History

The Wilberforce International School reflects the long-term vision of its founders to harmonize excellence and honesty in public service to mitigate poverty and promote international development. The need for such integration became obvious to WISPAD’s President during the 1990s while working on several governmental and administrative restructuring plans, as well as other developmental projects in Latin America. This experience revealed that institutional and legal dimensions must be complemented with highly specialized managerial skills and tools of empirical analysis in order to design and implement successful public policies. Above all, this governmental experience indicated that sound moral principles are required to foster developmental behaviors and preferences required to form and sustain institutions characteristic of free and advanced societies.

The detailed analysis of WISPAD’s training and research operations was first formed while its President was advancing his Master’s thesis at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government between 1998 and 2000. These studies allowed him to further explore the role of individual preferences closely associated with Christian ethical frameworks on the design and implementation of effective developmental policies. WISPAD’s main institutional framework as well as teaching and research methods began to be shaped at the same time. Since the year 2000, the School's founders have developed courses for different areas of instruction in public service and policy analysis, which form the core for the School’s Certificate and Workshop programs.

The integration of ethical frameworks with modeling tools and managerial skills to efficiently design and implement public policies was developed by WISPAD’s President during his Ph.D. studies in Political Science, completed in 2010 at Boston University. The Ph.D. dissertation “The Protestant Ethic of Development” assesses the effect of Christian beliefs, values, and emotions on the formation of preferences and decision-making processes associated with higher levels of individual, social, political, and economic development. This integration is at the basis of WISPAD’s theory of change and of its distinctive approach in the training of public and social servants.

After this extended process of careful preparation,Wilberforce International School was formally incorporated in June 2010 as a non-profit corporation chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to advance training, research, and consulting operations with an international scope. WISPAD received exemption from taxation under section 501 (c) (3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code from July 2010 onwards. In line with its international scope, the School started its training operations in the fall of 2011 with its first Certificate and Workshop programs in China. Since starting operations in Beijing in October 2011, WISPAD has conducted 59 Workshops and Certificates in areas of Strategic Nonprofit Management, Program Evaluation, Financial Management and Leadership, Strategic Human Resource Management for Nonprofit Organizations, and Negotiation Skills.