Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership (CNL) Available Online

Subject Matter Experts:

Dr. Duchess D. Humphrey

Nonprofit Leadership in Turbulent Times

Dr. Duchess D. Humphrey is an Epidemiologist Specialist and Special Projects Supervisor for the Tarrant County Public Health Department. She holds a doctorate in public administration and nonprofit management from the University of North Texas at Denton (UNT) and a Master of Urban Affairs from the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Humphrey’s primary research and scholarship focuses on public and nonprofit governance and culturally competent leadership. She has guest lectured at UNT and has served under the leadership of renowned scholars in a variety of public administration and nonprofit management courses. In addition to her role as a public administrator, Dr. Humphrey has actively served on nonprofit boards of For the Love of the Lake and the Tarrant County American Association of University Women. She has also served on the United Way of Tarrant County Public Policy Committee, United Way of Tarrant County Health Council, United Way of Tarrant County Grants Review Committee, and the African American Museum of Dallas Gala Planning Committee. Art and matters of social equity are her passion and avocation.

Dr. Tosha Cantrell-Bruce

Introduction to Nonprofit Strategic Management

Dr. Tosha Cantrell-Bruce is a Professor of nonprofit management, public administration, and public service. She incorporates experiences from 25 years of working in the public and nonprofit sector in her role as an affiliated professor for Texas A&M Bush School of Government and Public Service, and University of Southern Indiana. Dr. Cantrell-Bruce has 11 years of experience teaching online and onground for universities. Currently she teaches a range of graduate and undergraduate courses including human resource management, program evaluation, nonprofit management, volunteer management, organizational dynamics, research methods, and public leadership at the graduate and undergraduate level. 

In addition to teaching, Dr. Cantrell-Bruce provides capacity building support for community coalitions and member-based associations. She is experienced in using research-based information in strategic planning, survey research, focus groups, board governance, and marketing assessments. Past clients include Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Illinois, Illinois Society of Association Executives, Illinois State Dental Society, Illinois Pharmacists Association, and Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

She is a current member of the American Evaluation Association and the Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action and is a past board member of the Illinois Society of Association Executives.

Dr. Cantrell-Bruce received her Doctor and Master of Public Administration from the University of Illinois at Springfield and her bachelor of science from Millikin University. She has presented her research on nonprofit evaluation at multiple national and state conferences.

Specialties: community coalition building, nonprofit organizations, member-based associations, needs assessment and evaluation, survey research, and marketing analyses.

Dr. Angela Seaworth 

Nonprofit Board Governance for Executives

Angela D. Seaworth holds a Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy where she researched nonprofit governance and leadership, was a Graduate Fellow at the Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence, a doctoral intern at the Lumina Foundation and a doctoral assistant at The Fund Raising School. She earned her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Indiana University’s O’Neil School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), and B.A. from Denison University.

Dr. Seaworth is passionate about nonprofit and philanthropy education. She was the founding director of the Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Rice University where she designed curriculum and managed educational programming for nonprofit executives and board members, eventually growing the program to more than 800 enrollments annually. As a Lecturer for the Texas A&M Bush School of Government and Public Service, she teaches Management and Leadership of Nonprofit Organizations, Foundations of the Nonprofit Sector, and Fundraising in Nonprofit Organizations. Additionally, she also teaches a graduate-level Fund Development course at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, and Nonprofit Strategy for the University of California Irvine. She has taught an undergraduate capstone course in Management, Leadership, and Policy, as an adjunct professor at Indiana University’s SPEA, and has served on the Leadership Circle for the University of Houston’s Nonprofit Leadership Alliance Chapter since 2012. Seaworth champions youth philanthropy education and designed a week-long camp philanthropy curriculum for ages 9-14, and the Council of Michigan Foundations appointed her to the board for Learning to Give, a K-12 philanthropy education curriculum in 2015.

Read Dr. Angela Seaworht’s full biography.

Dr. Deborah Kerr 

Introduction to Nonprofit Performance Measurement

Deborah L. Kerr, PhD, joined the graduate faculty of the Bush School of Government and Public Service in 1999 and is a Professor of the Practice. She teaches graduate courses in public policy theory, organizational performance measurement, and management. Her teaching has been recognized with the University’s 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching (based on nomination and support from current and former graduate students) and with Silver Star Awards given by the graduating classes of 2009, 2014, 2015, and 2018 for outstanding service and dedication. She conducts research on performance measurement use in small- and medium-sized nonprofits. She has been an executive in private, public, and nonprofit organizations. Her academic and practice expertise includes performance management and measurement, talent management, and manager and executive performance. She has served on the board of the Central Texas Food Bank and currently serves on the board of Family Eldercare. While an executive at the Texas State Auditor’s Office (SAO), she led the development of one of the nation’s first public sector balanced performance measurement scorecards; in 2004, the SAO and its measurement system was recognized as one of the world’s best when it was elected to the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame. She also helped implement other innovative work processes that were adopted by audit organizations across the US. She served as an executive at the American Heart Association.

