We will learn the nonprofit and civil society sectors in different countries from three perspectives: philosophical values, historical events, and empirical data. In essence, this course helps you 1) understand historical and cultural contexts for nonprofits and civil society sectors in different countries, 2) use empirical methods and data to support your observations, and 3) explore how to run a nonprofit organization in the country of your interest.
The course starts with introducing the nonprofit and civil society in China: 1) its philosophical values and in comparison with other philosophical thoughts, 2) its historical past and connections with other countries and cultures, and 3) empirical analysis of its development and current status.
You can choose a country or culture of your interest and follow the example of China while analyzing. The assignments are three blog posts on the course website (http://npo.jima.me/ ; i.e., philosophical values, historical past, and development and current status) and presentations in class for each posts. Ultimately, your posts will answer “what is your strategy if you are going to operate a nonprofit or collaborate with a local nonprofit in the country?“
Pedagogically, this course shares three principles: 1) open education, all course contents created by the instructor and students are open to the public under a non-commercial license, moreover, we will use social media platforms to promote this course and students’ works (e.g., blog posts and presentations) to maximize the use of course contents; 2) flipped classroom, students will lead research activities in and outside of the classroom following instructor’s learning guide; 3) lifelong learning, current and past students, even students outside of the class, can always share their recent works on this course website.
A tentative syllabus is available here ( http://npo.jima.me/?page_id=45 ).