SYLLABUS FOR A GRADUATE SEMINAR IN "THE FUTURE OF THE NONPROFIT
SECTOR”
PROFESSOR JON VAN TIL, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
Presented at the University of Colorado, Denver
Weekends of June 13 and July 25, 2008
This seminar challenges graduate students and nonprofit participants to think about the
future of the nonprofit/third/civil society sector and to begin to shape plans, both individual and
collective, that will mesh with their own interests and aspirations. Students are, further, invited
to write several “op-ed” statements to clarify and present their own thinking on the fundamental
goals and values of nonprofit organizations in the years ahead.
Fields of practical and intellectual concern, like the nonprofit sector (or, as it is often
called—the third, civil society, or voluntary sector) are subject in turbulent times to what have
variously been identified as "paradigm shifts" (Kuhn, 1996), "tectonic shifts" (Van Til, 1998), or
the impact of "tipping points” (Gladwell, 2002). The attack of September 11, 2001 precipitated
such a shift in American politics, both domestic and foreign. The 2008 Presidential election
seems likely itself to precipitate further shifts incomprehensible a scant decade before: an
intensified cultural war between secularists and fundamentalists; an eventual recognition that the
"end of work" (Cf. Rifkin, 2004) does indeed confront Western societies with the triumph of the
global economy; and the looming impact of a public and private economy drunk on debt and
looping toward increasing instability (Cf. Peterson, 2004).
Almost every one of the terrible challenges to humankind that may be conceived—war,
environmental degradation, pervasive poverty and inequality, uncivil terrorism among them--has
drawn forward civil society organizations dedicated toward preserving justice, sanity, and
civility in the many nations of the world. But, over the past decade, the field of voluntary
action/nonprofit organization/third sector/civil society research has only recently seen the
loosening of a paradigm that focuses on organizations certified as tax-exempt by the United
States Internal Revenue Service and subject to an inability to distribute economic assets. While
this legally focused and American-based definition has facilitated large scale empirical research,
it has dropped from visibility a wide range of important community-based voluntary and
nonprofit organizations, including, in the U.S. some 9 million grassroots organizations (Cf.
Smith, 2000) and a wide range of cooperative and mutual benefit organizations.
In the midst of the enormous social, political, and economic changes of our age, the role
played by citizen action and nonprofit organizations will continue to make its mark. For those
who seek to study and understand the nature and impact of this vast global sector, questions
abound: Will we turn away from the idioms which have comforted us these past thirty years:
nonprofit sector, nonprofit organization, nonprofit management? Will we someday find enough
content in the sleek but still mysterious lines of the "civil society" image? Will we rediscover
the uses and delights of images we might have thought we had abandoned: volunteering;
national service; cooperative organization?
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Such are the questions to be addressed in this seminar, in which students are encouraged
to read challenging contemporary works on the future of the third sector, and apply these
concerns to issues directly relevant to their own emerging careers.
SEMINAR DESIGN
The seminar will meet six times in extended session during the summer term. Students are
expected to attend each of these sessions, which will meet during the weekends of June 13-15
and July. Friday sessions will be held from 5:00 to 9:00 (students should bring a light supper);
Saturday sessions will be held from 10:00 to 5:00 (working lunch will be held nearby); and
Sunday sessions will be scheduled from 10:00 to 6:00 (time after 2:00 to be devoted to guided
independent writing sessions).
The seminar will be highly participatory, with interactive mini-lectures and other instructional
materials interspersed with individual and group student presentations.
SEMINAR REQUIREMENTS and GRADING
Students will be expected to attend all sessions, write two annoted “op-ed” papers (each 3-5
pages plus footnotes), and complete a brief (1 ½ hour) final reflection/examination.
Grades will be assigned as per standard graduate school expectations, with the grade of A
assigned to students who perform consistently in an outstanding fashion, B granted to students
whose work is acceptably strong, and C and below for students whose work is clearly below
graduate standard.
