“Far and away the best prize that life offers
is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
- Theodore Roosevelt
PA 605 Foundations of Nonprofit Administration
University of Southern Indiana, Department of Political Science and Public Administration
COURSE SYLLABUS
Fall 2014
Class Time: T 6:00-8:45 PMInstructor: Trent Engbers, Ph.D.
E-mail:
Phone: 477-1432 (Home) / Office: 3rd Floor Liberal Arts Building
Mailbox: LA 3062
Classroom: LA 2029
Phone: 465-1130 (Office)
Office Hours: T/Th 12:00-1:30
I am of the tradition that office hours are an antiquated concept. My preference would be to be more widely available to you. Please feel free to reach out at any time to schedule a meeting. My goal is to be very flexible in making myself available to you.
Course Description:
An introductory examination of the theories and strategies used to manage organizations in the nonprofit sector. Topics include governing and leading nonprofit organizations, strategic planning, capacity building, marketing, developing financial resources, and financial management. Prereq: Admission to the MPA program or consent of instructor.
Course Objectives:
By the end of this course, you will understand how the nonprofit sector has emerged in the United States and its current role in the implementation of government policy. Specifically, you will be able to:
· Understand the history and composition of the nonprofit sector in America
· Develop an organizational framework for a nonprofit with special emphasis on governance, planning,
· Practice the professional norms of fundraising and financial management
· Develop sub-specialty in the nonprofit sector.
Required Texts/ Materials:
1. Renz, D. O. (Eds). (2010). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
2. Additional readings as assigned
Blackboard:
I encourage you to use blackboard to share and collaborate with your classmates. I will use it to post required readings not found in the textbook. I will also use the grade book function to communicate with you some but not all of your grades. Class announcements will also be distributed through blackboard. All assignments should be submitted to me in hardcopy and questions should be directed to me through phone (preferred) or e-mail.
Classmates:
I encourage you to take time during the first class to gather the names and phone numbers of at least two of you classmates and write them below. If you miss class, this should be your first step in catching up. Though I am happy to sit down with you and reteach the information AFTER you have received notes from a classmate.
Class Policies:
1. Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated. These infractions found in the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities. If I determine that you have violated the universities standards of academic honesty. Your name will be forwarded on to the Provosts Office and you will receive a 0 on the assignment with no opportunity to redo it. Copying without citation any portion of your work from other students work, the internet, or textbooks and the use of electronic devices for storing information to be used in a dishonest way are particularly serious offenses. This does not preclude you from working with others to discuss your projects and course material. Two common problems include:
*Working together (which is encouraged) and submitting answers with identical or near identical answers (which is cheating) & Coping from the internet without citation.
2. Laptops and Electronic Devices: In Spring 2010, The Department of Political Science and Public Administration passed a classroom ban on laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices. All electronic devices must be turned off and stowed in your backpack or briefcase at the start of class, unless approved for a scheduled class activity. In exceptional circumstances, you may leave your cell phone set to “vibrate” during class. However, you must clear this with your instructor prior to the beginning of class. There are few things that I found more rude than ringing cell phones. If you cell phone rings during class, you will be asked to leave for the remainder of class, you risk the loss of participation points and you will insight my ire.
3. Late assignments will be penalized one letter grade per business day (10%) unless given PRIOR approval by the instructor for extenuating circumstances.
4. Attendance is not required but it is difficult to do well without attending.
5. There will be no incomplete grades except under extraordinary circumstances with the appropriate documentation, in accordance with the University of Southern Indiana Academic Handbook.
6. Final Grades: In accordance with graduate school policy, you must earn a C or better to pass this course.
7. Americans with Disabilities Act Compliance: If you have a disability, you are encouraged to register for disability support services in the Counseling Center. If you require an accommodation, please advise the instructor by the end of the first week of class. You may be required to provide written documentation to support these accommodations. The instructor will work with you to provide reasonable accommodations to ensure that you have a fair opportunity to perform and participate in class.
