Introduction & Weeks 1 & 2 Readings

This blog will see me through the next term of college and more specifically through my readings and learnings from the PPPM 280 Intro to the Non-Profit Sector course at the University of Oregon. I'll be reacting, questioning and ranting about the assigned readings as well as discussions that occur in class. I hope this blog will serve me as well as others with a more detailed review of the PPPM 280 course and what one may take from their experience in the class. In addition, I hope this blog will help me understand where I can use my prior and future experience in the non-profit sector or other career paths. Though I am young, I have had a solid decade, though the last five years have been most rewarding, of experience in the non-profit sector mainly with the American Cancer Society. I have most of my experience in fundraising and event planning and I hope this course will broaden my horizons and open windows and some doors for me to get involved in other aspects of the sector. I'm hoping that I will learn how to better use my skills and passion for non-profit work to their full potential.

O'Neil's approach to the description of the not for profit sector helps to bring into focus the enormity of the sector in the United States. The growth that the sector has seen in the U.S. of the past two decades or so is extreme. The history of the non-profit sector outlined in chapter two was interesting to me. I had never thought about the cause in society that had brought about non-profit organizations and services. It makes total since that when a community increases in population there becomes a need to help the lower class. O'Neil's explanation from the anthropological perspective that voluntary services were in response to needs that existed outside the family and government structure is intriguing. People need to connect with others outside of their family and they have needs that the government cannot fulfill and therefore they search for help outside those structures.

As a former political science major I found the political science section of chapter two particularly interesting. Though non-profit organizations can and have been very beneficial in the realm of politics, I think it is important that some or most not choose sides nor affiliate themselves with only one political party. My work with the American Cancer Society (ACS) Cancer Action Network (CAN), lobbying for federal funding for cancer research this past September was extremely beneficial as an introduction to the world of politics in the U.S. I was directly involved in asking for my representative's and senator's support in passing a bill that would give cancer researchers $13 billion dollars to use to hopefully find a cure. One of the most interesting things about this process with ACS CAN was that we were not affiliating ourselves with any political party yet we were successful in getting support from almost seventy percent of the representatives and senators on capitol hill that day.

Douglas makes a point by theorizing that one of the main reasons why people form and join non-profit organizations is the "freedom from bureaucratic constraint"; the effectiveness of non-profits in many areas is directly to the lack of government power over them. (O'Neil, 47) I did however find Tocqueville's research and descriptions of the non-profit sector in America very interesting and accurate. Tocqueville described the simple yet effective way in which non-profit organizations are run as the ideal picture of democracy itself. People see a cause that they care about and they take action in any way possible to aid that cause. I also agree with Tocqueville's perspective that these non-profit organizations and associations are the perfect training ground for "effective participation in democracy." (O'Neil, 45)