Week 15: Going global + pitch rehearsal
Nov 30 & Dec 2 · M7. INGOs and decolonizing aid, legal/hybrid forms, the pitch rehearsal, and the Module 8 reading.
This week’s big question
Does “the sector” look the same outside the US, and is your startup ready to pitch? We close the ethics/global thread with INGOs and decolonizing aid, settle legal form and sustainability, and rehearse the pitch. Module 7 · builds LO4 (global ethics), LO6 (legal-form vocabulary) · thread: ethics/global.
Note: Week 14 (Nov 23–27) was Thanksgiving, no class. Welcome back.
Readings
Lighter than usual on purpose: this week absorbs the Module 8 reading so that showcase week carries none.
| Reading | Focus & purpose |
|---|---|
| Core (Mon) · Evan Schofer & Wesley Longhofer, “The Global Rise of Nongovernmental Organizations”, ch. 27 of The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook (Stanford, 2020). 15 pp. | How the NGO became a global template, laid over older local forms (pp. 608–613), and the critics’ warning that an NGO’s agenda can follow its donors rather than local needs (p. 615). |
| Current (Mon) · Steve Dubb, “International Nonprofits After USAID: A View from the Global South”, Nonprofit Quarterly (Sep 2025). 4 pp. | Monday’s case: the founder of a Thai human rights organization on where USAID money went, and why hiring local staff is not the same as handing over decisions. |
| Core (Wed) · Farm Commons, “Exploring Social Purpose Business Structures” (overview and comparison) (2024). 3 pp. | What a 501(c)(3) can do that a benefit corporation or an L3C cannot, and why B Corp is a certification rather than a legal form. Wednesday’s discussion uses the comparison table. |
| Core (Wed; M8, for the pitch) · David Callahan, “There Are Too Many Nonprofits. What’s the Solution?”, Inside Philanthropy (Aug 2025). 3 pp. | Duplication, funders who say yes too easily, and mergers as the remedy. It pushes you to justify a new organization, which your pitch has to do. |
Session 1 · Mon Nov 30: Global case clinic (TBD)
A case from Thailand, then a check of your own plan. Schofer and Longhofer name money as one pressure behind the NGO’s spread: “Many types of funding explicitly require NGO status” (p. 613). The critics they review warn that donors can shape an NGO’s agenda (p. 615). We test that by asking who decides, who benefits, and who answers to whom.
The case is Monday’s Current reading: Steve Dubb’s NPQ article (September 2025) on Emilie Palamy Pradichit, founder of Manushya Foundation, a Thai human rights organization. Sheet 1 reprints three passages from it; keep that sheet. Discuss these questions with your team and record brief notes on sheet 2:
- Problem and response: before 2024, where did USAID money for Thailand go, in Pradichit’s account? What did Manushya do differently with its 2024 grant?
- The test: in each route, who decides, who benefits, and who answers to whom? Is “hiring more locals” under a “foreigner boss” a shift in power?
- Your startup: which decision in your plan could the people you serve help make, and how? What would you change? If the critique does not fit your plan, explain why.
After eight minutes, we compare your answers with our reading of the case, check it against Manushya’s own description of its grants, and apply the test to Week 10’s hypothetical startup, the evening English conversation groups. The article is one founder’s account: it shows what Manushya says it does, not whether its partners are better off.
Then put the same questions to your own plan on sheet 3: three decisions it makes, who makes each now, and who should share it and how, or why it stays where it is; who else benefits (your team, funders, partners); and a route for the people you serve to challenge a decision (the Week 7 question). Cite the existing practice you would adapt, as B1 asks. Choose one change for your plan, say why it should work, and name an assumption to test. Teams swap sheets to check that each decision names a mechanism or a reason, not a good intention, and that the practice, the route, and the assumption are on the sheet.
Sheets 2 and 3 are Monday’s in-class work and are collected, so photograph sheet 3 first: the change you choose goes into your B3 draft, due Sunday, and into pitch beat 6 on accountability. Bring your team’s working draft of the plan.
Session 2 · Wed Dec 2: Legal & hybrid forms + pitch rehearsal checkpoint (TBD)
A Rail B session in two parts: your team argues its legal form, then rehearses the pitch.
We watch The Wall Street Journal’s “A Bakery Specializing in Second Chances” (2015, 2:50) in class: Greyston Bakery, in Yonkers, New York, a company owned by a nonprofit, the Greyston Foundation. Discuss these questions with your team and record brief notes on sheet 1:
- Problem and response: who has trouble getting hired, and how does Greyston’s bakery hire them? What does the video say happens to the bakery’s profits?
- The forms: the bakery is a benefit corporation; the Foundation is a 501(c)(3). Using the Farm Commons table, what can each do that the other cannot?
- Your startup: which parts of your concept need donations, grants, or volunteers, and could any part earn its own money? Would your nonprofit run that work itself, or own a company to run it, as Greyston’s Foundation does? If a company does not fit your concept, explain why.
After eight minutes, we check the video against Greyston’s own site and the Foundation’s Forms 990 (EIN 13-3717310): what each label means, and whether the filings show the bakery’s profits reaching the Foundation. As of Oct 2, 2026, the site says the Foundation has paused its programs while the bakery continues. We also ask how a bakery like this would be set up where you grew up. Then David Callahan asks why a new organization at all, and we test a hypothetical startup.
Apply the same tests to your startup on sheet 2: why a nonprofit and which form; who could already run or sponsor your program, and why yours should be new; and the B2 revenue line you depend on most, with an assumption to test. Add one outcome from your Week 13 lab and how you will measure it, and name who wrote and presents each beat. Sited outside the United States? Use that country’s legal forms and its public register of nonprofits. Cite any structure you borrow from a real organization as B1 asks.
Then the rough pitch: five minutes for the seven B4 beats, to one other team, each teammate presenting the section they wrote. The listening team fills in sheet 3, the feedback card: thin or missing beats, whether you named the failure your nonprofit answers and why a new organization, a showcase question, and one fix. Then switch roles; I circulate and add notes to the cards.
All three sheets are Wednesday’s in-class work and are collected, so photograph sheet 2 and the card you receive first: they feed B3, due Sunday. Bring your draft sections, your photo of Week 13’s sheet 2 (the impact lab), your B2 funding sketch, and a five-minute run-through of the seven beats.
What’s due / prep
- Before Wednesday, scan the local nonprofit and social-enterprise support routes. Pick one your concept could use, and bring one reason it fits or does not: it feeds sheet 2.
- Rail B · B3, Assembled draft (10 pts, credit) due Sun Dec 6: every section in one document, including the impact section you started in Week 13 and the legal form and sustainability section from Wednesday, whole enough for another team to read straight through, AI-process appendix at least started. Bring it Mon Dec 7: you pass it to the next team in the pitch order for the peer review. See Startup Plan & Pitch.
Looking ahead
- Next week is the graded Capstone Showcase, split across Mon Dec 7 and Wed Dec 9, and Wednesday’s rough pitch is your only rehearsal for it. Your pitch day and place in the order are announced in class on Mon Nov 30 and posted on the Week 16 page. The written final plan (B5) is due Sun Dec 13, after you pitch. There is no finals-week meeting. See Startup Plan & Pitch.