It's academic

One of my next-step activities after leaving the Greenlights' ED driver's seat this spring is to teach a graduate course in nonprofit strategy and entrepreneurship at the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Volunteerism (in U Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs). I am looking forward to this immensely. Sounds strange?

What's attractive about teaching this course is that I can put my practical experience inside an academic context. I have complained often that we on-the-job leaders work from intuition and opportunity more than from concept or theory. And I love theory and concept.

The course I will teach is a lively blend of theory and practice. It's case-based - so each week 30-35 smart, articulate grad students from all over University of Texas will debate/discuss how a specific set of facts and circumstances in a real world nonprofit dilemna should be addressed. And it's theory-friendly. That means that theories and concepts and those elegant two-by-two matrices will be found all along the way as frames for understanding, exploring, and problem-solving.

What a fine luxury - examining solutions without the pressure of needing immediate decisions or the risk that a decision can be costly in expected or unanticipated ways.

I was traveling by plane this weekend, and enjoyed the free-fall of reading a nonprofit theory book cover-to-cover in between airports. Next step - read all the case material and finalize my syllabus.

For you soap opera fans, the Transition Committee met last week to review the many applicants for the ED role, and cull a finalist list for further investigation. The Committee sounds encouraged about the good group of top candidates. So I am too!

No photo's this time - but if any readers have good photo's to add to this blog, send them on!