URBN 340 Nonprofits in the City: Health, Community, and the Voluntary Spirit

Nonprofits have always performed an important role in the production and maintenance of healthy cities. From early settlement houses, soup kitchens, garden clubs and dispensaries to present day community development organizations, charter schools, hospitals and afterschool programs, nonprofits provide much of the social, political, and economic infrastructure that allow urban residents to live healthy and productive lives. This course utilizes a political-economic perspective to examine the history of urban nonprofits in the United States. It explores the legal frameworks and financing that allow nonprofits to serve the community as well as the wide variety of services nonprofits provide. It concludes with an assessment of the nonprofit environment in Memphis