The British are not coming!: UK higher education and the nonprofit sector

Abstract

The rationale for the growth of nonprofit management education in the United States has recently been charted by O'Neill (2005). Ten years previously, the United States and the United Kingdom were at similar levels of development. By 2006 the parallel lines had been broken. Why has nonprofit management education expanded in the United States while provision of graduate education for the voluntary sector in the United Kingdom has stood still? This article explores the factors that have prevented parallel growth in education provision. It argues that the university as an institution, both in terms of its nature and its power structures, is one of those factors. It presents the story of the closing of the world' s first voluntary sector course at the London School of Economics and concludes with reflection on the likely future of voluntary sector management education provision in the United Kingdom.I N 2005, MICHAEL O'NEILL described nonprofit management education (NME) as "largely a phenomenon of the past two decades, [one that] has grown rapidly in the United States. The field was virtually nonexistent in 1980; by 2000 there were ninety-one master' s degree programs with at least a concentration in NME, . . . nearly one hundred undergraduate programs, and about fifty universitybased certificate programs. . ." (O'Neill, 2005, p. 5). O'Neill went on to describe the developmental context for this growth with a wideranging analysis of education drivers and the role of the nonprofit sector itself. If O'Neill' s article had been published ten years before, and had academics looked across "the Pond" at the United Kingdom, they would have found a similar picture. In the context of UK voluntary management education, this article reflects on the difficulties in developing management education for the sector and on the factors for underperformance. It specifically addresses the question of what, if anything, can be learned from the closing of the LSE program. The resulting discussion will lead to a fuller understanding of what this implies about the future development for voluntary sector education. The context within which this takes place includes an account of nonprofit sector growth and the changing profile of its management education counterpart, revealing some insights into the difficulties faced. Specifically, the argument is developed by referring to possible influences of voluntary sector culture on management education, a comparative perspective of the UK versus the U.S. experience, relevance of the lessons learned from the LSE case, and a perspective on the influence of external and internal pressures on university education for the sector. MethodologyThis article discusses the difficulties in developing management education for the sector alongside the factors for underperformance. Existing literature and documented trends in the sector are the initial information source used to generate an agenda for discussing current and future trends. 1 More specifically, the issues outlined by the VOLPROF report (Bruce and L...

Build It and They Will Come! Or, Built to Last? Key Challenges and Insights into the Sustainability of Nonprofit and Philanthropy Programs and Centers

“…• 421 to the USA-was broken by 2006 according to Palmer and Bogdanova (2008). While the U.S. growth continued apace in the 21 century, it stalled in the UK.…”

Where did we come from? The emergence and early development of voluntary sector studies in the UK

“…Indeed, they accused VSS scholars in Britain of conniving -as Hall (1992), argued happened in the US -in the "invention" of the "sector". Another, rather different kind of critical note about the UK VSS field, and a possible explanation for its apparently slow development, was published in the (US-based) journal Nonprofit Management and Leadership (Palmer and Bogdanova, 2008). Regretting the demise of specialist teaching and research at the London School of Economics after a period of growth from the late 1980s, the authors argued that the income-maximising drive which had recently been imposed on British universities was a major barrier to voluntary sector teaching and research endeavour.…”

Practicing What You Preach: UK Philanthropy Practitioners’ Experiences of Theoretical Academic Study

“…

Analysis of UK educational provision in philanthropic studies (Carrington, 2009;Keidan et al, 2014;Palmer & Bogdanova, 2008) has demonstrated a need for further provision of philanthropy education for the UK sector. Taking its lead from debates around the role of academic theory in this growing field of study, this project aims to determine how theoretical (rather than practical) master's-level study of philanthropy is understood and perceived by those working in the philanthropy, charity and fundraising sectors.

…”