Spring 2027

Nonprofit Sector: Overview and Foundations

An introductory course analyzing the environment in which nonprofits operate and assessing its impact at the community and organizational levels.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Michael Maguire3.9/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Michael Maguire

The workload involved significant writing, including large projects and papers with looming deadlines. Some students noted that assignment instructions were vague, making it difficult to know exactly what to write about.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Associate the roles and interrelationships among the three main sectors of the U.S. economy: civil society/NP, private/corporate, and public/government; and link identifying characteristics that are unique to the nonprofit sector

  • Describe the historical development of the nonprofit sector in the United States

  • Engage in the theories of NPO’s contributions to the development of civil society

  • Identify how expectations of nonprofit contributions to collaborations and community-building can affect individual nonprofit organizations

  • Identify trends currently affecting the nonprofit sector in the United States, including (but not limited to) social identity, power, privilege, partisan politics & civil discourse via traditional media and social media, nonprofit industrial complex, neoliberalism

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
CSCS 300 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.33/5 from 15 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 4.3/5 raw quality · 1.8/5 difficulty · 4 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Michael Maguire

Michael Maguire's course involved lots of writing with big projects and papers, but some students found the assignments vague or the material limited, especially in the online format.

Students described Maguire as very kind, accommodating, and grading favorably, though one found the class too easy to learn much and often felt bored.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.87 GPA, 95.5% A/AB (n=67 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.92 GPA, 96.2% A/AB (n=79 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.80 GPA, 91.4% A/AB (n=35 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

MICHAEL MAGUIRE is recorded teaching in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 400

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Michael Maguire

Students found Michael Maguire to be a caring and inspiring professor who graded assignments favorably. The course generally offered a low-stress environment where students could easily achieve good grades.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.87 GPA, 95.5% A/AB (n=67 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.92 GPA, 96.2% A/AB (n=79 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.80 GPA, 91.4% A/AB (n=35 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Michael Maguire

The workload involved significant writing, including large projects and papers with looming deadlines. Some students noted that assignment instructions were vague, making it difficult to know exactly what to write about.

Past student reviews · Michael Maguire

One student found the class too easy and boring, often skipping sessions. Another found the online format frustrating due to limited mandatory sessions and a lack of structured material.

Topics

  • Historical development of the U.S. nonprofit sector
  • Theories of nonprofit contributions to civil society
  • Nonprofit collaborations and community-building impacts

Skills

  • Associating roles and interrelationships among U.S. economic sectors
  • Identifying current trends affecting the nonprofit sector

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
CSCS 300 · Spring 2027

Nonprofit Sector: Overview and Foundations

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261029T213040-0fa85c20",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:247:023310",
    "course_id": "CSCS 300",
    "course_uid": "course_eb487afd54a65b1d4b8e0740",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "023310",
    "source_subject_id": "247",
    "title": "Nonprofit Sector: Overview and Foundations",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-29

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "8fd87d2ebd8eaf6322f5bc2237282434248f0735df2e691465ee1502556be1d0",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00"
}