SIL 503 Technology for Social Good

For partner organizations

SIL 503, Technology for Social Good, is a course in the University of Michigan School of Social Work’s Social Impact Leadership program. It meets Wednesdays, 9:00 to 12:00, from September 2 through December 9, 2026. A group of four or five graduate students partners with your organization for the semester and works on a technology question your organization actually has.

Deliverables to your organization

Your organization receives two things. The first is a short video, three to five minutes, built for one purpose that you and the students agree on together at an intake conversation completed by mid-October: a program explainer, an impact or testimonial story, a volunteer or donor recruitment piece, a client how-to, or an event or campaign recap. Before the piece is finished, anyone it features watches the cut and can ask for changes or withdraw consent, and your organization reviews the cut before anything carries its name. The finished videos screen in class on December 9, and afterward the pieces your organization and any featured individuals consent to share are delivered to you as usable files.

The second is a written technology implementation plan. The students run a needs assessment on your organization, using a formal self-assessment instrument plus stakeholder interviews, then recommend a course of action, which can include recommending against adopting new technology. They pitch that recommendation live to your organization’s leadership on December 9, and after taking your feedback, they deliver a revised, final written plan to your organization during finals week. That final plan is the course’s reciprocity commitment to your organization.

Time commitment

What we ask stays concentrated at a few points in the semester:

  • A brief email introduction from your student group in late September, when groups and partners are matched
  • An intake conversation by mid-October to agree on the video’s purpose and the shape of the technology question the students will investigate
  • Availability for two to three stakeholder interviews with your staff, late October through November
  • Attendance at the December 9 presentation, in person or by Zoom
  • A short review pass on the video cut before it is finished

Supervision and data handling

The course instructor supervises every group and grades all of the work; your organization’s role is to share context, sit for interviews, and react to what the students produce. Partners do not assign a grade. The stakeholder interviews follow a consent script, and notes about your staff and clients use roles instead of names. This is a course project without a university institutional review board’s review, and anyone you designate can decline any question. Real, identifiable people are never given a synthetic AI depiction in the video, and if AI-generated images or audio appear anywhere in the piece, they are labeled inside the piece itself.

Getting involved

If you would like to bring a technology question to a future semester of SIL 503, email Nari Yoo at nariyoo@umich.edu, University of Michigan School of Social Work.