Brock University’s Goodman School of Business saw 26 community members graduate from the inaugural Non-Profit Leadership Certificate program this week.

The program is run through Goodman’s Centre for Innovation, Management and Enterprise Education (CIMEE) which provides public and customized business seminars for Niagara professionals.

Tailored to fit a leadership development gap in the non-profit sector, the program provides community members with the tools and information they need to successfully lead teams and organizations.

“We had previously developed programming for municipal and corporate leaders and knew that we could build on the success of these programs to provide a valuable service for the many non-profit organizations that do such great work in Niagara,” said Goodman Interim Dean Barry Wright.

Running over eight weeks, the program is made up of eight evening courses and includes a range of topics such as Finance for the Non-Profit Sector and Change Management.

“A unique attraction of this program is the bespoke nature of the content. We asked over 600 non-profit contacts to tell us their professional development needs when designing the program,” said CIMEE manager Abdul Rahimi.

Business professionals from Alzheimer Society of Niagara Region, Community Addiction Services of Niagara, Community Living Fort Erie, Community Living Grimsby, Heartland Forest, New Hope Church, Niagara Sustainability Initiative, Project Share, Red Roof Retreat, United Way Niagara, Wellspring Niagara Cancer Support Foundation, Lincoln & West Lincoln, and YWCA Niagara participated.

For Lisa Panetta, CEO of Community Addiction Services of Niagara, the program provided a forum where she could discuss ideas and benefit from mentorship opportunities.

“Leaders in non-profit don’t necessarily have entire finance or human resource departments so they often have to excel in several areas at once,” said Panetta.

“Leadership development is a big need in Niagara. The program was attractive to me since it had the credibility of being run by the Goodman School of Business. We had a wonderful group of participants and we generated great ideas and discussion,” she said.

The next non-profit program will be held in Fall, 2017.

Thx @GoodmanSchool! We were privileged to have stellar professors in a class surrounded by professionals who have a <3 for their community. https://t.co/D2uoeEnkJ4

— United Way Niagara (@UWNiagara) December 7, 2016

Community members from local non-profit organizations received their certificates from CIMEE Dec. 7