Q&A

  • What will I get out of it?
  • How’s it different from what they teach in universities?
  • Who takes the course? Is it just for college students? Is it just for mid-career professionals?
  • If I’m mid-career, will it be too sophomoric for me? If I’m in college, will it be over my head?
  • Is it academic or touchy-feely?
  • How many people in each course?
  • Are there any breaks?
  • What’s the setting?
  • Can I afford $299?
  • Is it nonprofit?

  • Career clarity, and an inspiring new perspective on what it means to make a difference and how you can do it. You’ll get more options than you thought you had. You’ll get an opening in your imagination. You’ll get inspired. You’ll come away with a sense of power about your ability to make the kind of difference you really want to make, and to create the career you want, rather than one written for you by someone else. You’ll feel less resigned to a binary choice between the nonprofit and corporate worlds. You’ll get valuable, non-traditional information on how the nonprofit sector works, and doesn’t work, and how you can create a whole career in changing the way change gets made. And you’ll meet incredible people on the same search as you, maybe new friends…for life.

  • Change Course is far less traditional. The thinking is a few years ahead of what’s being taught in nonprofit management and philanthropy classes in college. It’s hundreds of years ahead of what’s being taught in ethics and philosophy classes in college. And it’s based on recent and current real-world experience. It’s more street than college is. It’s more contemporary. Not afraid to be aspirational. It’s bolder, less buttoned up, less careful, less cautious, more imaginative and more inspiring.

    And a lot shorter, a lot less expensive, and no finals.

  • People of all ages, shapes, sizes and backgrounds register for Change Course. The mystery and confusion that surround how to maximize the difference you want to make in the world is universal. So you might find a college student sitting next to you, or a recent grad, a nonprofit executive director, a wealthy philanthropist, a corporate executive, a fundraiser, a social worker, or a professor. Passion and curiosity are also common threads among the people taking Change Course. And there’s a spirit of friendliness, cooperation, and community in the room. You’ll never feel that you’re not smart enough, or too smart. That won’t be the gauge on which you measure your fit in the experience.

  • No, and no. The material in Change Course is fresh and it’s universal. It has been delivered to college and graduate students, senior nonprofit executives, wealthy philanthropists, major institutional funders, corporate executives, lay people and many others, all with the same effect: it opens peoples’ eyes to new, counter-intuitive ways of thinking about making a difference. Change Course is the result of years of research, application and presentation. It’s really for anyone and everyone who wants to maximize the difference they make in the world.

  • It’s both. Parts of Change Course are very academic. Come prepared to think. There will be some pie charts and some graphs. There’ll be a little bit of economics. But there will also be meditations, heartfelt talks, participants sharing their experiences, their passions, their fears, their hopes and their dreams. It’s not a yoga class or a 12-step meeting. And it’s not an accounting lecture. It’s a balance of food for the heart and the head. But we will say this: it is, above all, an experience that you will carry with you for the rest of your life.

  • Around 100 people will participate in Change Course with you.

  • There’s a 15-minute break every two hours and a one-hour lunch break mid-day. No cell phones, laptops or texting are allowed. Being separated from your mobile device for eight hours a day may well be the most valuable part of the whole experience. Notice the panic already beginning to set in. Panic is your mind sensing something’s about to change. That’s why we call it Change Course. If we allowed texting and diversion and distraction we’d call it Same Course. You are asked not to leave the room during Change Course unless there is an emergency, or an unignorable physical urgency. The experience of community that gets created as a result of these ground rules is an important part of the overall experience.

  • Change Course takes place in a function room with theater-style seating. There is a video screen and presenter riser at the front of the room so that everyone can comfortably hear and see the material. If you have any physical restrictions or problems that we should know about, please let us know. At this time there is no sign language provided.

  • We offer a pay-over-three-months option if the registration fee is too much for you to come up with all at once. Contact us for more details.

  • No, we’re proudly a socially conscious, for-profit enterprise out to make a huge difference in the careers and lives of people who want to make the world a better place. Those things are not mutually exclusive. We care more about impact than tax status. Change Course is a for-profit project of CThings, a California corporation. In the course we’ll talk about the different corporate structures that are available for making a difference and having an impact, and we’ll talk about the structures we’re missing and that are still needed.

    • Ready to register? Click here!