Heller MBA Curriculum

MANAGING NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS as well as others with a social mission, whether in the public or for-profit sector, requires many skills -- mobilizing people from diverse backgrounds, delivering quality services while using resources efficiently, achieving organizational financial health and accountability, understanding the political, economic and policy forces that shape the world, Professor Brenda Anderson teaching a Heller MBA Class evaluating and continuously improving an organization's performance, and developing a vision into a reality.

Through required and elective courses, students master the working knowledge needed to meet the practical challenges they will face when managing for a social mission.

  • Finance and Accounting Series

    Acquire financial skills through a rigorous sequence of courses in accounting and finance.

  • Organizational and Operations Management

    Analyze case studies and build management foundations from strategic planning to marketing, from human resource management to leadership, organizational behavior, and more.

  • Social Justice

    Develop a vision for social change and learn to analyze research and policies that form the basis for that change. Expand your knowledge with a frameworks course on social policy and one on social justice; learn to analyze, evaluate and advocate for sound knowledge-based social policies.

  • Manage for a Double Bottom Line

    Learn program evaluation methods to assess social outcomes that may be difficult to quantify. Organizations need to be accountable to the financial bottom line as well as the organization's social mission. Apply methods of participatory management to engage stakeholders -- staff, community, even clients -- to meet desired social outcomes and provide quality human services.

  • Concentrations

    Acquire a broad understanding of nonprofit management from one of several concentrations.

  • Practical Experience

    Learn about real-life practices and problems through class projects with external organizations, case studies, and the Team Consulting Project.

  • Team Consulting Project

    Complete your degree with a semester-long project working in a team with other students to address a current management challenge confronting a mission-based organization in the non-profit, for-profit, or public sector.

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CORE CURRICULUM

Total credits, Core Curriculum: 50

ELECTIVE COURSES
CONCENTRATIONS - Choose one

Three courses (12 credits) are required in your chosen concentration. Each concentration specifies its own requirements and options.

Total credits, Policy Concentrations: 12

Electives may be selected from other Heller School courses, courses in other schools at Brandeis, and up to two courses may be selected from The Boston Consortium for Higher Education, which includes Boston University, Boston College, Tufts University and several other area colleges and universities. In addition, The Heller School has cross-registration agreements with the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Total credits, Electives: 6