The WRD Department, partnered with the School of Public Service (SPS), recently announced the creation of the new graduate Certificate in Strategic Writing and Advancement for Nonprofits, or the SWAN Certificate. Open to all graduate students, the Certificate offers MAWRD students a particularly exciting opportunity to add value to their degree without taking any additional courses. This in-depth overview explains the logistics and course requirements of the SWAN Certificate so you can learn how earning this credential can benefit you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the SWAN Certificate<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The SWAN Certificate\u2014jointly offered by SPS and WRD\u2014consists of four courses designed to provide experience and knowledge in grant writing, resource development, and nonprofits. Students can earn the Certificate along with their master\u2019s degree or pursue it as a stand-alone credential. According to the course catalog, the Certificate is \u201cdesigned for those who wish to enter into or advance their careers in nonprofit marketing, communication, and development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WRD Professor Lisa Dush, the newly appointed SWAN Certificate Coordinator, shared more about what inspired the creation of this new credential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeveral WRD faculty teach nonprofit-engaged courses in the Professional and Digital Writing concentration of the MA in WRD, including myself, Professor Elliott, and Professor Ceraso. We realized that students who take several of these courses accrue substantial experience writing in nonprofit settings, and imagined the certificate as a way to extend and formalize that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe expertise brought by the School of Public Service (SPS) was also a major motivation for partnering with them to design and deliver the certificate,\u201d she said. \u201cThey teach courses that are out of WRD\u2019s range of disciplinary expertise, like nonprofit management, nonprofit boards, and strategic planning. Writers should know something about these topics if they want to work in nonprofit settings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SWAN Certificate Course Requirements<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The SWAN Certificate consists of four courses (16 credit hours) across two required courses and two elective courses offered by WRD and SPS (designated below by the MPS prefix). According to the course catalog, \u201cmany SWAN courses are characterized by community-engaged, project-based learning, in which students complete substantial course projects with and for Chicago-area nonprofit partner organizations. Students can expect to gain both resum\u00e9 experience and professional writing samples through their Certificate work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two required courses are WRD 526: Grant and Proposal Writing and MPS 519: Resource Development. These courses provide a robust foundation in grant writing and resource development. Through two additional elective courses, students can pursue specific professional areas such as content strategy, digital storytelling, and nonprofit marketing and board development. Students select one SPS course and one WRD course, except when advised otherwise, from the following range of elective courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Importantly, MAWRD students, and students pursuing an MA in Nonprofit Management<\/a> or an MS in Public Service Management, can earn the Certificate without adding additional courses to their degree. The Certificate offers a valuable time- and money-saving measure to add more experience to any MA degree and expand expertise in nonprofit work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benefits of the SWAN Certificate<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The SWAN Certificate offers a way for MAWRD students to add value to their degrees and graduate with an additional certification of their expertise and abilities to help nonprofit organizations succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope that WRD students who are curious about working in nonprofits will pursue this Certificate,\u201d said Professor Dush. \u201cThe courses and the work they complete will enable them to develop both theoretical and practical knowledge about nonprofit organizations and the writing done in them; it will also allow them to graduate with both a credential that they can reference in interviews and cover letters, and a portfolio of writing and digital media samples that they have developed in course projects with nonprofit partners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the Certificate, students will have expansive opportunities to work closely with local nonprofit partners. This type of community partner work can add practical resume-building experience to students\u2019 repertoires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThis is also a certificate that is well aligned with DePaul\u2019s Vincentian mission and commitment to community engagement,\u201d said Professor Dush. \u201cI\u2019m excited about the possibility that the Certificate brings for working in deeper and more sustained ways with nonprofit organizations. Our students will be more prepared to hop in and really be of assistance in class projects, and nonprofit organizations will have the chance to partner with multiple WRD and SPS courses. When those relationships extend beyond one quarter, all sort of interesting possibilities can emerge, including research projects, internship possibilities, and other collaborations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admission Requirements<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Students can begin the program any time. Current graduate students in WRD or any other DePaul master\u2019s degree program should contact Swan Certificate Coordinator, Professor Lisa Dush, to enroll. Current graduate students in SPS should contact the SPS staff advisor. Non-degree seeking students must follow separate admission guidelines outlined in the course catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The WRD Department, in partnership with the School of Public Service, is excited to announce the new graduate Certificate in Strategic Writing and Advancement for Nonprofits. Read this overview to learn about everything the SWAN Certificate has to offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":11022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559,471],"tags":[556,474,562,18,544],"class_list":["post-11020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-department-news-events","category-graduate","tag-depaul-community","tag-digital-writing","tag-graduate","tag-professional-writing","tag-wrd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}