Week 2: Why so many nonprofits?
Aug 31 & Sep 2 · M0. The non-distribution constraint, legal forms, and how we'll work as a studio.
This week’s big question
Why does a town like Bloomington end up with so many nonprofits, and how does the law tell them apart? We deepen the vocabulary (the non-distribution constraint, 501(c)(3) vs (c)(4) vs (c)(6)), form teams, and model the AI-process log live. Module 0 · builds LO6 (vocabulary) · thread: data/evidence.
Readings
| Reading | Focus & purpose |
|---|---|
| Core (Mon) · Helmut Anheier, “Defining the Nonprofit Sector”, from ch. 3 of Nonprofit Organizations: Theory, Management, Policy (2nd ed., 2014). Read pp. 66–73. 8 pp. | Three ways to draw the line around the sector (what it does, how it earns, how it is built), ending with the five-part test used internationally: organized, private, non-profit-distributing, self-governing, voluntary. The IRS page below supplies the fourth, legal, way. Pages 74–80 add the main organizational types if you want them. |
| Core (Wed) · Kirsten Grønbjerg & Mackenzie Shanahan, Indiana Nonprofit Employment: Long-term Recovery from the COVID-19 Disaster (IU Indiana Nonprofits Project, Report 19, July 2026). Read “Key Findings” and “The Nonprofit Sector in the State Economy,” pp. 9–16 only. 8 pp. | How big the sector is where you live, and what a shock does to it. |
| Current · IRS, “Exemption Requirements: 501(c)(3) Organizations”. 2 pp. | The canonical purpose categories: the legal-form landscape, not how to pick one. |
Bloomington’s own numbers come from you, not from a reading: we build them live in class from ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. The Indiana Nonprofits Project’s Bloomington community profile dates from 2002, which is why we are not using it.
Session 1 · Mon Aug 31: Map your town
In trios, you take one subsector and put four real Monroe County organizations on a worksheet, each confirmed on ProPublica with its EIN (no EIN, no row), plus one counterpart doing the same work in a country someone in your trio knows. Then we read the room’s own map skeptically (what it undercounts, double-counts, and mislocates), our first “read statistics responsibly” moment. Terminology continues: voluntary, nonprofit, charitable, tax-exempt, and the (c)(3)/(c)(4)/(c)(6) distinction. You’ll get the Rail A scouting worksheet.
Session 2 · Wed Sep 2: Teams form; the AI-process log, modeled live
Teams form (I assign them, for equity). In Studio #1, teams brainstorm “problems we care about” and post three candidate problems to a shared board. Then I demo an AI-process log on the projector. We ask a chatbot to describe a real local org and catch what it gets wrong together (this sets the verification-not-confession standard).
What’s due / prep
- A1 On-Ramp due Sun Sep 6 (5 pts, Rail A): your candidate org for the site visit plus a backup, each with its EIN and 990 link, and your first outreach email, actually sent. Your team also posts its three candidate problems. If nobody replies to the email, that’s expected. Flag it at a progress check-in.
- Visits take weeks to arrange: scout from the City of Bloomington Volunteer Network and look orgs up on ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.
- Before Monday, find out whether the country you know best keeps a public charity register: what it publishes, what it withholds, or that there isn’t one. Both are answers, and they set up Monday’s comparison.
Looking ahead
- Week 3 is Wednesday-only (Mon Sep 7 is Labor Day, no class). The readings are on the Week 3 page.