SECOND DRAFT FOR COMMENT ONLY: 13 FEBRUARY 2011 WORKING ABROAD: OPPORTUNITIES IN THE NONPROFIT WORLD (PAD 6600, SUMMER 2011) Prof. Jon Van Til This course/workshop introduces public policy students and nonprofit organization leaders in Denver to the current realities of working abroad through the vehicles provided by nonprofit organizations. In a world in which the global economic, military, and cultural reach of the United States is enormous, both suspicion and admiration of the visiting American have risen to unprecedented levels. This course focuses on the work of NPOs (nonprofit organizations) and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) that foster development, human rights, environmental protection and other public goods. Further, the course analyzes the bases of the plural and ambiguous roles often played by such organizations, and seeks to provide grounded guidance to those engaged in, or preparing for, careers that involve foreign work and travel. Selected sessions of the course/workshop will be open to participation by leaders and practitioners within the nonprofit communities of Colorado and beyond. Guest presentations will be conducted by internationally known scholars and activists within the third sector. Students will thereby be provided remarkable opportunities to work closely with top leaders in the field, and to network with important nonprofit organization leaders and participants within Colorado, and beyond. For information about the instructor: See www.jonvantil.org MEETING TIMES Thursday, July 7 5:00-9:30 p.m. Friday, July 8 9:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Saturday, July 9 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Individually scheduled between July 10-22: 13 hybrid hours for guided writing Saturday, July 23 10-4
SCHEDULE OF COURSE ACTIVITIES SESSIONS COURSE ACTIVITIES PRINCIPALS READINGS THURSDAY JULY 7 5:00-7:00 THURSDAY JULY 7 EVENING 7-9:30 FRIDAY JULY 8 9:30-12 FRIDAY 12-1 FRIDAY 1-3 FRIDAY 3:30-5:30 FRIDAY 6--? SATURDAY JULY 10 10-4 JULY 11-23 SATURDAY JULY 24 10-4 FIRST MEETING OF CLASS OPENING SESSION. WORKING ABROAD: THE NEW GLOBAL REALITIES THE WORK OF AMERICANS ABROAD LUNCH WITH THE VISITORS PANEL : WHAT TO DO, AND WHAT TO AVOID DOING, WHEN WORKING ABROAD DIALOGUE WITH THE EXPERTS CONVERSATION AND WINDING DOWN IDENTIFICATION OF MAJOR ISSUES AND CHOICE OF PAPER TOPICS PAPER PREPARATION: GUIDED HYBRID WORK PRESENTATION OF PAPERS AND FINAL REFLECTIONS KEYNOTE STATEMENT BY DAVID BROWN PRESENTATION BY JULIE FISHER DAVID BROWN, JULIE FISHER, KAREN de BARTOLOME, DAVID FRENCH, AND STEPHEN BLOCK (, MODERATOR) A DISCUSSION SESSION PULLING THE THEMES TOGETHER (JON VAN TIL, DISCUSSION LEADER) A social networking evening for participants (At least skim) the two assigned texts Batliwala and Brown Brown and Timmer Case: CONAIE and the Ecuador Land Law
GUEST LECTURERS L. DAVID BROWN spent much of his career at the intersections of (a) organization theory and development studies and (b) research and practice. For the last three decades he has worked on building stronger civil society organizations and sectors, constructing effective relations between civil society and other sectors, and strengthening the role of civil society organizations as a key actors in global problem-solving and governance. He is the author of The Struggle for Accountability: NGOs, Social Movements and the World Bank (with Jonathan Fox), Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction (with Srilatha Batliwala) and Creating Credibility: Legitimacy and Accountability for Transnational Civil Society. He has consulted to a wide range of national and international development and advocacy NGOs and was the founding President of the Institute for Development Research (IDR), a thinktank that worked with a wide range of national and international development NGOs. He is now Senior Research Fellow at Harvard s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. JULIE FISHER has been a consultant to numerous international NGOs, was a Visiting Fellow at PONPO (Yale) in the 1990s, and was a Program Officer at the Kettering Foundation from 1997 to 2005. She is the author of The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and the Nongovernmental Movement in the Third World (Praeger:1993) and Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development of the Third World (Kumarian:1998). Her newest work, From Within: Democratization NGOs in Argentina, South Africa and Tajikistan, is completed and is based on 92 interviews in the three countries. GUEST PANELISTS STEPHEN BLOCK is a Research Professor and Director of the University of Colorado s School of Public Affairs' Nonprofit Management Concentration. As a Fulbright Scholar, he taught NGO Management, and Cross-Cultural Management Issues at the Moscow State University of Management. His most recent textbook
(2008) was written in the Russian language to help advance the teaching of NGO management in the Russian Federation. Also, he has lectured on the subject of Nonprofit Boards & Governance in Europe and North America where two of his books, Why Nonprofits Fail (Jossey-Bass, 2004) and Perfect Nonprofit Boards (Simon & Schuster, 1998) have been widely used by scholars and practitioners. He is the founding executive director of Denver Options (www.denveroptions.org), and his career spans 30 years as an executive director and 5 years as a clinical social worker. He has been providing consultation and training to nonprofits and government agencies for more than 20 years. Block received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York; a Master's Degree in Social Work from the Graduate School of Social Work, Indiana University; and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Public Administration with a concentration in nonprofit organization management from the University of Colorado, Graduate School of Public Affairs. DAVID FRENCH is REQUIRED READINGS FOR THE COURSE Marc Lindenberg and Coralie Bryant. Going Global: Transforming Relief and Development NGOs. Kumarian 2001. Derick W. Brinkerhoff and Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff. Working for Change: Making a Career in International Public Service. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2005. READINGS PERTAINING TO DAVID BROWN S PRESENTATIONS Initial Talk: Emerging global realties and the roles of civil society actors Readings: Batliwala, S & L.D. Brown (editors), Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2006.