ASSIGNED READING
The following readings are assigned, with dates indicated for completion. Where indicated, the
reading will be found on the website sakai.rutgers.edu, to which each enrolled student will be
granted access.
Anheier, Helmut K. “Reflections on the Concept and Measurement of Global Civil Society.”
Voluntas, vol. 18, number 1 (March): 1-16, 2007 (available on sakai).
Bruyn, Severyn T. A Civil Republic: Beyond Capitalism and Nationalism. Bloomfield, CT:
Kumarian, 2005. 1-56549-119-8
Evers, Adalbert and Jean-Louis Laville, eds. The Third Sector in Europe. Cheltenham, UK:
Edward Elgar (selection available on sakai).
Gunn, Christopher. Third-Sector Development: Making Up for the Market. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2004. (Read before first session)
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Parsons, Talcott. “On the Concept of Political Power.” In R. Bendix and S.M. Lipset, eds.,
Class, Status and Power, 2nd ed., pp. 240-265. New York: Free Press, 1966 (available on sakai).
Salamon, Lester M. The Resilient Sector: The State of Nonprofit America. Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press, 2003. (Read before first session)
Van Til, Jon. Growing Civil Society, paperback edition. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, July 2008. (copies available from instructor in July)
Students may also choose to read one or more of the following books (optional reading, but all
worth it when time can be found):
Anheier, Helmut K. Civil Society: Measurement, Evaluation, Policy. London:
Earthscan, 2004. Working with the civil society “diamond”.
Robert Frank, FALLING BEHIND (2007)
Why do our organizations become ever more stressful and unsatisfying?
Robert Kuttner, THE SQUANDERING OF AMERICA: HOW THE FAILURE OF OUR
POLITICS UNDERMINES OUR PROSPERITY (2007) How can organizations
behave properly while its leaders act so poorly?
Naomi Klein, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM
(2007)
Is capitalism capable of meeting our needs?
Barry Schwartz, THE PARADOX OF CHOICE (2004)
What can we each do to become more content with ourselves and with our life within
organizations?
Daniel Goleman, SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE (2006) What are the interpersonal skills
required for 21st century success?
Jeremy Rifkin, THE AGE OF ACCESS (2000)
Is there life beyond ownership?
Dan Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, WIKINOMICS: HOW MASS
COLLABORATION CHANGES EVERYTHING (2007) What lies beyond rights of
intellectual property?
William Ury, THE POWER OF A POSITIVE NO (2007)
How can we begin to slow the wheel of organizational pressure?
Richard Sennett, THE USES OF DISORDER (1970)
Is creative anarchy a solution in our ordered organizational world?
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Van Til, Jon. Breaching Derry’s Walls: The Quest for a Lasting Peace in Northern
Ireland. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008. Applying civil society theory
to the resolution of long-term conflict.
RECOMMENDED READING
Billis, David. Organising Public and Voluntary Agencies. London: Routledge, 1993.
Brandsen, Taco, Wim van de Donk, and Kim Putters, "Griffins or chameleons? Hybridity as a
permanent and inevitable characteristic of the third sector." Paper presented at the
conference of the European Group of Public Administration, Oeiras, Portugal, September
2-4, 2003.
Crossan, Denise. Towards a Classification Framework for Not-For-Profit Organisations. Ph.D.
thesis, University of Ulster, 2007.
EMES European Research Network. http://www.emes.net/en/recherche/emes/partenaires.php
Evers, Adalbert and Jean-Louis Laville. The Third Sector in Europe. Cheltenham, UK: Edward
Elgar, 2004, selections. Ch. 1 available on electronic reserve.
Frumkin, Peter. On Being Nonprofit. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Garvey, David. “Unnatural Acts, Collaboration and Curriculum:Pedagogy of the Local.”
Presented at ARNOVA, 2004.
Gecan, Michael. Going Public: An Organizer’s Guide to Citizen Action. New York: Anchor,
2002.
Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point. Boston: Little, Brown, 2002.
