Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector

SPEA-V221 · Indiana University Bloomington · O'Neill School

A survey of civil society, run as a lab

V221 is a broad, hands-on survey of civil society and the U.S. nonprofit sector. What it is, why it exists, where it came from, what it does, who powers it, and the ethical and global questions it raises. It’s a general survey to help you understand the sector and think critically about it, not a skills course (it won’t teach you to run the books, write grants, or manage a nonprofit). We run it as the Bloomington Nonprofit Lab, where every idea cashes out against a real local organization.

  • Two sessions a week of discussion, data labs, ethics debates, and studio time. See the Schedule.
  • Two hands-on rails. Rail A (individual): visit and decode one real Bloomington nonprofit, set its Form 990 against a second org’s in another subsector, and write the analysis. Rail B (team of up to 5): design and pitch your own nonprofit-startup concept, built module by module and grounded in verified real orgs.
  • No exams. You’re graded on what AI can’t do for you. Standing in a real organization, pulling original local data, catching AI when it invents facts about a real org, working as a team, and grounding your work in verified evidence.
  • By the end you’ll be able to (each week page tags the objectives it builds):
    1. describe and evaluate the role nonprofits play in society;
    2. find organizations within nonprofit subsectors and read up on their purpose and operation;
    3. compare how government, business, and nonprofits provide public services;
    4. weigh the attitudes behind American giving and volunteering against your own values;
    5. use key information sources, including real data on nonprofits and charitable giving;
    6. speak the sector’s essential vocabulary;
    7. analyze current and historical events through the concepts of this course.

Reading materials

There is nothing required to buy. Readings are short and live on each week’s lesson page: a chapter from a recent nonprofit handbook, a practitioner piece (Stanford Social Innovation Review, Nonprofit Quarterly), current news, and a couple of free classics (Tocqueville, Carnegie). An optional anchor text (Ott & Dicke, The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector) is on library reserve for anyone who wants it. Every week’s page lists what to read and what each piece is for, and the Schedule links to all of them.

Grading

Each assignment is worth a fixed number of points, graded on its own 0–100% scale; points earned = value × percent (e.g., the 20-point report graded 90% → 18 points). The two rails sum to 100, so your total points are your final percentage grade.

Component Points Detail
Rail A, Site Visit + Analysis 50 Individual, in four steps: an on-ramp, the visit with evidence, the 990 comparison, and the report
Rail B, Startup Plan + Pitch 50 Team of up to 5, in five stages: the concept brief, the funding lab, the draft, the pitch, the plan

Everything you upload is due Sunday, 11:59 PM (the live pitch is the one in-the-room exception). The work arrives in nine pieces rather than a few large ones, and 65 of the 100 points are in before Thanksgiving. The easy 55 points are credit / no-credit checkpoints, scored on whether the work is genuinely there; the other 45 are rubric-graded: the 20-point report, the 10-point pitch, and the 15-point final plan.

Each rail’s page under the Assignments menu carries every step’s points, dates, downloadable templates, and rubrics.

Letter grades:

  • A+ ≥ 97, A ≥ 93, A− ≥ 90
  • B+ ≥ 87, B ≥ 83, B− ≥ 80
  • C+ ≥ 77, C ≥ 73, C− ≥ 70
  • D+ ≥ 67, D ≥ 63, D− ≥ 60
  • F < 60

The letter set is IU’s; the percentage cutoffs are this course’s. One thing sits outside the 100 points: the attendance deduction under Policies applies on top of whatever the table earns you.

Getting help & support

  • Finding a nonprofit to visit: start at the Resources page, which leads with local organizations that already host IU students and have an IU liaison on site. There’s also a fallback ladder, so no one is ever stranded.
  • IU support: the Writing Center, Accessible Educational Services, counseling, and free 24/7 virtual mental-health care are all available to you. Contacts and details are on the Policies page.

Policies

The 3-3-3 rule

3 absences free · 3 late submissions free · each within 3 days.

