Who Works for Nonprofit Organizations? (6-8)

Day One: Discuss students' ideas from the anticipatory set.

Have students remain in their groups for the next activity. Introduce or review the following economic terms:

Good—completely manufactured products which are ready for sale and delivery to the marketplace

Service—a facility supplying some public demand or useful labor that does not produce a tangible good

Human Capital—the set of skills which an employee acquires on the job, through training and experience, and which increase that employee's value in the marketplace

Capital Equipment—goods, such as machinery, used in the production of commodities; producer goods

Natural Resource—resources occurring in nature that can be used to create wealth. Examples include oil, coal, water, and land.

Explain that all businesses provide a good, a service, or both and that they are produced with natural resources, human capital, and/or capital equipment. Distribute Nonprofit Organizations and the Economy (see Attachment Four) to each student. Go over the directions. After students have completed the exercise, allow groups to discuss how nonprofit organizations relate to these economic terms as shown in their worksheets. This activity will help prepare students for the guest speakers.

Day Two: Have two or three guest speakers talk to the class about working for a nonprofit organization. You may wish to use Speaker Preparation (see Attachment One) to prepare the speakers. Remind students to complete Information about Nonprofit Opportunities (see Attachment Two) with information from each speaker.

Day Three: After the students have an understanding about the different job opportunities in a nonprofit organization, focus on one nonprofit organization for the following activity, e.g., a museum. Have students brainstorm all the possible jobs the museum provides for community members:

Director: in charge of the museum

Curator: collects and studies all the displays for exhibits

Researcher: the expert, scientist or historian, who helps the curator

Exhibit designer: creates attractive displays

Conservator: cares for the artifacts, maintains air temperature and humidity, repairs damaged artifacts

Preparator: assembles exhibits prepared by the designer

Educator: looks for learning opportunities to develop educational programs for children and adults

Collections manager: keeps track of all museum objects

Public relations officer: promotes the museum

Interpreter or docent: provides tours for the museum

Custodial worker: maintains cleanliness of the facilities

Secretary: manages museum office

Day Four: Explain to the students that nonprofits other than museums have differentjob opportunities.

Allow students to choose a nonprofit job to research or assign a job to each student. (An extensive list of jobs in the nonprofit sector can be found at www.learningtogive.org, Resources Room, Nonprofit Career Information, Careers in the Nonprofit Sector. This can be printed off for students or they can access it on the web if computers are available.)

Hand out Résumé (see Attachment Three) to each student. Assign students to create a fictitious résumé for themselves for the nonprofit job they choose or have been assigned. Students will need to be inventive on some aspects of the résumé, such asprevious work experience.

Students may need to do a little research to answer some of the questions on the résumé. The résumé should be completed with careful thought. Class discussion may help students, “What kind of prior work experience would be helpful for a certain position? What education would be helpful? Are there particular skills that would be needed?”