Hall, Peter Dobkin. Inventing the Nonprofit Sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1992.
Hammack, Peter, ed. Making the Nonprofit Sector in the United States. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1998
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996.
Lohmann, Roger. The Commons. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992.
O'Neill, Michael. Nonprofit Nation: A New Look at the Third America. New York: Wiley,
2002.
Paton, Rob. "Social Enterprise--Distinct or Convergent Discourses?" Paper presented at the
ARNOVA conference, Denver, November 2003.
Pestoff, Victor A. Beyond the Market and the State: Social Enterprises and Civil Democracy in
a Welfare Society. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.
Peterson, Peter. Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are
Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux, 2004.
Rifkin, Jeremy. The End of Work, updated edition. New York: Penguin, 2004.
Salamon, Lester M. America's Nonprofit Sector: A Primer. 2nd edition. New York: Foundation
Center, 1999.
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Saunders, Harold H. Politics is About Relationship: A Blueprint for the Citizens’ Century. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Sirianni, Carmen, and Lewis A. Friedland. The Civic Renewal Movement: Community-Building
and Democracy in the United States. Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation Press, 2005.
Smith, David Horton. Grassroots Associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003.
Van Til, Jon. Mapping the Third Sector. New York: Foundation Center, 1988*
Van Til, Jon, Gabor Hegyesi, and Jennifer Eschweiler. “Grassroots Social Movements and the
Shaping of History.” In Ram Cnaan and Carl Milofsky, ed., XXXX, ch. 23, forthcoming.
Warren, Mark E. Democracy and Association. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Young, Dennis R. If Not for Profit, for What? Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1983.
WRITING FOR PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATION
An aim of this course is to assist students in preparing focused essays for professional publication, essays
that take the form of "op-ed" articles and other similar contributions. Such essays have the following
characteristics:
 They are typically brief (1200-1500 words).
 They present one basic idea and elaborate upon it in a focused fashion.
 They are particularly useful in identifying an approach with a particular author.
 In order to write such articles, the first rule is: "Write frequently and often."
Students will prepare two annotated “op-eds”, as follows.
 In your essay, draw on your own experience as an specialist on nonprofit organization. In this essay,
you might want to consider the following:
1) Choose a "hook" to interest the reader in your article: a first sentence that presents an interesting
theme or image.
2) Know what major idea or theme you want to present in the essay, and stay focused on that idea.
3) Develop an approach or perspective or method that is one of your own strengths (it may be a
professional competency) and refer to it in the course of the essay.
4) Bring the essay to a sharp and clear conclusion, usually by returning to the main theme you
announced right at the beginning.
ABOUT JON VAN TIL
JON VAN TIL is Professor of Urban Studies and Community Planning at Rutgers University,
Camden. Among the ten books he has authored or editded are BREACHING DERRY’S
WALLS (2008), GROWING CIVIL SOCIETY (2000), CRITICAL ISSUES IN AMERICAN
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PHILANTHROPY (1990), and MAPPING THE THIRD SECTOR: VOLUNTARISM IN A
CHANGING SOCIAL ECONOMY (1988).
Van Til served as Editor-in-Chief of NONPROFIT AND VOLUNTARY SECTOR
QUARTERLY (formerly the JOURNAL OF VOLUNTARY ACTION RESEARCH) from 1978
through 1992. He was twice elected President of the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars,
and is the founding Board Chair of the Center for Nonprofit Corporations (Trenton). Van Til
recently completed a term as a Trustee of the George H. Gallup International Institute.
In 1994, he received the Career Award for Outstanding Research and Service from the
Association for Research in Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. He has been listed
in Who's Who in America, and has served as Carlson Distinguished Visiting Professor of Social
Science at West Virginia University since 2003. He served as Distinguished Fulbright Scholar
at the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) during the Spring term, 2004, and as Fulbright
Senior Specialist to INCORE (Northern Ireland) in 2005.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Prof. Van Til can be reached by email at: vantil@camden.rutgers.edu
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