Tweet of the Week Donation

With the donation from winning my second tweet of the week contest, I donated the money to Because International, the non-profit that manufactures/donates the Shoe that Grows. Fortunately for the organization (but unfortunately for me), they have had a lot of positive publicity recently and are currently sold out of their shoes in adults sizes (they make a small amount of the shoes they produce available for sale, while most pairs are donated). Though I was not able to secure a pair of shoes to show the class, I did donate all of the donation to the organization.

In addition, I also received my thank you letter for my earlier donation to the Rescue Mission. It had been sent to my home address instead of to Binghamton!

Tweet of the Week Donation - Week 2

Hey Guys!
Much like Bethany, I pushed off donating my tweet of the week winnings but for a different reason.  Around the time that I was awarded the money to donate to any organization of my choosing, the high school of one of my closest friends experienced a tragic loss:  Senior Sean Urda lost his life in a snow tubing accident after crashing head first into a pole.  The students from Elwood - John H. Glenn High School went through the various stages of grief and emotion that accompany the loss of a peer, but they also teamed up with the family to do something amazing.  Alas, the Sean Urda Memorial Soccer Foundation was born.  Below is the information from the donation page describing the situation and purpose of the scholarship fund:

"On January 26th in his High School Senior year, Sean Urda tragically lost his life in a Snow Tubing accident.  The greatest passions in his life were his family, his friends and soccer- which he looked forward to continuing at college.  To honor his memory and to create a legacy with these passions in mind, we are establishing this scholarship fund.  Each year, at least one deserving High School Senior who shows a passion for their family, their friends and soccer will be awarded a scholarship from this fund in memory of Sean."   http://www.gofundme.com/l01mz8

Throughout this entire course I have been passionate about the internal battle between heart and head and how this affects positive giving.   The decision to give to this scholarship fund is heavily driven by heart, and I therefore wanted to wait a little bit to ensure that this decision to give wasn't impulsive.  Checking the GoFundMe page today, they have raised over 4x their desired goal.  For a school where the graduating class is around 250 students, a small community came together with the goal of healing and growing as a community.  Through this class I have grown to appreciate organizations of all sizes and from all backgrounds, but sometimes the most meaningful giving for me is helping the individual and community that you call home.

You are a Philanthropist

“I am a philanthropist”. The first line of the first video we were assigned to watch for this class.  Remember this: four months ago, we entered Room 260 as a group of strangers. We introduced ourselves by name and year and explained why we were taking the class. For some it was a Scholars requirement, for others a PPL course, for others just a way to fill a gen ed. I would like to use this blog post to recognize how far we’ve come and what we’ve truly achieved.

On the first day of class, I explained that I was involved in theatre and hoped to approach philanthropy through that lens. I then proceeded to not do that at all this semester. Instead, I opened my mind to a whole new realm of possibilities. I soaked in everything that every one of you said and know that I’ve become a more informed and fulfilled person for it. I hope that you can all say the same.  We are philanthropists through our growth, improvement, and open-mindedness.

During our class today, as we deliberated how to finally divide our $10,000, I was struck by the power and integrity in the room. Some of the thoughts shared include: “Expansion is critical”, “Can our money have a better direct impact on other organizations?”, “This request has a sense of urgency to it” and “They gave us numbers for a reason”. These are questions and ideas we would not and could not have articulated back in January. This class has provided us with a new set of vocabulary and skills that most people our age don’t have, and that many people probably never will have. We are philanthropists through our understanding.

Some of us have expressed disappointment with our finalists; others have argued that we couldn’t have gone wrong in our decision-making. Many highly impressive and very deserving nonprofits applied for our grant, so did picking the “right” three really matter? I wholeheartedly answer yes to this question. Picking mattered, less because of our outcome, and more because of the remarkable process we struggled through together. We are philanthropists through our experience.

