Course Syllabus

SPEA-V434 and N534 NGO Management for International Development 

Meeting Times and Location

Monday and Wednesday at 11:10 to 12:25 in SPEA room 273

Course Description from Bulletin

Coursework prepares students for employment in international development. It covers a range of theoretical material and practical skills, answering questions like: What role do NGOs play in developing countries? How do we define and measure NGO success or failure? How do NGOs fund raise, plan, evaluate and collaborate on programs?

Broader Course Description

What role do non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play in the process of international development? How do NGOs work? Under what conditions are they successful, and how do we define and measure this success? What hampers NGOs from achieving their goals, and what can be done to prepare or react to these factors? How do NGOs get their money, and what do they spend it on? How does one get a job in development?

This course is designed to help students work on answering these questions and the management issues embedded in them. It is both an upper division undergraduate and a MPA course designed to introduce students to the theory and practice of NGO management for international development.

The course begins with a broad look at theories of international development and how our understanding of the process of development has changed over time. We’ll look at the role of the state, market and NGOs in the development process. We’ll discuss the rise of NGOs as major actors in development.

We’ll next dive into the environments in which NGOs work, first considering the political and cultural context in which NGOs work, ethical issues related to context, and managerial decision-making strategies related to them. We’ll also probe the factors that contribute to or allow us to measure success and failure in NGO programs, all the while problematizing what “success” means. From there we’ll assess fundraising, human resources, and getting your foot in the development door.

Some of the course will intentionally delve into theoretical issues of development. While you may be at the O’Neill School for a “practical education,” there are skills to be gained from reading, understanding and evaluating complex ideas. Development work is not easy – and failure is common – so these skills are the most crucial you can get at SPEA. This said, there will also be considerable applied work in the course. 

Since NGOs work on topics ranging the gambit from refugee or disaster relief to democracy promotion to water and sanitation to electricity generation to microfinance; work in nearly every country in the world; and house on-the-ground program administrators, logisticians, back-office program managers, executive directors, fundraisers, accountants, researchers, evaluators, doctors, nurses, and engineers (among others), it is impossible to cover any substantive issue in great detail in a single semester. The course therefore aims to cover the general development management issues and big-picture questions you are likely to encounter, giving space in many assignments for application to the topic of your choice.

Additionally, I have carefully selected class materials that present a variety of topics and arguments from a range of perspectives. It is likely that connections between our course and current and/or historical events outside the classroom will come up in in class. Those connections may require careful thought rather than being immediately obvious, but the ability to understand and analyze connections among ideas and events is a core skill in professional career and will stand you in good stead in your life beyond IU.

Course Goals and Learning Objectives

Course Goals

  1. Students will be able to explain and apply factors that must be present in for NGO programs to be successful.
  2. Student will also be able to identify potential challenges (both inside the organization, and with regard to its political, economic and social context) of operating an NGO program, as well as devising potential solutions.

Learning Objectives

Students will...

  1. Have a realistic understanding of what development work entails.
  2. Be able to apply theories of development to real-world situations.
  3. Articulate challenges of working in lower income countries, including political, economic, cultural, social, environmental, organizational, human resource and other challenges.
  4. Articulate reasons why many development programs in general, and those of many NGOs in particular, have been unsuccessful.
  5. Design a program evaluation. This could include the use of log-frames, experiments, alternative M&E tools, etc.
  6. Identify mechanisms for funding NGOs, both international and small, local organizations
  7. Articulate why political feasibility assessments are necessary, and explain how one might be done for a particular project/conduct a desk-based PFA.
  8. Work on skills that are generally practical:
    1. Writing succinctly
    2. Working with others
    3. Reasoned decision-making
    4. Articulating logic paths
    5. Time management (in sometimes stressful conditions)

There are no required textbooks for this course.