Brown, L.D & V. Timmer, Civil Society Actors as Catalysts for Transnational Social Learning, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 2006, 17:1, 1-16. Case: CONAIE and the Ecuador Land Law (A) and (B) Workshop: NGO Strategies or Cross Sector Partnerships (nor both in two hours): Strategy: M.H. Moore, Managing for Value: Organizational Strategy in For-Profit, Nonprofit, and Governmental Organizations, in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29: 1, Supplement, 2000, 183-204. Alvord, S., Brown, L.D. & Letts, C. Social Entrepreneurship and Social Transformation. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2004, 40:3, 260-282. Uvin, P., P. Jain, & L. D. Brown, Think Large and Act Small: Toward a New Paradigm for NGO Scaling Up, World Development, 28:8, 2000, 1409-1419. Case: Oxfam America. Harvard Business School, 9-798-036. Cross Sector Partnership: Brown, L.D. & D. Ashman, Participation, Social Capital and Intersectoral Problem-Solving: African and Asian Cases, World Development, 24: 9, 1996, 1467-1479. J. Austin, Strategic Collaboration between Nonprofits and Businesses, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29: 1, Supplement 2000, 69-97. Alan Fowler, NGO Futures: Beyond Aid: NGDO Values and the Fourth Position, Third World Quarterly, 21(4), 2000, pp. 589-603. Cases: Expanded Rural Immunization in Bangladesh, and Slum Rehabilitation in Pakistan (both from IDR, 1995). Case: Financing Slum Rehabilitation in Mumbai: A Non-Profit Caught in the Middle (KSG C6-04-1688.0). READINGS PERTAINING TO JULIE FISHER S PRESENTATIONS Initial talk: The work of Americans abroad, with an emphasis on taking account of indigenous NGOs
Readings: Fisher, Julie. The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and the Nongovernmental Movement in the Third World, Westport, Praeger.1993. Fisher, Julie. Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development of the Third World. West Hartford: Kumarian, 1997. SUSTAINED DIALOGUE ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INTEREST Harold Saunders, A PUBLIC PEACE PROCESS, New York: Palgrave, 2001. Paper. ISBN-13: 9780312293383 ISBN 0-312-29338-0. Purchase from bookstore or internet (new or used). Benjamin Gidron, Stanley Katz, Ezekiel Hasenfeld, eds. MOBILIZING FOR PEACE: CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN NORTHERN IRELAND, ISRAEL/PALESTINE, AND SOUTH AFRICA. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Hardcover. ISBN-13: 9780195125924 ISBN 0-19-512592-4 Purchase from bookstore or internet (new or used). 0: 1-89200501704 Purchase from bookstore or internet. Roger Lohmann and Jon Van Til, eds. (forthcoming in 2011, Columbia U. Press), RESOLVING COMMUNITY CONFLICTS AND PROBLEMS: PUBLIC DELIBERATION AND SUSTAINED DIALOGUE. Electronic copy available from instructor. Harold Saunders, POLITICS IS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Jon Van Til, BREACHING DERRY S WALLS. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008.
James Voorhees, DIALOGUE SUSTAINED: THE MULTILEVEL PEACE PROCESS AND THE DARTMOUTH CONFERENCE. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2002. CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL REALITIES Richard Florida, THE RISE OF THE CREATIVE CLASS. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Roger Lohmann, THE COMMONS. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992. Robert Putnam, BOWLING ALONE. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. COURSE REQUIREMENTS Students will be expected to attend all sessions, perform class assignments as announced, participate actively in organizing and developing workshop experiences, and author or co-author a research/observation paper on aspects of international nonprofit organization. A final examination/reflection will also be required.