NPL 673 Nonprofit Management & Leadership
Term: Summer, 2008
Instructor: Tony Filipovitch, 106d Morris Hall, 507-389-5035 (office), 507-388-2264 (home)
Office Hours: While I do not keep regular office hours during the Summer, I would be happy to meet with you (call for an appointment). I also check my e-mail daily (usually several times during the day), and have an answering machine on both my home and office phone. There is no reason to flounder around, unsure of what “he wants” or confused about what you are doing; and even if everything is going fine with the coursework, there is more to learning than completing the assignments. I encourage you to visit me, in person or at a distance by phone or e-mail, many times during the course.
Text:
·
Herman, Robert D. 2004. The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management,
2nd Edition.
Course Overview:
This is a graduate survey course of the nonprofit sector, covering history & philosophy of the sector, ethics, board & staff relations, operations and fundraising, fiscal management, and human resource development.
Learning Outcomes:
Students will demonstrate competency in knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to function in the following areas:
Historical/Philosophical Foundations of the Nonprofit Sector
1. Philanthropic nature of nonprofit organizations & relationship to other sectors of society
2. Ethical decision making
Public Policy Issues in the Nonprofit Sector
3. Legal status of nonprofits
a. Federal government
i. IRS Code & classification of services
b. State Attorney General Office
i. Articles of Incorporation & role of membership
ii. Bylaws
iii. Annual filings
4. Lobbying
Organization Design of Nonprofit Organizations
5. Board function & duties
6. Staff functions & duties
7. Strategic planning
Managing Operations
8. Marketing & public relations for nonprofit organizations
9. Assessing need
10. Obtaining feedback on organization and programs
11. Risk management
Gathering
Resources
12. Contracting with governments
13. Fundraising
14.
Fiscal Management
15. Financial accounting (and commonly used external reports)
16. Managerial accounting (and commonly used internal reports)
People Management
17. Involving the community: Use of volunteers
18. Designing and managing volunteer programs
19. Personnel management systems
20. Employee motivation (total rewards program)
21. Training (for volunteers and employees)
Requirements:
In order to effectively address the competency areas, this course will combine (online) classroom and field projects. Students are expected to actively participate and contribute positively to the learning process.
1. Readings
Students are required to read and understand the chapter(s) assigned at the beginning of each topic. There will not be any tests or quizzes over the material in the readings; rather, you will demonstrate how well you have understood the readings through your weekly essays.
2. Weekly Essay & Class Discussion:
Essay: Each week, students will identify an article or published story about a nonprofit agency that is related to the topic for that week. By “article,” I mean an article published in a refereed journal (you can find many of them on JSTOR. If you aren’t sure about the difference, look at this description. If you want to get help from a reference librarian, you can do it through e-mail or online chat at MSU Library’s “Ask a Librarian.” You will post to the class a minimum 250-word essay which identifies the article (give full citation using any standard format), briefly summarizes its content, and discusses the relevance/impact of the article to the topic for that week. Post your essay to the “Unit Discussions” section of the Discussion Board. I will assess your essay based on the number of concepts from the reading which you apply to the situation described in the article, and the insight/appropriateness of the application you make.
Discussion: Since we do not meet as a class, the closest thing we have to this is the discussion lists on D2L. I will pose questions to start out the discussion, and I will monitor (but may or may not respond) the discussion. Each student must post a response to the question and at least one response to other student’s postings (you may respond to either the essay or the discussion posting). It is important that you post your responses with enough time for your classmates to reply within the tme allotted for each unit; do not get behind in your discussion work. For credit, you must use examples, details, and credible support for your position, and refer to relevant readings (your text, at a minimum) using standard citation format (you cannot provide credible support without citing what others have written!). You will not receive credit if you do not provide support for your responses. While I will not track whether or not you read all of the postings, I strongly encourage it. You have as much to learn from each other as from me.
There is an etiquette to online discussion. I want you to engage in open, frank dialogue; but I also expect you to be respectful of each other. Comments that are harmful, abusive, offensive, or vulgar will not be tolerated. If I sense any problems, I will intervene. Should you feel intimidated or not respected, please contact me so we can consider how to proceed. A few hints:
· Re-read your messages before you send them—once it is sent, you are committed.
· Never assume that an e-mail is confidential; they are easily copied and forwarded to others.
· Also, be careful with humor; absent body language and other contextual clues, it can easily be misinterpreted.
3. Service Learning:
Each student will identify a nonprofit organization with which to volunteer over the course of the semester. During that time, the student must
1. Arrange for a “mentor” within the organization who is willing to provide “insider” insight into what the student is observing in the organization and learning in the classroom.
2. Attend at least one Board meeting, to observe the operation of a nonprofit Board and the relationship between Board and staff. Boards often meet only once a month, so you should plan to attend the first Board meeting that is available.
3. Assist the Board or staff in providing at least some of the “service” of the organization.
4. Prepare a final report on the management of the organization, describing the organization and its operation (who, what, where, when, why, how), and relating it to the topics we will be covering in the 15 units of the class. This essay (10 page minimum) will be due by the date assigned in the Course Calendar.
4. Exercises
Throughout the course, I will assign exercises, sometimes to each of you individually, sometimes to all of you as a group, to give you the opportunity to practice the skills that you are learning about. Each exercise will contain its own instructions and deadlines.
