Startup Plan & Pitch (Rail B)

50 points · teams of up to 5 · individually accountable. Your team designs a nonprofit-startup concept, builds it module by module in studio, banks it at three checkpoints, pitches it live, and submits the written plan. It’s a way to apply the whole survey, not a how-to-run-a-nonprofit exercise: you’re showing you understand what nonprofits are, why they exist, and how they fit in civil society.

Half the rail is credit / no-credit: the three checkpoints carry 25 points, scored on whether the work is genuinely there, so a team that builds steadily is well ahead before the endgame. You pitch before you submit, so the final plan can absorb what the room told you. Submit on Canvas.

Before your team settles its legal form, compare the Bloomington and IU startup-support routes: a new nonprofit, fiscal sponsorship under an existing nonprofit, or an incubated social enterprise. Rail B still asks for a nonprofit concept; testing the alternatives sharpens the required case for why a nonprofit fits.

The five stages

How the plan builds: the studio rhythm

The plan grows one plank per module, six in all, so there’s no year-end crush. Studio work isn’t separately graded, but it is that session’s in-class work, which presence requires (Policies), and each checkpoint banks what the studios built.

B1 · Concept brief: 5 points

Due Sun Oct 4, 11:59 PM · credit / no-credit · max 2 pages, single-spaced · built in the Week 5–6 studios · template (.docx).

The plan’s foundation, and the document every later stage revises rather than replaces:

• the need: a real community problem, evidenced with real local indicators, sources named;
• the mission, one or two sentences a stranger could repeat back;
• a theory of change for your proposed nonprofit: inputs → activities → outcomes, using existing programs to inform your design;
• one sentence on why this is nonprofit work rather than a business or a government program.

For each proposed activity, cite a relevant practice from a real organization, explain what you would adapt for your community, and say why you expect it to produce the intended change. Name the organization (legal name and EIN for U.S. organizations) and the source page or section, such as its program page, annual report, or Form 990 Part III. For an organization abroad, use its own program description, annual report, or public register. The same organization can inform more than one activity.

The real organization gives you a practical reference for your design. Its website can establish that it runs a program; that alone does not establish that the program achieves its intended outcome, or that your adaptation will work. Name one assumption in the activity-to-outcome link that you would need to test.

Credit for grounded and genuinely there, not for polish.

B2 · Funding lab: 10 points

Due Sun Oct 25, 11:59 PM · credit / no-credit, assessed per member · built in the Week 8 studio and the Week 9 NTEE hunt · template (.docx).

Your funding model gets grounded in real filings, and everyone does the grounding:

• each teammate takes a different real comparable org (claim one in the Week 8 studio; the Week 9 NTEE hunt and evidence clinic check its fit and your working draft), freezes a chatbot summary of its finances, and verifies at least eight claims against its 990, verdict and exact location per row. Keep a usable comparable; replace it only if it fails the filing or fit tests, or cannot support eight checkable claims. This is the course’s signature AI-error-catching exercise; the method lives on the 990 Lab how-to;
• together, you sketch an illustrative first-year revenue mix (not a real budget). Each share cites the verified comparable line it draws on (org, EIN, tax year, part, line, page) and says what your startup would keep or change, and why.

A comparable’s filing shows what that organization raised in one tax year; it does not show that a new organization can raise the same. Below the sketch, name the assumption behind your least-sure share that you would need to test, and the funder who could stop saying yes, with what the plan would do that year.

Credit is per member: your verified comparable earns yours, and a teammate who skips theirs scores 0 while the rest are covered. The prize is four or five verified real orgs to build the plan on.

B3 · Assembled draft: 10 points

Due Sun Dec 6, 11:59 PM · credit / no-credit · then bring it Monday · template (.docx).

Every section in one document, whole enough for another team to read straight through, AI-process appendix at least started. It’s what you pass to the next team in the pitch order for the Week 16 peer review, and it’s why the final plan is worth 15 rather than 25: assembling is scored separately from quality, so a team that shows up whole banks the points however the critique goes.

B4 · Capstone Pitch: 10 points

Live, in Week 16: Mon Dec 7 or Wed Dec 9 (your team’s day and place in the pitch order are posted on the Week 16 page) · rubric-graded.

About seven minutes, roughly one beat per minute:

1. the need, evidenced;
2. mission and theory of change;
3. why a nonprofit, not a business or government (argue it with a failure theory);
4. the program and who it serves;
5. how it’s resourced, grounded in your verified comparables;
6. accountability and intended impact (outputs vs. outcomes, honestly);
7. the ask: why Bloomington should want this to exist.

Each teammate presents the section they authored; per-section authorship plus a confidential peer evaluation keep the team grade individually accountable. Your only rehearsal is the rough pitch on Wed Dec 2 (Week 15). Where possible, local nonprofit staff join as a friendly audience.

The showcase happens once. Miss your day and B4 scores 0 for you, and the session counts as an absence: no rescheduled slot, no recorded substitute. The only exceptions are a documented AES accommodation or religious observance arranged in advance; see Policies.

B5 · Final plan + AI-process appendix: 15 points

Due Sun Dec 13, 11:59 PM, after you pitch · rubric-graded · max 8 pages, single-spaced (tables, the appendix, and peer evals don’t count) · template (.docx).

The plan, revised after the peer review and the pitch, plus the mandatory show-and-critique-your-AI-process appendix (named org, quoted AI claim, cited 990 line) and your peer evaluations. The authorship map and the peer evaluations can move an individual’s score away from the team’s.

A late team submission spends a late pass from every member, and anyone out of passes scores 0 while covered teammates aren’t, so settle early who still has passes left. The 3-3-3 rule has the details.

The rules that keep it honest

• Grounded in your own fieldwork. The plan’s evidence base cites at least two different teammates’ own visited organizations and real facts about them, naming who supplied each.
• Cite every borrowed practice as B1 asks. Wherever the plan borrows from a real organization (for its program, board, staffing, or funding), give its legal name, its EIN if it is a U.S. organization, and the source page or section. Say what you adapt and why you expect it to work, and name an assumption to test.
• You each own a named section, and you present the section you authored.
• An AI process log appendix documenting the specific corrections your team made to AI output.

How AI fits

Brainstorm programs, draft language, propose metrics, simulate hostile pitch questions. Disclose it, verify every claim about a real org, keep the log.