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MA in Community Development

Program Focus

Instructor Sabine Lehr and students Carolyn Fast and Stacy Chappel at the MACD welcome breakfast

Today, our society is grappling with unprecedented challenges in the face of increasing income disparity, declining government support for essential services such as affordable housing, food security, arts and culture, environmental protection, and support for the most vulnerable in our communities. Increasingly, the social economy and civil society are on the front lines in the attempt to address these issues, and in the lead in the promotion for community-based models for social and economic justice. Social economy organizations of all kinds need strong and resourceful leaders like never before.

Designed with working professionals in mind, the Master of Arts in Community Development (MACD) will build and develop your capacity to become a successful leader in the civil society and social economy, whether you work or volunteer in non-profits, co-operatives or community economic development organizations either locally or internationally. Throughout the program, you will apply new skills and knowledge to an ongoing research project for a client in the community development sector.

The program’s unique focus on the application of learning outcomes means that graduates:

have a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the historical and political underpinnings, key concepts, and spheres of practice embedded in the social economy and civil society generally and in the three main program streams.
are better equipped to lead transformative change efforts.
build and manage effective projects, organizations, enterprises and networks.
demonstrate initiative, leadership, and originality in identifying challenges and opportunities for their organizations and the broader social economy.
understand key global trends, challenges, threats and opportunities communities face and strategies to address them.
are able to engage a community-based approach to social change and social justice.

Program Overview

The MACD is a professional program based at the University of Victoria, delivered through a combination of online and residential courses. Each of the three residential workshops is held over a two week period in the summer terms.

The MACD program is focused on the practice and policy dimensions of four distinct and overlapping streams:

non-profit
co-operative
community economic development
international community development

Each approach seeks to create social and economic change and relies on diverse resources and partnerships that are rooted in values of empowerment, cooperation and inclusion.

Through course work, assignments, and interactions with other students and instructors, students explore the theory, models and methodologies relevant to economic and social change as well as leadership and management in organizations and networks.

The program is delivered in collaboration with practitioners and scholars from across the University of Victoria, including the Faculties of Human and Social Development, Business, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Education, as well as research units such as the Office of Community-Based Research, and the Centre for Cooperative and Community Based Economy. It also values participation from the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal, the BC–Alberta Research Alliance on the Social Economy, British Columbia Co-operative Association and The Centre for Non Profit Management and other community based organizations.