8. Course Evaluations: Course evaluations are an integral part of the teaching and learning process. At the University of Southern Indiana, course evaluations are used for many purposes. These purposes include curriculum and assignment review, course structure changes, changes in instructional delivery as well as the university’s evaluation of, and continuous improvement efforts for, faculty and faculty development initiatives. Please complete the course evaluations for this course with care, thought and attention toward the improvement of the class, the faculty and the university community overall.
9. Grades posted on blackboard are not the official records of your grades, but can be used to confirm that the grade that I hand back to you matches the grade in my personal grade book. Please save all assignments in case there is a discrepancy.
10. This syllabus is our contract and will only be changed with explicit consent of the majority of students.
Assignments/ Grading:
Course grades will be assigned based upon the following distribution:
Assignment / PointsReading Memo (2x100) / 200
Reading Memo Response / 100
Participation / 100
Agency Profile Paper / 200
Imaginary Organization / 200
Sub-specialty group paper and presentation / 200
TOTAL / 1000
Agency Profile Paper
(Estimated length 3-5 single spaced pages)
Nonprofit organizations are often best understood through observation. While some have extensive experience in nonprofit organizations, others have less experience. The goal of this assignment is for you to get inside of a nonprofit organizations. You should identify a nonprofit organization that interests you and gain permission to write a paper about that nonprofit. If you have previous nonprofit experience, you should choose a nonprofit that differs from your previous experience in order to give you a more well-rounded experience. If you are comparatively new to nonprofit work, you are encouraged to choose a nonprofit where you might want to work. To gather data for this assignment, you should interview the executive director and/or a reasonable substitute. You are also strongly encouraged to volunteer a short period of time in the organization or observe the nonprofit in action. Additionally, data collection will include analysis of annual reports, webpages, and other relevant materials. The paper will have two major portions. The first is descriptive and should describe the organizations mission and vision, staffing and board composition, programs, financial mix and strategies and any other relevant details that you feel are necessary to understand the organization and to use it as a case study for this class. The second portion of the paper is analytical. While your exposure to this agency is much more limited than that traditionally found in an organizational evaluation, I do want you to have sufficient depth of understanding so as to critically evaluate the organizations strengths and weaknesses. In other words, what does the organization do really well and where might they improve. This will be important data for analysis in our discussions of management in nonprofit organizations.
Reading Memos
(Estimated length 1 ½ -2 single space pages)
Twice during the semester, you will be assigned a class to write a memo and lead the course discussion. Your memo should highlight the main points of that week’s reading, but more important should integrate the readings for that week into an original argument. What do you agree with? With what do you disagree? What are the implications of the assigned readings for that week? The purpose of this memo is to prompt discussion and debate among your classmates, so the more thought provoking the better. You need to post your memo to blackboard by 5:00 PM on the Saturday before the assigned class. You will then be responsible for leading the class discussion for a portion of the class period. For whatever reason, if you must miss class on the day you are assigned to do a presentation, you must contact me 12 hours before the scheduled presentation. Failure to do so will result in a zero for the entire assignment.
Reading Memo Responses
(Estimated length 1 paragraph)
One or two of your classmates will e-mail you a reflection on the readings on the Saturday before class. You should read these reflection memos and respond on blackboard with a 1 paragraph response by Monday at noon. This response is an opportunity for you to agree/disagree/offer an alternative opinion. It is also an opportunity to demonstrate that you have read the readings. These responses will help guide our class discussion so should be given some thought.
Participation
This class has a seminar style format and as such relies on your participation. While I will not generally take attendance, participation requires you to be here. It also requires you to read the material and most importantly talk regularly in class. Please ask for a mid-semester evaluation of your participation.
