Managing and volunteering in the non-profit sector

Lectures: 1 session / week, 2 hours / session

The non-profit sector plays a key role in society and in the economy. Many goods and services, such as education and health care, are delivered by non-profits. Non-profits also play a central role in delivering charitable services of the kind that are often under-provided by the market. Non-profits also are active in political and public-policy arenas. Finally, non-profits are important in providing the glue - the social capital - that holds societies together and makes them work.

Starting, growing, and managing non-profits leads to challenges as complex as, and in some cases more complex than, the challenges facing the private sector. Non-profits need to identify their market, confront competitors, and manage their internal operations just as do firms. However, non-profits must address the needs of multiple constituencies, they must balance their values against the requirements of effective management, and they must attract and retain a skilled labor force without the financial resources that characterize much of the private sector.

This is a course intended to give students a broad overview of the management challenges of the non-profit sector. It is not a detailed management course but rather is aimed at students who will likely relate to non-profits in a variety of ways (on the boards, as volunteers, as fund-raisers, and occasionally as staff).

The course has three components: readings, cases, guest speakers, and student projects.

Grading for the course is as follows:

An important component of the course will be team projects. Each team (of about four students) will be assigned a Boston-area non-profit. The team projects may take one of two forms. In some cases the non-profit will have in mind an issue or challenge that they wish the team to address. In these cases the team will work with the non-profit in much the same way that teams in E-lab and Global E-lab work with firms. In other instances the non-profit is making itself available to the team as a site for study and learning. In these cases we have provided a set of questions, below, that should guide the team's work. In both cases the team should make available to the non-profit a copy of its written report and also be prepared to meet with the non-profit's staff to discuss the report should the organization request it.

A list of the organizations will be handed out to the class during the first meeting, and over the course of the first week, teams should form and should email to Paul Osterman their first three choices (ranked) along with any rationales that they care to attach. Assignments will be made in the second class.

With respect to the class, each team will be expected to hand in their report at the end of the semester and to also present their findings to the class in one of the two final sessions. About four weeks into the course, each team should make an appointment to meet with us to discuss their project.

Teams preparing general reports on an organization can be guided by the following questions:

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