IU Indianapolis Campus Bulletin 2024-2025

This course examines traditions of giving and receiving charity and philanthropy in the modern era. It takes a comparative approach to giving including different historical contexts and traditions in American history. Among the topics covered will be donor motivations; definitions of need; identity formation; and philanthropy, politics, and social change. Key questions to be considered include: Who counts as a philanthropist? What counts as philanthropy? Why have American people given in the past? How have American people given in the past? What role has philanthropy played in the formation and development of the United States? How can history inform your professional practice in philanthropy?

This course is an introduction to the size, scope, and function of the nonprofit and voluntary sector in the United States.  It provides a broad overview of the historical origins of the U.S. nonprofit and voluntary sector, as well as the religious, political, economic, and social rationales for its existence.  The course also examines how nonprofit organizations interact with the market and state along with their social impact.  The primary goal of this course is to help students become conversant in the critical theories, concepts, issues, research, and terminologies of the field of philanthropic studies in preparation for future courses.

Objectives: 

This course develops students’ ability to: 

This course explores philanthropy and civil society from a global, interdisciplinary perspective. It examines the universality of generosity, cultural influences on giving, and motivations behind generosity behaviors. Students will analyze differences and similarities across civil societies, considering factors like empathy, cultural norms, and legal frameworks. The course also encourages self-reflection on personal beliefs about generosity, comparing them with diverse cultural perspectives to develop a deeper understanding of global philanthropic behaviors.

How can data be harnessed for good? This is a class about how to use analytics to help humanity, engage communities, improve nonprofit impacts, invest grant dollars strategically, and share data ethically and equitably with the producers of this treasured resource: everyday people. Students will hone their data literacy skills by learning about a variety of data forms, understanding their significance for lessening complex social problems, and critically considering their unintended consequences. A key aspect of the course is attention to data visualization and narration: telling compelling stories with data that are designed to improve society and help communities to flourish.

This course starts from the premise that the human activity of philanthropy unavoidably and constantly raises complex and difficult ethical questions. We define philanthropy very broadly not merely as giving, but as all sorts of private, voluntary actions intended to achieve the public good, whether those actions are performed by individuals or organizations. This means the everyday practices of charitable donors (big and small), and of nonprofit or non-governmental organizations (funders and program providers and others), all have ethical implications. Ethics is not just a topic that comes up in extraordinary circumstances, or because “bad” people or groups do bad things. Ethics is implicated in all acts of philanthropy. 

The course provides a graduate-level introduction to the ethical aspects of philanthropy. It will introduce the types of ethical questions in the field, and the various perspectives used to decide those questions through moral reasoning. It will also apply these perspectives and explore in depth several ethical issues and challenges that are at the center of current debates in the field, from the problem of “tainted donors” to how to build ethical culture in nonprofit organizations.

We will cover subjects from the very conceptual to the very practical in this class. We will ask and discuss a lot of questions, but will not answer those questions in a definitive way. This is the nature of many practical ethical dilemmas. The goal for students is not to come to a “final answer” on every topic, but to improve your ability to think carefully and thoroughly about tough questions or controversial topics.

This course explores contemporary approaches to philanthropy and civil society among Muslims, particularly U.S.-based Muslim populations. While Muslims have practiced charitable, humanitarian, and socially benevolent acts that can be described as philanthropy for centuries, their contributions have often been ignored, or worse, marginalized from academic literature outside of Islamic studies.

Muslims draw upon the Qur’an (the holy book of Islam), Sunnah (traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) and local traditions to influence their charitable acts. This course will provide a brief overview of Muslim charitable practices such as waqf (religious endowments), zakah (obligatory giving), and sadaqah (optional religious giving) as examples of Muslim philanthropy. We will then focus on Muslim philanthropy in United States while also examining available global data on Muslim giving in other parts of the world.

Muslim practices of charity and aid are as old as the Islamic tradition itself and follow in the social welfare footsteps of most of the world’s religious cultures. In the contemporary geopolitical moment, the historical structures and institutions of charity, aid, and development have taken on new forms, with many of them have been subsumed by the contemporary nation state and thus come under the auspices of political and social governance practices. Thus, the politicization of aid and development goes to the heart of the transformation of transnational Muslim civil society, compounding the impact of colonial modernity on the global Islamic tradition. Today, the global Muslim humanitarian sector—that broad, decentralized network of Muslim charitable institutions—accounts for billions of dollars, millions of volunteers, and immeasurable levels of social, political, and economic influence. This course provides a thematic survey of the Muslim humanitarian sector, its interdisciplinary and cross-sector study, and its implications for the global policy making and practitioner community. In doing so, it prepares students for advanced study, applied research, and policy advocacy.

Bridging the gap between research and practice is a significant problem in most fields of knowledge. However, in understudied spaces and underdeveloped sectors, this “praxis gap” is typically more pronounced. In the context of humanitarianism, especially that of faith-based organizations, communication between scholarship and practice (or lack thereof) can have both positive and negative consequences.