Imaginary Organization
(Estimated length 10+ single space pages)
Imagination organization is your semester long project. While the assignment is due toward the end of the semester, it is more useful to think of this as 5-7 short papers rather than 1 longer paper. Consequently, you are strongly encouraged to work on this project as we cover the topics rather than waiting until the paper is due. I am happy to look at incremental drafts throughout the semester. Your vantage point for this assignment is as the founding Executive Director of a new nonprofit. As such, you will have to make decisions about the agency and how it will operate. Write the paper as a business plan that explains how you will structure and manage the organization. An extensive rubric can be found on blackboard, but you should use the readings, our class discussions and any additional research that you wish to undertake to determine the legal structure, board composition, staffing, strategies for leadership, mission, vision, programs, SWAT analysis as part of a strategic plan, strategies for financial management including funding mix and fundraising plan and potentially the agencies involvement in advocacy.
Subspecialty project (to be completed individually or in pairs depending on enrollment)
(Estimated lengths 8-10 singles spaced pages)
This assignment will hopefully be completed in pairs, but in some instances may be completed as individuals depending on enrollment. During the last two weeks of the semester, we will move from general management of nonprofit organizations to looking at subsectors of the nonprofit sector. These include social services, health, education, religion, community and international development, and arts and culture. Each group will prepare a paper that minimally outlines the size, composition, funding strategy, staffing, legal issues and strengths and weaknesses of the subsector. Additionally, you will be responsible for teaching 30-45 minute session on this topic. Your research should start with Giving USA (on reserve in the library), but will include a wide range of research from scholarly, government and sector reports. One approach to this topic is to think of your subsector in comparison to the nonprofit sector as a whole. What are its strengths, weaknesses, similarities and differences?
Course Schedule
Wednesday / 27-Aug / Introduction and theories of the nonprofit sector / Economic theories
• Steinberg, “Economic Theories of Nonprofit Organizations,” Ch. 5 in Powell & Steinberg
Political theories
• Ostrom, Nobel Prize Lecture (28 min presentation, available at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ostrom-lecture.html, also on Oncourse together with slides).
• Young, "Government Failure Theory," in Ott The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector
Civil society and mediating structures
• Smith & Grønbjerg, “Scope & Theory of Government-Nonprofit Relations” (part: pp. 229-33, Model II) Ch. 10 in Powell & Steinberg.
• Schlozman, Verba & Brady: "Civic Participation and the Equality Problem," pp, 427-59 in Skocpol & Fiorina . E-book: https://login.lib-proxy.usi.edu/login?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/usiricelib/Doc?id=10063863
Wednesday / 3-Sep / History of the nonprofit sector / Renz 1
Madison, James 1787. Federalist 10. http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm
Tocqueville, “Of the Use Which Americans Make of Public Associations in Civic Life” available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/ch2_05.htm.
Berman, S. 1997. “Civil Society & the Collapse of the Weimar Republic.” World Politics.
Berry, J. 1999. “The Rise of Citizen Groups.” Civic Engagement and American Democracy. in Skocpol & Fiorina (, skim). E-book: https://login.lib-proxy.usi.edu/login?url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/usiricelib/Doc?id=10063863
Wednesday / 10-Sep / Composition of the nonprofit sector / Smith, “The Rest of the Nonprofit Sector” Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly 26 (1997), 114-131.
National Center for Charitable Statistics: http://nccs.urban.org/statistics/index.cfm - follow links to “Quick facts & figures” and “501(c) subsections: definitions & overview.”
Blackwood, Roeger & Pettijohn, “The Nonprofit Sector in Brief: Public Charities, Giving, and Volunteering, 2012,” see www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412674-The-Nonprofit-Sector-in-Brief.pdf.
Wednesday / 17-Sep / Ethics and the legal structure of the sector / Renz 2, 7
Independent Sector Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice at http://www.independentsector.org/uploads/Accountability_Documents/Principles_for_Good_Governance_and_Ethical_Practice.pdf
Panel on the Nonprofit Sector. (2005). Strengthening Transparency Governance Accountability of Charitable Organizations : A Final Report to Congress. Washington, D.C.: Independent Sector. “Government Regulation of Charitable Organizations”, pp. 12-13. “Ethical Concerns about the Nonprofit Sector”, pp. 13-15.
