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Program structure

The program includes three components:

1. an opportunity for support, problem solving and relationship building;
2. working with a new set of case studies of feminist organizations; and
3. reading and discussing relevant literature in non-profit management, from working with boards to founder’s syndrome, and hearing from experts in particular areas.

The program does not rely exclusively on lectures and emphasizes interaction. 

• Each of the six program sessions begins with a half an hour to reflect on what has happened since the last session and discuss any lessons that have been learned or insights gleaned on the previous session’s theme. 
• Consistent with the program’s goal of creating a learning community of participants and maximizing participation, FLF sessions will each include the running of a public policy teaching case, an interactive exercise where participants seek to make a decision about a real world problem that has actually been faced by a similar organization or executive director.  Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government developed public policy teaching cases, modeling them on the cases utilized so successfully at the Harvard Business School.  Faculty presenters involved in the FLF have experience not only teaching but writing case studies and the Center on Women and Public Policy has led a pioneering program to produce teaching cases studies on women and public policy.   The Humphrey School has found that case study teaching is particularly appropriate with adult learners who are hungry to develop concrete problem solving skills rather than acquire greater facility with academic theories.
• After the case discussion, approximately one hour and fifteen minutes would be devoted to a lecture by our individual topic expert, situating the readings.  After a lunch break, participants would be divided into small groups to work on discussion questions. 
• The final hour of each session would be spent in a facilitated discussion of the whole. 

Each subject matter expert will supply participants with a list of additional resources and solicit additional resources from the group participants.  A master list including both instructor and participant resources will then be provided.  Participants will thus leave the program with a binder of the best readings and research on a given topic, cases of real world organizations grappling with similar dilemmas, and a list of further readings and resources. They will also leave with personal knowledge of six experts on the most important issues facing women’s nonprofits. But most importantly, they will leave with the names, e-mails, phone numbers, and hopefully friendships, of a group of peers who can support them throughout their careers. 

Program summary

Program schedule

Program faculty

Sally J. Kenney, Professor, directs the Center on Women and Public Policy. Kenney joined the Humphrey School faculty in 1995 after holding joint appointments in Political Science, Women's Studies, and Law at the University of Iowa.  She teaches "The Politics of Public Affairs,” the political science component of the core, “Women and Electoral Politics,” "Survey of Women, Law, and Public Policy in the U.S." and seminars on "Feminist Organizations," “Non-profit Board Service” and “Feminist Case Studies.” She advises students concentrating their studies in women and public policy and leads the Humphrey School’s social policy area.  She also served on the boards of the Minnesota Women's Campaign, WATCH, and the DFL Feminist Caucus, as well as UM Press.  Her research interests include judicial selection, feminist social movements, the European Court of Justice, exclusionary employment policies, and pregnancy discrimination. She served as a consultant to the US Congress's House Education and Labor Committee on discrimination resulting from fetal protection policies.  She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University, a B.A. and M.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Magdalen College, Oxford, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Iowa.  She is the author of For Whose Protection? Reproductive Hazards and Exclusionary Policies in the United States and Britain, and is the co-editor of Politics and Feminist Standpoint Theories and Constitutional Dialogues in Comparative Perspective. Her work has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Law and Social Inquiry, Political Research Quarterly, Women and Politics, and Judicature as well as in law reviews.

Melissa Middleton Stone, associate professor, has a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Yale University and specializes in nonprofit management. She has researched the effects of state contracting on United Way agencies, intra- and interorganizational governance, and the politics of planning in nonprofit organizations. She is an associate editor of Nonprofit Management and Leadership and frequently writes on nonprofit management issues for scholarly journals. Stone came to the Humphrey School from the Boston University School of Management where she taught management policy and also served as associate director of the Yale Program on Nonprofit Organizations.  As founder of Family Connection in Anchorage, Alaska, Stone conducted statewide and national workshops on organizational planning and social policy development. As co-founder of Alaska Youth Advocates, she secured program funding, testified before legislative committees, and held national advocacy workshops. Stone also is a member of the Head Start Management Panel of Experts and the director of the Humphrey School’s Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center.

Jodi Sandfort, Associate Professor, received a Ph.D. in political science and social work in 1997 from the University of Michigan. She also holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Vassar College.  Her research, teaching, and practice focus on improving the implementation of social policy, particularly those policies designed to support low-income children and their families. Sandfort also was a program officer with the McKnight Foundation in the area of children, families, and communities, where she was responsible for developing and managing a comprehensive portfolio focused on supporting poor working families.   She has worked as a consultant with the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and other nonprofit human service organizations. Sandfort also has experience training mid-level public managers, nonprofit organizations as well as masters- level and doctoral-level students. Sandfort is the author of numerous reports for policymakers and practitioners on low-income childcare and preschool education, welfare reform, and policy implementation. Sandfort has also published articles in numerous academic journals, including the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Social Services Review, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Administration & Society, and Children and Youth Services Review. She has contributed chapters to books on public management and research methodology. She also has written for direct service practitioners and policymakers in articles published in Young Children, Policy & Practice, and policy reports and briefings published by the Children’s Defense Fund and Urban Institute.

Dara Z. Strolovitch, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2002. Her work focuses on interest groups and social movements, and on the politics of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the United States. She has held fellowships at the Brookings Institution, Georgetown’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society, and the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study. Her work has received awards from the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA), the Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), and the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).  She has received grant support from sources including Yale University, The University of Minnesota, The Aspen Institute, the Irving Louis Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Politics, the American Journal of Sociology, the National Women’s Studies Association Journal, Social Science Quarterly, the Du Bois Review, and Interest Group Politics (7e). Her book, Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics, was released in August 2007 by the University of Chicago Press.