Customized Experiences – Lasting Results
In addition to open enrollment certificate courses, the McCourt School offers customized executive education programs for client organizations, including government agencies, NGOs and corporations, and executive degree programs at other universities who want a Washington-based program experience. We offer particular expertise in areas as diverse as program evaluation, strategic management of policy reform, government-business relations and behavior change policies. These programs generally run three to five days, but both shorter and longer programs are possible.
Flexible Design and Delivery
McCourt faculty and staff work with the client organizations to develop programs that meet the training needs of our clients and their budgets. Most of our programs feature a mix of pedagogies, including lectures by and interactive discussions with Georgetown faculty and Washington policymakers, site visits to places like the World Bank, Capitol Hill and Washington think-tanks, and analytical discussion of policy cases. We work with client organizations and with partner organizations such as McCourt School research centers in program design and delivery.
While most of our programs are offered on-site at Georgetown’s facilities in Washington, D.C. we also have the capacity to deliver programs at sites selected by the client, with the client taking primary responsibility for on-site logistics.
Program Examples
The McCourt School works with a wide variety of clients to provide participants with the knowledge and skills they need to benefit their organizations in tangible ways.
Global Business and Public Policy: This five-day course was delivered at Georgetown’s main campus in Washington, D. C. as a module in the Executive MBA program of two leading European business schools. The course sought to educate corporate executives on the forces driving public policies in the United States and Europe, and to provide them with a toolkit to operate in those environments. It included presentations by and discussions with corporate and interest group lobbyists, members of Congress and congressional staff, and representatives of think tanks and civil society organizations in the United States, as well as site visits to Capitol Hill and the European Union delegation to the United States. As part of the course, participants worked in small groups to develop policy proposals on current policy issues and strategies to get those proposals enacted.
Policy Innovation Lab – Strategic Management of Policy Reform: This five-day course will be delivered on-site by McCourt School faculty in Doha, Qatar, for public sector officials from the MENA region and the Horn of Africa in fall 2024. The course will develop a toolkit of skills that officials can use to anticipate potential problems in developing policy proposals and shape those proposals to make them more likely to succeed in achieving their policy objectives. Among the topics covered are building winning and durable stakeholder support coalitions, anticipating and mitigating implementation constraints, changing the behavior of target populations, and scaling up successful program pilots. Participants will enroll as teams sent by specific ministries to “road test” policies under development using the strategic management toolkit developed in the course. The course involves a mixture of lectures, analysis of policy cases drawn largely from the region, and group projects. Participants will present their policy proposals on the last day of the course. This workshop course is offered in cooperation with Georgetown University’s Qatar campus and the College of Public Policy at Hamad bin Khalifa University.
Shaping the Digital Future: This five-day course was offered in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ministry’s CDTO Campus. It provided Chief Digital Transformation Officers in multiple Ukrainian agencies, as well as Ukrainian civil society actors, with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate today’s technologically-driven environment. Using an engaging combination of case studies, team exercises, and lectures by industry leaders, the course identified activities that can be re-imagined through digital transformation and key technology-related threats, enabling participants to be better prepared to harness the benefits of digital government and innovation, build public trust, thereby strengthening democracy. Key themes in the course included emerging technology trends (including AI), choices in digital transformation, change management in bureaucracy, using high-quality data to make informed policy decisions, and privacy, security, and ethics as constant state policy priorities.
Disaster Risk Finance: In cooperation with the World Bank’s Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program and Global Shield Financing Facility, the McCourt School organized a four day program for World Bank staff on Disaster Risk Finance. The workshop included sessions on Fundamentals of Disaster Risk Finance, Introduction to Different Types of DRF Instruments, Mapping Stakeholders, Negotiating with Governments and Policymakers and other topics.
Policy Writing Executive Education Program: The McCourt Policy-Writing Center (MPWC) designs and teaches executive education programs to help policymakers, staffers, researchers, and other practitioners develop and improve the skills of strategic communication in the field of public policy. Programs can be tailored to particular clients. Topics and hands-on activities often include but are not limited to: Distinguishing policy writing from other kinds of writing; audience awareness; advocacy versus argumentation; developing a strong evidence base; strategic, coherent, and cohesive writing structure; editing for concision; the policy writing process from preparation through publication; peer review; and incorporating feedback. The Director of the MPWC (meri.wimberly@georgetown.edu) creates and delivers curricula and take-home materials.
Policy Analysis: This six-day course by McCourt School faculty provided staff of a leading federal agency with basic tools of policy analysis, including understanding theories of change, cost-benefit analysis, stakeholder analysis and implementation and behavioral analysis. Participants also worked in groups to develop and present policy options for issues currently facing the agency, employing the analytical tools developed in the course. This course was delivered on-site at the agency’s headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.
Advanced Inter-American Program on Policy Innovation and Management: This five-day custom program, developed for the Organization of American States, brought policymakers from throughout the Western Hemisphere together to learn about cutting-edge developments in policy analysis and management, and examine their applicability in the participants’ home countries. Using a combination of pedagogies including expert presentations, site visits, case analyses, and group projects, the course examined topics including leading organizational and policy change, public-private partnerships, budget management, improving governance and reducing corruption, and using policy evaluation to improve policy outcomes. This course was delivered at Georgetown’s downtown campus in Washington, D.C.
Improving Disaster Management: This one-day workshop for government officials in small Pacific Island states was delivered in Suva, Fiji, in September 2023, in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank Institute. It sought to build participants’ skills in identifying and assessing key threats from natural and human-caused disasters, improving implementation of disaster response, anticipating behavioral barriers to compliance with government policies, and building support coalitions for long-term policy responses to disaster threats.
In addition several of the McCourt School’s research centers, such as the Center on Public and Nonprofit Leadership, offer their own custom education programs.
Contact Us
Our team is ready to work with you every step of the way. Let us help you address your organization’s unique challenges and opportunities.
For more information, contact the McCourt School faculty director for Executive Education, Kent Weaver, at Kent.Weaver@Georgetown.edu.