Course
Calendar
Instructional Management System &
Communication Protocols:
· The course will use D2L as the instructional management system. Discussion lists, assignments, grade rosters, and other course management issues will be handled through that site.
· The software for this course will be PC-based Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer, or compatibles. I prefer to receive e-mail and course submissions to my e-mail address (not to D2L), and I can only open Microsoft Word or text files (if you are using, say, WordPerfect, make sure to send any files to me in .txt or .rtf format).
· I will communicate with you using your official MSU e-mail address; if this is not your preferred e-mail provider, make sure you have set your MSU e-mail account to forward to your preferred address (instructions are available from the help desk at help@mnsu.edu or 507-389-6654).
· I generally will reply to e-mails within 48 hours (give me an additional 24 hours over the weekends), unless I have notified the class through D2L that I expect to be away from my computer (e.g., when I am attending a national conference). If you do not hear from me within that time, please resend your question or comment as it may have been lost.
· The library has a document delivery service, and can send books or other publications that circulate (i.e., no items from the reserve or reference collection) to you if you are an online student. Information is available at http://www.lib.mnsu.edu/lib/ILL/docdel.html Remember, it will take some time for items to arrive by mail (and even longer if they have to be ordered from another library), so give yourself enough lead time if you plan to use this service. The library also has a good link for other services offered for distance learning students.
Are You Ready for an Online Course?
There are a number of websites that can help you decide whether or not an online course is for you (for example, Minnesota Online or Athabascan University). For starters, you should consider the following questions:
- Will you be able to devote 6-8 hours per week for this course (even if you are traveling, are ill, or have family emergencies)? And do you have the support of family and friends to put aside this amount of time and effort? It is easy to think that the work for an online class can be “fit in” to whatever time comes open during the week. Often, when students end up dropping the class it is because they simply did not budget enough time in their week to do the work required.
- Are you comfortable with time management and working independently with only final deadlines to guide you? Online learning shifts much more of the burden for scheduling and planning to the student. You won’t have the advantage of regular class meeting times to discipline your work habits. If you are not also an on-campus student, you might not have the advantage of running into your classmates around the campus where you can “check in” on progress and solve little problems. If this is a challenge for you, check out http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_HTE.htm
- Are you comfortable working primarily in a text-based format, which means reading well, writing well and having the ability to follow written directions? While I will try to provide as many opportunities as possible for using the entire range of learning styles, online learning does favor students who learn by reading.
- Do you have the skills to communicate through the Internet, including
- checking your e-mail daily (http://www.mnsu.edu/its/userid )
- using e-mail or the phone to get your questions answered,
- interacting with your classmates through the Internet?
- Do you have the technical skills to use an online environment, including
- producing, saving, and uploading documents
- doing research using the Web (http://www.lib.mnsu.edu/lib/services.html )
- using the “Track Changes” feature of Microsoft Word (if you don’t know this one, look it up using Word’s “Help” assistant)?
Course Expectations:
Attendance & Class Participation:
It is your responsibility to post your responses in a timely fashion, interact with your mentors, and engage in online class activities. I expect all the work to be posted by 6PM on the date listed. If there is an emergency which requires you to be away from your computer, please contact me immediately. Loss of computer connection or network services are not an excuse for not getting work submitted on time (if you lose your connection, go to another location to do your work—a public library, the ACC, a friend’s computer, etc.) You can get help with technical problems from the MSUM computer help desk at help@mnsu.edu or go the 3rd floor of the Library. You are paying for this class—make sure to get your “money’s worth.” Most importantly, this is an excellent foundation of knowledge for future activities, and it is a chance for you to learn, teach, and grow with others.
Grading:
There are 175 points for the course, divided as follows:
1) Weekly essays (15@5 pts.) 75
2) Discussion postings (15@2 pts) 30
3) Exercises/Case Studies (10@5 pts.) 50
3) Final paper—report on service learning 20
The final grade may be based on a curve, but students can expect at least an A if they achieve 157 (90%), a B with 140 (80%), etc.
Other Matters:
All assignments are due on the assigned date. Partial credit may be given for assignments
that are less than one week late, unless other arrangements have been made in advance.
Written reports are expected to be free of grammatical, spelling, and content
errors. They should be submitted in typewritten, standard formats (APA,
MLA, URSI Style Sheets). You must familiarize yourself with the
University’s Academic
Honesty Policy. I encourage you to
draw on the ideas of others—but you must also identify when you do so (you gain “brownie points” for citing the
work of others!). Plagiarism is a
serious breach of academic behavior and will result in an F for the course.
I will help you in whatever manner humanly possible. However, once the semester is over, there is not a great deal I can do. If there is something that you don’t understand, are having problems with, or need help on, please get in touch with me as early as possible.
Every attempt will be made to accommodate qualified students with disabilities. If you area student with a documented disability, please contact us as early in the semester as possible to discuss the necessary accommodations, and/or contact the Disability Services Office at 507-389-2825 (V) or 1-800-627-3529 (MRS/TTY).
Finally, before the first class please post a message to the “Introductions” discussion board on D2L. Please introduce yourself in the posting, let us know what your goals are in this course, and any special experiences/skills/interests you will be bringing to the group.
Bibliography
There are a number of interesting and useful books and articles that might help you dig deeper into the issues raised in this course. The link above takes you to a list of some of my favorites.
© 2005 A.J.Filipovitch
Revised 25 April 2008