News Release

The Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies has received a $137,000 grant to create a leadership and management program to provide advanced training for nonprofit workers in Baltimore and the surrounding region.

The grant, awarded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, will support a five-course sequence that will lead to a certificate and fill a gap in education and training for the many nonprofit workers in the region. The courses will be offered beginning in January. Lester Salamon, a research scientist and director of the institute's Center for Civil Society Studies, said he hopes for between "50 to 100 enrollments" per year.

"There is definitely a need for this," said Larry Walton, president of the United Way of Central Maryland. The region has thousands of nonprofit workers, and little opportunity for advanced training in areas such as nonprofit law, fund raising, strategic decision making and forging complex partnerships between nonprofits, business and government, he said.

"The Packard money will help fund start-up costs and provide scholarships," Salamon said. "A feasibility study this year showed there was strong interest in such a program."

Lester Picker, a consultant and writer who conducted the feasibility study, interviewed more than 45 foundation executives, business and community leaders, nonprofit executives and government managers. "The results were pretty overwhelming that there was a need for this program and a desire to see it offered at Hopkins," Picker said. "People felt it would give them marketable skills."