Three of each, no questions asked, for the ordinary things life throws at you. After that the arithmetic takes over: −1 point per absence, 0 for late work, and 9 absences is an automatic F.

I write it this plainly so you never have to ask permission for the ordinary stuff and always know exactly where you stand. It’s the same for everyone: I can’t make an exception for one person that I wouldn’t make for all thirty-four.

Attendance: the “3 absences”

  • Your first three absences are free. No explanation, no email, no doctor’s note: use them for whatever life throws at you.
  • After that, each absence costs 1 point off your final course grade, and at 9 absences the course is an automatic F: past that point there isn’t enough of the course left to pass honestly.
  • You’re marked present when you’ve done both: signed that session’s sign-in sheet and handed in that session’s in-class work, where there is any (with none, the signature alone does it). A sheet with only your name on it counts as nothing handed in.
  • The sheet comes around once, at a moment I don’t announce, sometimes in the last five minutes, so plan to be there for the whole session. There’s no signing afterward, and signing for a friend puts you both into the academic-misconduct process.
  • In-class work is earned in the room. If you’re not there, that item scores 0 and there’s no make-up. The part that surprises people: a free absence waives the attendance penalty only; it never gives back points from work you missed.
  • Check your own count anytime: attendance posts to Canvas after each session. If something looks wrong, tell me within a week of that posting and we’ll check it against the sign-in sheets; after that week the count stands.
  • Two exceptions, both arranged in advance: a documented AES accommodation, and religious observance under IU policy ACA-59, to me by the end of Week 2 where you can. An approved session isn’t recorded as an absence at all, and it’s the one circumstance where missed in-class work can be made up. Everything else is what the three free absences are for; forms and details are on the Policies page.

Late work: the “3 late submissions, 3 days”

  • You get three no-penalty late submissions for the semester. No explanation, no advance notice: just submit.
  • Each one covers you for 72 hours past the deadline. Beyond three days it’s a 0 even with passes left, and once your three are spent any late submission is a 0. No partial credit, per-day scale, or extension process.
  • If you submitted anything by the deadline, your last on-time version is what I grade: a later replacement isn’t evaluated and spends no pass. So don’t upload a placeholder if you plan to use a pass: the placeholder becomes your graded work.
  • 72 hours is clock time, weekends and holidays included; the Canvas timestamp is the record.
  • In-class items can’t be late: you were in the room or you weren’t.
  • Team deliverables: a late team submission spends one pass from each member; anyone out of passes scores 0 while covered teammates aren’t. Past 72 hours it’s a 0 for everyone.
  • A2 has a booking exception: submit evidence of a confirmed visit to Canvas by Sun Oct 4, 11:59 PM, and you may complete the visit and upload the remaining A2 work afterward, without a late penalty or using a late pass. For this exception, I grade your completed A2 after the visit. The visit still has to happen before A4 is due on Sun Nov 15. See A2 Visit evidence.

The rest

  • AI: we integrate it, we don’t ban it. Assume everyone uses AI; that’s allowed and expected here. You’re graded on what AI can’t do for you, and on catching it when it invents facts about a real organization. Four rules on every assignment: (1) disclose and cite your AI use; disclosure never lowers your grade, hiding it is the violation. (2) Keep a short process log, graded on the corrections you made. (3) Verify every fact about a real org against a primary source; if you can’t verify it, you can’t submit it. (4) You own every word.
  • Academic integrity & fieldwork. The site visit needs verifiable proof of contact (a dated photo, a named staff member, an emailed confirmation, a logged call) cross-checked against the org’s real 990. Inventing fieldwork is the fastest way to fail an assignment; the fallback ladder exists so you never need to.
  • University policies (the O’Neill Honor Code, academic misconduct, what you can do with course materials, withdrawal deadlines, accommodations, and IU’s counseling, mental-health, and Title IX resources) are collected on the Policies page.