For my practicum, I enrolled in PLCY213: Foundations of Nonprofit Leadership & Social Innovation. This course is a study of non-profits. The first unit in this class consisted primarily of reading theory and concepts essential for non-profits such as the Three Sectors, Civil Society, Volunteerism, and Social Enterprise. The second unit was a study of Strategy and Leadership. The readings consisted of Harvard Business Review case studies, which were carefully written analyses of unique non-profit organizations and their activities. The Third and final unit will be about creating change using the learned topics in the course and applying them to the present. As part of the Non-profit Analysis assignment I will be interviewing a local non-profit and writing a report on a specific challenge they faced.
What I learned
I learned about a sector of the economy that no other class properly taught in my years of schooling thus far: the non-profit sector. I learned about how they effect change, the challenges they face and how they overcome them. In addition to the wealth of knowledge I amassed about the theory and concepts, the case studies taught me the importance of entrepreneurship and innovation. The most successful non-profits used their resources in creative ways to effect change. My favorite part of the class was watching and analyzing the Do Good Challenge of 2021, and I enjoyed writing my paper analyzing whether the placings for the venture track finalists were deserved or not.
Do Good Challenge Analysis
On April 29, 2021, I attended the online premiere of the Do Good Challenge 2021 Finals, where students who created nonprofit projects to help people were awarded prize money by judges of the Do Good Institute. In this paper, I analyzed the merit of the placing of each of the three finalists of the 2021 Do Good Challenge in the venture track.. I did so through the lens of their scalability, the clarity of their strategic plan, and their relevance and innovation in today's day and age.
I applied knowledge from this course such as the importance of branding, the template used for strategic planning, and disruptive innovations. I also applied what the current literature suggests about the probability of success (with their outcomes, funding, and public perception) of organizations that embody these ideas. For example, STEPS is an organization using tutor volunteers to generate revenues from a cheap tutoring service to direct towards grants for low income education in Baltimore, and it was awarded second place. I analyzed its proposal and concluded that the students presented their goals and methods of generating wealth excellently. I criticized some of the weaknesses of this organization such as the lack of replicability of their model. Their greatest strength (sourcing high quality tutors from Howard County and neighboring areas with ample educated tutors willing to volunteer) is their greatest weakness. This geographic reliance adds a layer of complexity to their theory of change, which is the description an organization uses to explain why their model works to achieve their goal. Referencing outside sources and research, I critiqued the weaknesses of each contestant and appreciated the innovation that they all brought to the table. As I was writing this paper, I felt like a judge of the Do Good Institute myself and felt like I had a greater understanding of all the concepts taught in this course. |
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Using PLCY213 In My Future
As a Computer Science and Mathematics major, the study of nonprofits was a complementary one to me. But as a prospective data scientist, I need to be well versed not only in the subjected of my major but in businesses and organizational leadership as well since Data Science is a multi-disciplinary field. In PLCY213, the traits of successful nonprofits and effecting social change are applicable to organizations in general. I also have other interests and hobbies such as Chess and powerlifting. Learning about people who took their passions and brought other people into their communities to help the poor or under-educated inspired me to not hesitate to start an organization to grow one of these disciplines locally (potentially in rural areas or locations where prospective enthusiasts don't have the human or physical resources to enjoy them).
Onward at UMD
I will continue to solidify my base of technical skills with projects I work on with my peers in classes and clubs. I expect to graduate in Winter 2022 with a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science and become a data scientist and work at a firm or startup and harness the latest artificial intelligence technology in the world of big data and data science in a variety of fields over the span of my career.