Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies M.S. in Nonprofit Management program welcomed Chandani Punia, an adjunct lecturer and nonprofit consultant, to lead a discussion on managing change, empowering leaders, and navigating uncharted waters in today’s nonprofit environment.
Punia has spent the majority of her career working in the nonprofit space with a focus on human-centered design and design-thinking. She previously served as the deputy director of innovation at the International Rescue Committee, where she ran programming in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela to help migrants and internally displaced persons recover and gain control of their future. Most recently, she founded Immersive Futures, a design consulting firm that works with organizations to develop innovative initiatives that benefit both people and the planet.
In this talk, Punia demonstrated how she combines her experience as a human-centered design consultant with her extensive knowledge of the shifting U.S. political landscape to help students think about how to prepare for the future.
Punia offered a peek into her virtual course, A Practitioner’s Guide to Global Innovation, which is designed for leaders who want to challenge and transform existing ways of working to achieve a greater impact on society. In this course, students develop the technical skills necessary to integrate human-centered design and innovation into projects and programs through a combination of lectures and assignments. At a higher level, students gain a deeper understanding of the requirements for launching and managing innovation strategies and projects within NGOs and INGOs.
The course progresses in three phases:
- Phase 1: Building a foundation in innovation strategy, methodology, and tools, including user personas and journey mapping.
- Phase 2: Learning to contextualize innovation in the social impact sector, particularly through the lens of NGOs, INGOs, and U.N. agencies.
- Phase 3: Identifying areas of opportunity and entry points for students’ careers, encouraging them to think beyond current operations and envision how the sector must evolve.
Through her insights, Punia emphasized the value of adaptability and vision in charting the future of the nonprofit field. The session served as a testament to how thoughtful leadership can guide organizations through times of uncertainty.
For more discussions with leaders in the nonprofit space, learn more about the Nonprofit Management program’s upcoming events.
About the Program
Columbia University’s M.S. in Nonprofit Management prepares graduates for leadership roles within mission-driven organizations in a wide variety of contexts, including global and community nonprofits, foundations, education, healthcare, the arts, or as fundraising and development experts.
Learn more about the program here. The program is available part-time, full-time, on-campus, and online.
