Class #7
During this class we completed three major tasks; working on our mock nonprofits, discussing what kind of leaders everybody is, and our service project. The 4 photos above depict the 4 different mock nonprofit groups. Last week was more of a brainstorming/preliminary ideas discussion. This week we got a lot more in depth as we began to work on Logic Models. These logic models contain information pertaining to the nonprofits mission, theory of change, customers, desired outcomes, and much more. Working on and completing this sheet will lead us to a better understanding of what we want to do with these nonprofits, and will hopefully help raise questions that would need to be answered before the organization started asking for funding.
For the second part of class, we did an exercise exploring what types of leaders we were, and the qualities of being a certain type of leader mean. There were 4 types of leaders, ranging from autocratic to democratic, bossy to friendly, and somewhere in between. It was a pretty even mix of the 4 different types of leaders. There was obviously no wrong choice, and we discussed what it meant to be each type of leader, and what the pros and cons of each type might be, and how it might affect productivity in a work environment. This was a great exercise for the class for two reasons. The first is that we each learned a little about ourselves and about our classmates. Talking in groups with the people who were the same leadership type, led to a realization that we were very similar in more ways than we expected. The second reason it was important to do for the class is because of our service project. We will be performing a community service project soon and leaders will emerge throughout the planning and performing of this project. Learning what types of leaders we have in the class will help us better understand how to work well together, allowing everyone to have their input and ideas heard, without causing much if any friction.
We spent the last part of class discussing what we want the service project to be, who we want to help, and other logistical concerns. We have made it obvious that we want to make an impact, and that we believe the best impact does not come from charity, but from empowerment, and other, more complex types of philanthropy. We don’t want to just give them fish, we want to teach them to fish. We want to give them skills or ideas that will stick with them, and help them be better people moving forward. We have a lot of ideas whether its helping the homeless or going to the local Boys and Girls Club, so this decision will need to be made in the coming weeks.
