Public Affairs 7553: Nonprofit Management and Governance

This course counts as a core course in the Glenn College’s graduate professional master’s degree programs. The course’s learning objectives align with the College’s graduate professional master’s degree assessment plan learning objectives for the management stream:

• Objective 1: Manage and lead public/nonprofit organizations towards public goals. 
• Objective 2: Understand public/nonprofit organizations as a unit of analysis. 
• Objective 3: Identify and manage external challenges to public/nonprofit organizational performance. 
• Objective 4: Identify what constitutes feasible performance outputs for public/nonprofit organizations. 
• Objective 5: Engage in strategic planning for public/nonprofit organizations.
• Objective 6: Identify and manage internal challenges to public/nonprofit organizational performance.
• Objective 7: Lead and motivate workers in public/nonprofit organizations.
• Objective 8: Manage innovation and change in public/nonprofit organizations.

A textbook may be required for this course. Please consult your instructor's syllabus for detail. 

Participation in online discussion boards, 15 points
Online quizzes, 15 points
Group case analysis memos, 40points
Peer evaluations, 5 points
Nonprofit strategic planning project, 25 points

There will be 10 weeks when you are required to log in to an online discussion board on Carmen and: 

• Post a written reply (200 to 300 words) or a video reply (90 to 135 seconds) to that week’s discussion prompt by midnight on Thursday.
• Comment in a written format (100 to 200 words) or a video format (45 to 90 seconds) on at least 2 posts by your peers by midnight on Sunday.

Instructions:

• Your posts should be to the point and informed by your knowledge and experience as well as the week’s learning materials.
• A good comment does more than affirm the original poster. It is fine to respond to others' posts with "I like what you said!" but move the conversation forward. You can ask questions, make suggestions, share resources, and/or offer relevant personal experiences. Framing your comment using a "yes, and" or "yes, but" approach can be a good way. "Yes, and" affirms and extends your peer's ideas. "Yes, but" questions or challenges your peer's ideas. In either case, be polite and supportive.

There will be 10 weeks when you are required to take an online quiz on Carmen. 

• Each quiz will cover the week’s learning materials.
• Each quiz will have 5 questions.
• Each quiz must be completed within 10 minutes.
• Your quiz attempt will be automatically submitted when the timer runs out or when the quiz closes.
• The quizzes are open book.

Instructions:

• Make sure to review a week’s materials before taking that week’s quiz.
• Complete each quiz in 1 sitting.

This class relies partly on case studies to provide insights into real-world managerial challenges experienced by nonprofits. The cases generally present information on the organizations and the people involved, as well as a series of events that lead to some nonprofit managerial challenge(s). The challenge(s) may or may not be clearly defined in a case. Similarly, the possible solution(s) also may or may not be clearly described in a case. For each case, however, the instructor will provide some major questions for students to address in their group case analysis memos.

• Throughout the semester, each student will work in a small group to write group case analysis memos. Each student will be assigned to their group by the instructor on week 3. The length of each group memo should be about 3-4 pages (single-spaced, 1-inch margin, 12-point Times New Roman font), plus up to ½ page of citations. 
• Each group memo will include: 
  • An introduction that summarizes the background information.
  • Responses to the instructor’s questions.
  • A conclusion that explains what you learn from the case.
• There will be 4 case studies.
• Your group members will work on the group case analysis memos together and receive the same grade for each memo. Your group members will need to ​​​​​​​collectively agree on how to apportion the work required to complete the memos.

You will submit a peer evaluation document at the end of the course, in which you will rate and comment on the contributions throughout the semester of each of your groupmates.

This assignment involves conducting a partial strategic planning for a nonprofit organization. The assignment includes several different components to be fulfilled throughout the semester: 

Submit the first part of your project report as a written document via Carmen by the end of week 5.

• The length of the document should be about 3-4 pages (singlespaced, 1-inch margin, 12-point Times New Roman font).
• This document should introduce the organization you would like to analyze and include a stakeholder analysis for the organization (who are the organization’s main  stakeholders and what are their roles and needs?). 
• You will receive a maximum of 5 points for this document. 

Submit the second part of your project report as a written document via Carmen by the end of week 7.

• The length of the document should be about 3-4 pages (singlespaced, 1-inch margin, 12-point Times New Roman font). 
• This document should include a SWOT analysis for the organization (what are the organization’s main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats)? 
• You will receive a maximum of 5 points for this document.

Submit the third part of your project report as a written document via Carmen by the end of week 11. 

• The length of the document should be about 3-4 pages (singlespaced, 1-inch margin, 12-point Times New Roman font). 
• This document should identify the strategic issues facing the organization, recommend strategies to manage the issues, and propose methods for measuring these strategies’ impacts.
• You will receive a maximum of 5 points for this document.

​​​​​​​Post a video presentation, preferably recorded with Zoom, of your project on Carmen by the end of week 14. 

• The presentation should be slides-based, preferably using PowerPoint, and between 10 and 15 minutes. 
• ​​​​​​​The presentation should include a summary of your project and a conclusion where you share your lessons learned from the project.
• You will earn a maximum of 5 points for this presentation.

Comment on at least 2 peer presentations by the end of week 15.

• A comment can be in a written format (100 to 200 words) or a video format (45 to 90 seconds).
• Again, a good comment does more than affirm the original poster. You can ask questions, make suggestions, share resources, and/or offer relevant personal experiences. Framing your comment using a "yes, and" (affirms and extends your peer's ideas) or "yes, but" (questions or challenges your peer's ideas) approach may help. 
• You will earn a maximum of 5 points for your comments.