Once our decision was made, one class member mused “Maybe the heart won over the head for me a little bit” and many of us nodded in agreement. Will the heart always overpower the head, and if so did we waste our time debating between emotion and reason for so many weeks? I don’t think so. Heart alone would not have supported our process. Our hearts gave us passion. Our heads gave us values, criteria, and insight into the difference we could make with $10,000. Our reoccurring debate of Heart vs. Head perfectly sums up this class experience: we all came in with a lot of heart, but the heads we cultivated this semester led us to our final outcome. We are philanthropists through our hearts, heads, and the balance found between them.

Whether we gave money to your favorite organization or not, we should all be proud of what we have accomplished this semester. We have transformed from 25 strangers to 25 collaborative, understanding, and enlightened students. Please take a moment to consider how much you have changed personally and academically since our first day together in January. I would love to hear if any of you have specific memories from class that have defined this process for you, or rather that have helped this process to define you. Congratulations to everyone and thank you for this experience! We can now each say with pride and honesty “I am a philanthropist”. 

Fundraising and Our Class

Hi everybody,

As our class comes to a close, I’ve found it really interesting to both reflect on my own feelings about the course, and also on what we as a group seem to find important. What I noticed during our evaluations of our finalists was that we were pretty interested in how they went about their fundraising. I thought that was particularly thought-provoking, especially since we never really went into an in-depth discussion of fundraising in our class, or participated in any fundraising ourselves (I know we touched on the subject here or there, with minor questions about efficiency or ethics, but I don’t think we ever devoted a full class block to it).

What I want to discuss is how fundraising could have factored into our class model. Our grant was given to us, and while the $10,000 is an amazing gift, I wonder if our experience in the class would be different if we were the ones who had been in charge of raising the money we would give away. I’ve posted a link to this article in a comment a while ago, and I think it’s important to mention here, too. In the class that the article focuses on, the students are both responsible for giving away money to charities, as well as raising the money for future classes to use. I think that this gives them important insight into the kind of fundraising processes that many charitable organizations must go through, but also gives them a deeper connection to the money that they are giving away. Furthermore, they leave the class with the added experience of fundraising that they can use in their future philanthropic actions. I’m not saying we haven’t been passionate about our own decision thus far, but I wonder if our feelings would be different if we had worked for the money we were distributing, instead of just receiving it as a grant. Obviously, raising such a substantial amount of money would take a lot of time, just like it does in the class mentioned in the article, and is something we probably couldn’t accomplish in the short semester that we’ve had together. Maybe we could adopt a similar timeline as that class, and maybe make the course span two semesters, with one focusing on fundraising and planning and the other zoning in on a decision.

A lot of the recent blog posts have been discussing what our class would have been like if it was carried out differently, so what do you guys think? Is studying fundraising a truly crucial part of the decision making process? If we were asked to raise our own donation money, do you think it would be a good learning tool or group builder?

I’m looking forward to your responses, and I thank you all for a really great semester. I’ll miss our class discussions and debates, and I wish you all luck in any philanthropic experiences you have in the future! 

DENTAL SURGERY

OK, so here we go….. I can hear the high-speed drills, smell the scent of burning enamel, and I’m bracing for pain…..

While it would not be difficult to point out all of the good that each of the finalist organizations does in this community, it is important for me to point out some concerns that I have.  For the purpose of this blog I am going to focus on Rescue Mission, the organization that I am most familiar with.

Please allow me to begin with this:  EVERY organization that I have reviewed does something positive, something good and helps improve the overall landscape of the community in some way.  In other words, every NPO that we have considered (or are considering) strives to accomplish something good.

It is very easy to go into even the best run company, institution or organization and find something to criticize.  Until one walks in the shoes of the people, working day to day to fulfill the mission of that organization, it is nearly impossible to have a comprehensive understanding of all of the how’s and why’s of that group. 

With that being said, I am certain that the Rescue Mission performs a valuable function in this area.  I know they do, as I spoke with several of their “clients” and staff, all of whom confirmed their good works.