Wednesday / 24-Sep / Boards, governance and leading nonprofit organizations / Renz 5, 6
Stid, D. & Bradach,J. (2008). Strongly Led, Under-Managed: How can visionary nonprofits make the critical transition to stronger management? http://www.bridgespan.org/Publications-and-Tools/Organizational-Effectiveness/Strongly-Led-Under-Managed.aspx#.Up5CfcSxfQg
Holland, T. P., & Jackson, D. K. (1998). Strengthening board performance : Findings and lessons from demonstration projects. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 9(2), 121-134.
Also browse the BoardSource website, including https://www.boardsource.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?webcode=Serve-On-A-Board
Wednesday / 1-Oct / Mission and strategic planning / Renz 8, 9
Migliore, R. et al. (1995). Defining Organizational Purpose, in Allison, M. and J. Kaye (Eds.), Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations (Wiley).
O’Donovan, D. and Flower, N.R. (2013). The strategic plan is dead. Long live strategy. Stanford Social Innovation Review. http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/the_strategic_plan_is_dead._long_live_strategy
M. Allison and J. Kaye. (1997). Chapters One and Two in Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations. (Wiley) / Agency Profile Paper
Wednesday / 8-Oct / Personnel management: paid and unpaid / Renz 24, 25, 26
Minnesota Council of Nonprofits “Human Resources Basics” at http://www.mncn.org/info/basic_hr.htm#Personnel%20Policies (Skim and be aware as an important resource)
Chen, P. (2013). Et al. Unlocking the mystery of volunteer retention. Stanford Social Innovation Review. http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/unlocking_the_mystery_of_volunteer_retention
Eisner, D. (2009). The new volunteer workforce. Stanford Social Innovation Review. http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_new_volunteer_workforce
Wednesday / 15-Oct / Marketing / Renz 11, 12
Ch. 3: Marketing and Ch. 8: Public Relations (55-79, 169-204) in Smith, Bucklin, The Complete Guide to Nonprofit Management – pdf in OnCourse
Wednesday / 22-Oct / Fundraising / Renz 19
Hager, M., Rooney, P., & Pollak, T. (2002). How fundraising is carried out in US nonprofit organisations. International Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 7(4), 311.
Wednesday / 29-Oct / Earned income and government funding / Renz 21
Carroll, D. A., & Stater, K. J. (2009). Revenue Diversification in nonprofit organizations: does it lead to financial stability?.Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory,19(4), 947-966.
Foster, W. L., Kim, P., & Christiansen, B. (2009). Ten nonprofit funding models.Stanford Social Innovation Review,7(2), 32-39.
Weisbrod, B. A. (1998). Guest Editor's Introduction: The Nonprofit Mission and Its Financing. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 17(2), 165-174.
Wednesday / 5-Nov / Financial management / Renz 17, 18, 22 / Imaginary Organization (review Chapter 20 for help)
Wednesday / 12-Nov / Oversight, watchdogs, and evaluation / Renz 4, 15, 16
Skim Rating the Raters: http://www.donorsforum.org/s_donorsforum/bin.asp?CID=14194&DID=30362&DOC=FILE.PDF
Jeremy Kendall and Martin Knapp, “Measuring the performance of voluntary organizations” Public Management (London) 2(1) (2000): 105-132.
Robert S. Kaplan, “Strategic performance measurement and management in nonprofit organizations” Nonprofit Management and Leadership 11(3) (Spring 2001): 353-370.
Wednesday / 19-Nov / Advocacy, lobbying and social change / Renz 13
Independent Sector: www.independentsector.org/lobbying_guidelines_public_charities
Law in the public Interest: http://www.clpi.org/the-law/faq
Wednesday / 26-Nov / Thanksgiving / No Class
Wednesday / 3-Dec / Social services, health and education / Half of the Presentations and Sector Paper
Wednesday / 10-Dec / Religion, Community and International Development, and Arts and Culture / Half of the Presentations and Sector Paper
Day / Date / Topic / Reading Due / Assignment Due
4