Dr. Kerr teaches occasional classes for the University of Texas’ Continuing Professional Education program; in 2016, she received the UT Continuing Professional Education Excellence Award for outstanding teaching and service. At the Maxwell School of Government, Syracuse University, she served on the National Advisory Panel for Human Resource Performance Measurement to develop public sector performance measures for the “Grading Government” studies published by Governing magazine. Dr. Kerr’s work in organizational measurement was named a “best practice” by the Society for Human Resource Management. Her methodology for performance measurement systems was featured in both Paul Niven’s book Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step and Mohan Nair’s Essentials of the Balanced Scorecard. The Austin American-Statesman, Austin Woman, and Financial World magazines have written about her work. Her articles have been published in Texas CEO, the Austin Chamber Magazine, Perform magazine, and the Journal of Accountancy. They have been republished in Italy and India as well. She coauthored a chapter on consulting to public sector organizations for the textbook In Action: Building a Successful Consulting Practice. She is frequently asked to speak at national, regional, and state conferences about performance measurement and evidence-based management. She holds degrees from St. Mary’s College (Notre Dame), Columbia University (New York), and the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Kenneth Anderson Taylor

Introduction to the Situational Leadership Model

Within the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Dr. Kenneth Anderson Taylor is an Assistant Professor of the Practice and the Director of Outreach and Professional Development within the Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy and holds the Younger-Carter Endowed Practitioner-in-Residence. In 2018, the TAMU College of Architecture appointed Dr. Taylor as a Faculty Fellow within its Center for Health Systems & Design. Dr. Taylor’s primary faculty responsibilities encompass teaching a variety of nonprofit management and leadership theory courses as well as leading consulting capstone seminars for graduate students. In the past, Dr. Taylor has served as co-faculty within the Agricultural Leadership and Development program (TAMU College of Agriculture & Life Sciences) and has accompanied students to Thessaloniki and Athens, Greece, to explore the variety of leadership models as a scholarly discipline via personal experiences. Per his Center for Nonprofits & Philanthropy duties, Dr. Taylor enjoys working in Texas and beyond with nonprofit organizations, where he truly gets to utilize his former experience as a nonprofit executive and work with leaders on a variety of professional development opportunities.

Dr. Taylor earned his MBA from Bellarmine University’s Rubel School of Business and also holds a BA in sociology from the same institution. His PhD in leadership studies is from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. His dissertation research focused on the link between leader behavior within nonprofit organizations and its impact on employee job satisfaction. Before arriving in College Station, Dr. Taylor founded and launched the Nonprofit Leadership Studies (formerly Youth and Nonprofit Leadership) program at Murray State University and held the appointment of Academic Program Director & Assistant Professor within its College of Health Science & Human Services. As a practitioner, Dr. Taylor has more than twenty years of leadership experience inside, and on behalf of, nonprofit organizations. His self-defined career highlights include the twelve consecutive years he served the mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and the five years he spent as a self-employed nonprofit consultant. Dr. Taylor is also a State of Texas Credentialed Mediator.

Course Format | Course Offerings | Subject Matter Experts  |  Course Features  |  Course Dates | Cost

Course Features:

• High Quality, Intensive Learning. The courses are developed and delivered by faculty members from Texas A&M University and the Bush School. Topics are drawn from graduate-level coursework with a structure designed for working professionals. Instructors apply real-world concepts to advance professional development which guides participants towards current and future-oriented leadership practices at nonprofit organizations.
• Small, Discussion-Oriented Classes. The courses are developed and delivered by faculty members from Texas A&M University and the Bush School. Topics are drawn from graduate-level coursework with a structure designed for working professionals. Instructors apply real-world concepts to advance professional development which guides participants towards current and future-oriented leadership practices at nonprofit organizations.
• Next-Level Nonprofit Leadership. The CNL is geared toward professionals seeking to become more effective in their roles and for those who seek advancement opportunities within the field. The Certificate can be completed in approximately four months, with individual courses taking three weeks to complete online and encompassing approximately eight hours of instruction. Though we encourage participants to aspire toward completing the five required courses for the CNL, participants are invited to pursue any of the Continuing & Professional Education course offerings that appeal to their interests.
• Trusted Reputation. Texas A&M University prides itself on being among the best national public universities for a superior education at an affordable cost, and for being the top public university in Texas for best value. In the brief 23 years since the founding of the Bush School of Government & Public Service, the nonprofit management program regularly finds its way into the U.S. News and World Report’s best graduate nonprofit management programs.
• Connect Globally. Texas A&M University prides itself on being among the best national public universities for a superior education at an affordable cost, and for being the top public university in Texas for best value. In the brief 23 years since the founding of the Bush School of Government & Public Service, the nonprofit management program regularly finds its way into the U.S. News and World Report’s best graduate nonprofit management programs.