It does concerns me that all we focused on is their “retail operations” and very little on their overall outcome.  Why did it take eight years to open Whitney Place, when by their own admission the Binghamton Thrifty Store generated two million dollars in their first year?  Did Whitney Place really cost Sixteen Million Dollars ($16,000,000.00) to open?  Why does it cost three million dollars per year to run Whitney Place when they claim to serve between 9 and 16 men annually?  That equates to between $180,000 – $300,000 per person, per year.  If ending homelessness and hunger is their stated mission doesn’t that seem inefficient?  Why not just give 16 people One Hundred Thousand Dollars per year and run the program at half its current cost.

The Rescue Mission can tell me to the minute, square foot, bin, pound, week, day, month and year how much the Thrifty Stores generate from used clothing and merchandise and yet they can tell me little to nothing about their outcome results (on the “Mission” side).   9 out of 10 people employed by Rescue Mission work at or on behalf of the Thrifty Store not the program side of the “mission”.

We learned earlier in this semester that NPO’s are limited (legally) to their stated mission purpose and do not have lawful authority to co-mingle those functions (even though many do).  The Catholic Church is a religious organization.  They operate churches.  The Catholic Church runs schools – education organizations recognized by the same 501(c)(3) and they also operate social service agencies (Catholic Charities).  It would be unlawful for the church to operate schools and social service agencies under the same umbrella, even though they are all non-profit.  For this purpose – conforming to the statement of purpose, the Catholic Church has a NPO that is the Roman Catholic Church, The Catholic School’s of whatever diocese, and Catholic Charities.  Three separate organizations.  To conform to the law, even though all of these entities are educational, charitable or religious groups, the stated purpose of each of them are different and therefore they must be separate entities.

Likewise, I believe that the primary “mission” of the Rescue Mission is it’s retail operations as that is where the vast majority of their resources are spent.  It’s concerning that they know so much about retail and so little about the outcome of their stated mission.

I really don’t want to upset anyone.  I realize that my method and manner of delivery has not been well received and I feel very badly that I have hurt the feelings of others.  Please accept my apology, if you felt injured by my words, as that was certainly not my intent.

The Novocain is about to wear-off so I’m going to go……  Have a happy and safe summer!

Kyle Washington

As we are winding down the semester we have learned so much about Philanthropy and Civil Society.  My last blog post was about how difficult gridlock can be in a class that is all about decision making.  This poses a threat to the effectiveness of our classes decision making on the overall donation process.  Looking back at all of my groups/group presentations I feel that we didn't have much gridlock overall.  While we were recently presenting we all seemed to agree on a majority of the 3 organizations we proposed.  I find this extremely interesting because a majority of us (including myself) illustrated doubts on how effective our decision making would be (due to differences in ideology).

1. Do you as a class believe it went fairly smooth and efficiently (so far)?

2.  If so, why do you think we hurdled a majority of the gridlock?

One of the most critical attributes we can use is the technique of active listening.  In other words, listening to the person until they are finished speaking.  Do not interrupt, and ask questions in a polite manner.  I noticed a majority of the class using this which is why I think we hurdled most of the gridlock.  I also think we all genuinely believe that these last 3-4 organizations would be great non-profits to chose as finalists.  In a way, we chose great finalists so no matter what... the money is going to a great foundation.

Please comment and tell me what you think!

Best,

Pat LaBuff

Tweet of the Week Donation (Finally)

Sorry for the double post, but I just wanted to talk about my tweet of the week donation!  I know it's been a little bit of time since I won (read: the first week of the semester), but I finally decided and finally made my donation.  I'm a very indecisive person in general, but I had a particularly difficult time making this decision.  I kept going back and forth about whether I wanted to make a local donation, what kind of organization I wanted to donate to, and what charity would put my small amount of money to good use.  Given the millions of non-profit organizations in the world and no real criteria to narrow it down, I was going back and forth between quite a few different charities that I liked.  Even though it was technically my money to donate, I did feel like I owed it to the class to choose something that everyone (or nearly everyone) would have supported.  Since the money for my donation came directly from you guys and Dr. Campbell, I really wanted to make a good choice.

