlimited 15-minute coaching sessions.  
    • Access to curriculum to read offline if you prefer to save data.
    • Certificates for each successfully-completed course.
    • Certificate of Accomplishment in Social Impact Leadership & Organizational Management is awarded to those who successfully complete all our courses.

    Participants work through each course within the allotted course time availability, but can take as much time as needed between courses. Most participants find they gain the most from our program by devoting 4 hours or more per week.

  • Additional Options

    • Additional personalized coaching sessions are available for purchase ($75 per 60-minute session, or $18.75 for a 15-minute session).
    • Personalized feedback from your coach on your choice of curriculum documents or activities that you complete (such as your business plan, fundraising or communications strategy, theory of change or logical framework analysis, community assessment and needs & assets mapping). Feedback is charged at $75 per hour. 

Organizational Learners

  • A training program for groups who want to learn together.

    For organizations or teams that want to train and equip their staff, board members, or volunteers. This program is only available to organizations who want to offer our training to some or all of their people.

  • Cost:

    $1000 or higher, depending on team size.

  • What you get:

    • Access to all of our courses or your courses of choice, including downloads, templates, and activities.
    • Access to a private Facebook group and WhatsApp chat groups to network with and receive support from other trainees, and ask questions to our coaches.
    • Access to course activities to complete on their own or as a team, so everyone can practice and retain the information they have learned.
    • 1 or more group coaching sessions to review the training, ask questions, and go deeper into the topics.
    • Personalized feedback from your coach on your choice of curriculum documents or activities that your team completes (such as your business plan, fundraising or communications strategy, theory of change or logical framework analysis, community assessment and needs and assets mapping). 
    • Access to curriculum to read offline if you prefer to save data.
    • Certificates for each successfully-completed course.
    • Certificate of Accomplishment in Social Impact Leadership & Organizational Management is awarded to those who successfully complete all our courses.

    Participants work through the training on their own, but are encouraged to also meet as a team to review and discuss the training topics. Most organizations find their teams gain the most from our program by devoting 2 hours or more per week to the program. Organizations who want a simpler, quicker program can choose what they offer their teams.

    Each organization must identify one or more training supervisors from your own leadership team. These are the people who will supervise and support your team's training with Cultivate.

*Suggested times for completion.

 


** Personal coaching and feedback from trainers are $75/hour. Scholarship recipients may also receive scholarships for personal coaching calls and coach feedback based on financial need and availability of funds.

 

*** Independent, engaged and organizational leaners have suggested activities included in the course, which gives you an opportunity to create key documents for your program (such as a Business Plan, Theory of Change, Fundraising Plan, Donor Stewardship Plan, and Financial Database) and put your new knowledge to work. A Cultivate coach is available to review your documents and give you feedback, if you choose to purchase this option. Cohort members receive coach feedback on all their homework activities and documents (over 40 activities!).

 

**** We offer income-based scholarships to anyone, anywhere for Engaged Learner program only. Please do not let your ability to pay prevent you from working with us! Click here to learn more about your options. We also offer discounts to our Organizational Learner program based on the organization's annual revenue.