Week 13: Is any of it fair, just & global?

This week’s big question

Can we measure whether any of this works, and is big philanthropy good for democracy? Monday your team plans how its startup would know whether its program works, and reads what AI can and cannot add. Wednesday is the live ethics debate on big philanthropy, tainted money, tax exemption, and effective altruism. Module 7 · builds LO4 (ethics), LO5 (impact literacy) · thread: both.

Readings

Session 1 · Mon Nov 16: Impact-measurement lab (TBD)

A Rail B lab: your team plans how its new nonprofit would know whether its flagship program works. Week 6 separated outputs from outcomes; a change you measure still does not show that your program caused it.

We watch Teaching at the Right Level Africa’s “Teaching at the Right Level - An Introduction” (2018, 5:42) in class. It shows the reading-and-math approach the Indian NGO Pratham pioneered; Gugerty and Karlan cite it on p. 9. Discuss these questions with your team and record brief notes on sheet 1:

1. Problem and practice: which children are in school but not learning the basics, and what do the program’s teachers do differently?
2. The measures: name one output and one intended outcome from the video. If more children can read after a term, what can that number not tell you?
3. Your startup: how would you see your flagship program’s intended outcome in year one, and what could that number not tell you? If you could not measure it yet, what would you track instead?

After eight minutes, we compare your answers with the evaluations summarized by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and with Zambia’s adoption, which checked its own conditions and ran a monitored pilot first. A hypothetical Bloomington startup models the plan; then we read the Stanford HAI figures on AI, starting with who answered the survey.

On sheet 2, apply the same questions to your startup: two outputs and two outcomes, how and when you would collect each, and what each cannot tell you. Then find evidence for your B1 assumption: a program or strategy, evaluated elsewhere, that should work for the same reason (What Works for Health or J-PAL’s evaluations). Record the source, what it found, and whether your conditions match (for a U.S. organization, add its legal name and EIN); if nothing fits, say why. Add your first check in year one (do people sign up and keep coming?) and one rule for AI and participants’ data. Teams swap sheets to check the outcomes, the limits, the evidence, and the data rule.

Both sheets, one per team, are Monday’s in-class work and are collected, so photograph them first. Sheet 2 starts your plan’s Impact measurement section; finish it for B3, and Wed Dec 2’s rough pitch checks it as beat 6. Bring your B1 theory of change, your Week 10 program sketch (a photo, or rebuild it from B1), and a laptop or phone. Class ends with the draw of Wednesday’s debate motions.

Session 2 · Wed Nov 18: The live ethics debate (TBD)

Each team argues one side of one motion in three moves: a fact with its source and date, the value it defends, and what it would ask of your startup. The values are Lechterman and Reich’s (pp. 180–182): liberty, equality, pluralism, and prosperity.

We first watch PBS NewsHour’s “How the Met is handling dilemma of donor accountability” (2019, 6:37), in which the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s then-president explains why the museum stopped taking gifts from Sackler family members tied to Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. Discuss these questions with your team and record brief notes on sheet 1:

1. The decision: in 2019, what did the Met decide about Sackler gifts and the Sackler name, and why?
2. The values: which of the four values supports the Met’s answer, and which one challenges it? Who should decide?
3. Your startup: adapt the Met’s test. Name a gift your team would refuse or return, and who would decide. If no gift would conflict with your mission, explain why.

After seven minutes, we compare your answers with what happened next (Associated Press, December 2021; its paragraph on the bankruptcy settlement is out of date) and with a hypothetical gift rule for a new nonprofit. A source can show what the Met decided and when; whether it decided rightly is the argument.

Then the debate, one team for and one against each motion:

1. Big philanthropy is bad for democracy. Draw on Lechterman and Reich, pp. 176 and 180–182.
2. A nonprofit should refuse tainted money. Draw on Handy and Russell’s case, pp. 121–122 and 127–129, and the Met case.
3. Nonprofit tax exemption is unfair. Draw on Lechterman and Reich, pp. 172, 174–175, and 181–182, and the hospital bargain from Week 9.
4. Effective altruism gets giving right. Draw on Singer, pp. 3–4 and 7, Monday’s limits of measurement, and the Overhead Myth letter from Week 8.

Your team builds its side on sheet 2 for six minutes. Each motion runs about eight minutes: two minutes per side, then three minutes of questions that test the same three moves. No winner is declared. You finish alone on sheet 2: the strongest point against your side, where you land, and one rule for your startup.

Both sheets are Wednesday’s in-class work and are collected: sheet 1 one per team, sheet 2 one per person. Photograph sheet 2 first if your rule is going into the plan. For your fact, quote the source itself, not a chatbot’s summary of it.

What’s due / prep

• Nothing new is due this week. The final report was due Sun Nov 15; a late pass on it runs to Wed Nov 18, 11:59 PM.
• Before Wednesday’s debate: your team’s motion and side are drawn at the end of Monday’s class. Read Lechterman and Reich, and skim the pages your motion draws on. The debate is ungraded.

Looking ahead

• No class Nov 23–27 (Thanksgiving). The Week 15 page has the readings. Bring your team’s working draft of the plan on Mon Nov 30. Wed Dec 2 brings the rough pitch and the studio for legal form and sustainability, and B3 is due Sun Dec 6.