This capstone is structured as a collaborative applied research project and builds directly upon coursework completed in your Muslim Philanthropy and Muslim Humanitarian courses. It should be thought of as a working environment or internship rather than a traditional course and thus requires regular communication and collaboration with me and your colleagues. Working together, we will translate various aspects of your work to date and interest areas into formats that will be useful for public and/or specialized audiences, demonstrating your thought leadership and relevance to the fields of philanthropy, humanitarianism, and development. In effect, the capstone is designed to resemble the environment of a think tank or public-facing research center. While going through this process, we will also reflectively explore the pedagogical implications of our work through a limited amount of readings and discussion boards.

This course explores three relationships between people’s religious traditions and their philanthropic ideas and activities: 1) how diverse religious traditions have shaped distinctive philanthropic practices, 2) how political, economic, cultural, and social forces have structured religious philanthropy, and 3) how competing visions of good lives and a good society have played out in the give and take of philanthropy for individual donors and communities.  In examining the models of giving and service through a variety of religious traditions, we will analyze how religious narratives, practices, teachings and authorities have shaped people’s generosity and humanitarianism. In studying religious philanthropy in particular contexts, we will explore how religious philanthropy has been influenced by secular states and market economies, transforming religious traditions and communities along the way.  In observing the tensions between the purposes of givers and recipients, we will locate religious philanthropy in the world of social action so as to assess claims about the uniquely selfless, altruistic or civic nature of religious philanthropy.

The course opens with theoretical and comparative discussions of philanthropy in a variety of religious contexts before turning to the development and practice of religious philanthropy in the United States as well as an introductory glance at its intersections with global philanthropy. The primary focus is cultural, sociological, and historical, but students will also explore through research and application how the issues discussed in class affect individuals, institutions, and civil society in contemporary contexts. The course will be conducted in an asynchronous online model with text and online readings, brief online lectures/interviews, student-led group discussion, as well as more in-depth individual student exploration.

While this course focuses on just one slice of the diverse philanthropic and nonprofit sector, that slice is a particularly impactful – and controversial – one. Philanthropic foundations are notably influential actors in any society in which they exist. Through their grantmaking, they provide crucial funding for organizations serving the public good in every corner of the nonprofit landscape, on every issue, and in most every community. Foundations have funded significant advances in health, education, human services, human rights, the environment, and much more. 

Foundations are an increasingly diverse category. Besides the traditional model of a foundation making grants from an established endowment, there are “pass through” foundations that have little to no endowment. While most foundations engage primarily in grantmaking, there are plenty who also serve other roles, including “operating” foundations that primarily run their own programs. There are foundations classified (somewhat loosely at times) as “corporate,” “family,” “independent,” “conversion,” and more. Some foundations are designed to exist in perpetuity, while others are “limited life” and will spend down and cease to exist at some point. Increasingly, foundations are diversifying their activities as well, making loans as well as giving grants, investing their endowments in ways that serve their mission, and much more.

Because they hold so much power, and are often closely tied to and governed by wealthy elites, foundations are the target of sustained and sharp critique. They are called out for being unaccountable and undemocratic, for being risk-averse, for supporting the status quo and/or funding only issues that elites care about, and more. 

In the course, we will not take a side in the debate over foundations, but rather explore deeply that debate itself. We will identify the roles that foundations play and what might give them social or moral legitimacy, but we will consider the critiques and potential pitfalls as well. Turning more practical, the course will introduce you to the grantmaking process and the work involved in various stages, as well as discuss the ethical challenges in the grantmaking profession. Finally, we will examine some trends and innovations currently changing the foundation sector.

This course will mostly focus on foundations and grantmaking in the context of the U.S., as this is where foundations were pioneered and are still most fully developed. It is also the context for most of the research and other writing about foundations and grantmaking. But when possible, we will consider foundations in other places.

This course provides you with an opportunity to improve your writing, presentation, and critical/conceptual analysis skills – skills that will be helpful to you not only in your work in the nonprofit sector, but in all future coursework in this field.

This course covers fundraising principles using Achieving Excellence in Fundraising (5th edition) and The Fundraising Reader. It blends theory and practice through expert insights, nonprofit partnerships, and donor analysis. Assignments challenge students to apply best practices, while guest speakers and online resources enhance learning. Emphasizing fundraising’s importance for all nonprofit roles, the course equips students with evidence-based skills to secure support and advance organizational missions effectively.

This course will develop students’ understanding of the motivations and behaviors of high-net-worth individuals, and their ability to plan effective strategies for donor identification, cultivation/engagement, solicitation, and stewardship in support of major and planned gifts. Special attention will be paid to the role of leadership in major and planned gift fundraising as well as ethical standards of practice.

This course examines various types of institutional donors (corporations, foundations, federated organizations, etc.) and the design and implementation of effective fundraising strategies to engage them. Revenue generation from alternative sources of income (i.e., venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship) will also be explored to enhance students’ understanding of the changing dynamics of the fundraising landscape.

Completing a major independent research project is challenging for one’s intellect and organizational skills and is the final requirement for earning the PHILD degree to claim the expertise it represents. The major objective of this course is to provide students with time and space to work directly on their Applied Research Projects (ARPs) and to finalize their plans for structuring their third year of independent research. This course will have three major components: 1) Substantial work on the ARP based on goals identified by students; 2) Revision and finalization of an ARP Work Plan; 3) Reflection on how they have grown through participation in the PHILD program.