Social Impact, Innovation, and Investment Specialization

Overview

The Social Impact, Innovation, and Investment specialization blends financial management, impact investment, operations, and policy to prepare students to develop entrepreneurial solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. You will learn the key skills needed to create sustainable solutions to a variety of issues. Graduates will be prepared to enter the burgeoning social innovation sector as policy leaders, social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and nonprofit and for-profit managers.

This unique specialization trains you to be an agent of social change. By speaking both the business and the policy language, you’ll be able to innovate policy, products, services, delivery systems, enterprises, and investment approaches necessary to improve lives and solve major domestic and global challenges.

DEGREE CORE COURSES

CORE-GP.1011, Statistical Methods for Public, Nonprofit, and Health Management
CORE-GP.1018, Microeconomics for Public Management, Planning, and Policy Analysis
CORE-GP.1020, Managing Public Service Organizations (MPSO)
CORE-GP.1021, Financial Management for Public, Nonprofit, and Health Organizations
CORE-GP.1022, Introduction to Public Policy

Required Courses

Students complete the following courses:

PADM-GP. 2132 Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation By Design OR PADM-GP 2310 Understanding Social Enterprise

PADM-GP 4130 Fundamentals of Accounting (1.5 credits)

 

Students must also complete one course from each area below:

Financial Management

PADM-GP.2142, Financial Management for Global Nonprofit Organizations
PADM-GP.2147, Corporate Finance and Public Policy

Impact Measurement & Investment Returns

PADM-GP.2311, Social Impact Investment
PADM-GP.2312, Managing Financial and Social Returns of the Social Enterprise

Operations & Enterprise

PADM-GP.2173, Operations Management for Public, Nonprofit, and Health Contexts
PADM-GP.2174, The Intersection of Operations and Policy

Policy, Advocacy & Innovation

PADM-GP.2106, Community Organizing
PADM-GP.2145, Design Thinking: A Creative Approach to Problem Solving and Creating Impact
PADM-GP.2411, Policy Formation and Policy Analysis
PADM-GP.4407, Advocacy Lab I
PADM-GP.4408, Advocacy Lab II

ELECTIVE COURSES

Students choose electives (10.5 credits) from a wide array of Wagner courses, and may want to focus on the areas below:

Financial Management

PADM-GP.4131, Fundamentals of Fundraising

Operations & Enterprise

PADM-GP.2110, Strategic Management
PADM-GP.2119, Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations
PADM-GP.2127, Corporate Social Responsibility: Social Finance Partnerships and Models
PADM-GP.2135, Talent Development - Understanding Human Resources
PADM-GP.2430, Multi-Sector Partnerships: A Comparative Perspective
PADM-GP.4111, Managing Service Delivery
PADM-GP.4112, Building Effective Teams
PADM-GP.4117, Systems Thinking and Deep Data Literacy
PADM-GP.4414, Corporate Philanthropy and Engagement

Policy, Advocacy & Innovation

PADM-GP.2109, The Legal Context for Policy and Public Management
PADM-GP.2186, Leadership and Social Transformation
PADM-GP.2445, Poverty, Inequality, and Policy
URPL-GP.2629, Urban Innovation: New Ideas in Policy Management & Planning
PADM-GP.4101, Conflict Management and Negotiation
PADM-GP.4116, Participatory Policymaking
PADM-GP.4137, Strategic Communication
PADM-GP.4312, Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy
PADM-GP.4340, Digital Innovation Lab
PADM-GP.4341, Data for Social Innovation

Impact Measurement & Investment Returns

PADM-GP.2170, Performance Measurement and Management for Public, Nonprofit, and Health Care Organizations
PADM-GP.2171, Program Analysis and Evaluation
PADM-GP.2413, Strategic Philanthropy
HPAM-GP.2825, Continuous Quality Improvement

Social Innovation Faculty

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