Before I enrolled in this course, I had been working as a social worker for 4.5 years in Singapore. Coming into this course was a great decision for me, as I was exposed to the management side of the nonprofit sector, such as governance issues, strategic planning and management, performance measurement and assessment, among others. In particular, I appreciated the lecturers’ experience and expertise in their various domains, and their openness in sharing their insights about nonprofit management with us. We also had many guest speakers and site visits across the different modules, which further grounded our learning in the real world.

The MNPM course, though shorter than other Masters’ courses, was no less rigorous – in particular, the capstone project required us to analyse an issue faced by the nonprofit organisations we partnered, and also to produce a deliverable that would be useful for them. As I had minimal exposure to the nonprofit sector in Hong Kong before this course, this was an added challenge for me. Hence, I had to learn from my groupmates how to contextualise our deliverable for our partner nonprofits. Thankfully, as a group we were able to design a deliverable that not just offered a solution to their issue, but was also something that could be implemented immediately.

Since completing the course, I have returned to my nonprofit and started work in a new department, helping in a leadership role. With my experiences and knowledge from the MNPM course, I have been involved in programme planning and implementation, and also helped to review the progress made in our various programmes.

For prospective students who are considering this course, know that this course will stretch you, expose you to areas of the nonprofit sector you may be unfamiliar with, and train you both in hard and soft skills. If you are up for this challenge, you will gain not just knowledge and skills, but also a shift in the way you think about and look at nonprofit issues.