The Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations—A shooting star

Dennis R. Young and Grover C. Gilmore

Chapter Chapter 14 in Case Studies on Nonprofit Resilience Management, 2025, pp 117-133 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations (MCNO) was established at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in 1984 for the purpose of educating managers and leaders of private, nonprofit organizations and advancing the field of nonprofit studies in higher education. The MCNO was conceived as a nationally oriented program, as there was no such program in a major U.S. university that was explicitly designed for nonprofit organizations. The initial funding of the center by the Mandel Associated Foundations in partnership with the Cleveland, Gund, and Sohio foundations was the first such major philanthropic initiative in the field of university study of nonprofit management. After a false start, and changes in leadership, it successfully launched the Certificate in Nonprofit Management (CNM) in 1989 and the Masters of Nonprofit Organizations (MNO) in 1990, along with a portfolio of complementary programs designed to advance the study of nonprofit management. The center, designed as a partnership among three schools on the CWRU campus, grew robustly over the next six years, with multiple grants and increased commitment by the Mandel Foundations, but not without tensions with its partner schools in the university. Ultimately, friction between the director of the center and the governing board of deans led to the former’s resignation and search for a new director in 1996. This change in leadership as well as transience in the governing board itself, led to a long slow erosion in the center’s achievements, programming, and enrollments. By 2011, difficulties in keeping the center afloat led to the university’s decision to disband the center and distribute its remaining programs between two of the partner schools (Management and Social Work). Overall, the story of the Mandel Center is one of spectacular initial success followed by rolling crises as a result of the structural flaws and leadership failures to which it ultimately succumbed.

Keywords: Nonprofit management; Governance; Leadership; Philanthropy; Institutional failure; Interdisciplinary education; Universities; Graduate education; Legacy programs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035328567
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