After a lot of deliberation on my part, I decided to give my $100 back to the organization that I tweeted about, The Harry Potter Alliance.  I spoke about the organization a little bit in class, but they work for human rights, equality, and literacy all over the world.  Their mission is very general because they want to be able to do as much as they possibly can and they want to be able to help wherever there is immediate need.  They have succeeded in making all chocolate with the Harry Potter name fair trade, have raised money to donate to Haiti, have collected hundreds of thousands of books for underprivileged children during their Accio Books campaign, have brought thousands of people together in the fight for net neutrality, and have formed over 275 chapters that do work in local communities.  The organization is a GuideStar Exchange Gold Participant, meaning they are committed to transparency and communication with their donors and communities.  JK Rowling has spoken very highly of the organization, saying "I am honoured and humbled that Harry's name has been given to such an extraordinary campaign, which really does exemplify the values for which Dumbledore's Army fought in the books."

I really love this charity and all the different programs and initiatives they support.  I'm very happy and proud to be able to support them through this class and I hope everyone (Harry Potter fan or not) takes a minute to check them out at http://thehpalliance.org.  Thanks to everyone who voted for and nominated my tweet, and I apologize for being so indecisive about where I wanted to donate!

Some STAT Clarification

Hi everyone!  Based on the discussion we had in class today, I just want to make sure everyone is clear on a couple facts about Southern Tier Alternative Therapies.

First, the Strides Program (that's the program that uses the speech producing technology we would be funding) is only a small portion of STAT.  Much like Thrifty Shopper is a specific program within the Rescue Mission and the preschool is a smaller portion of Mom's House, Strides is a program that is encompassed by STAT.  They have several other programs in addition to Strides and I encourage everyone to take a quick look at http://www.statinc.org/Programs.html for an overview of all the programs STAT currently offers.  I think we've all been using the terms Strides and STAT interchangeably and I apologize for not clarifying this earlier.

Next, I want to clarify the point about only eight children being enrolled.  As I said in class today, eight to twelve children are enrolled at a time in the 8-week Strides Program and everyone on the waitlist gets into the program eventually (it's a matter of when rather than if).  Many more children work one-on-one with the horses and speech pathologist and in the other programs STAT has listed on the website.  A direct quote from their application (which is also restated on their website) reads: "We started in 2007 providing 12 families with 20 weeks each of program.  Today, we provide no cost services and proprietary programs to 200+ families each year."  They are based in Binghamton, but their programs span a "12-county region" and they serve individuals with "Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Muscular Dystrophy, visual impairments, cognitive and physical challenges, learning disabilities, hearing impairments, traumatic brain injuries, emotional disabilities, PTSD, paralysis, Multiple Sclerosis, sensory integration issues, ADHD, various developmental disabilities, emotional or physical trauma, and others."  Their Strides Program does target children, but they are more than willing to help teenagers and adults in other capacities.

Finally, I wanted to mention that the funding cuts they experienced came from their major funder simply because the United Way had less money to distribute to Broome and Tioga Counties for 2014-2015.  They are still receiving funds from the Hidy Ochiai Foundation, from their sponsored golf tournaments, and from their smaller fundraisers.  Based on the numbers given on their application, STAT itself has other funding sources, but I only saw the budget for the Strides Program specifically.

If there are any further questions or clarifications needed, please don't hesitate to ask.  I felt like there was quite a bit of confusion when discussing pros and cons in class today, and I think this should help clear some of that up.  I encourage everyone to take a look at the websites (and even the applications) for all of our finalists before Tuesday so that we can eliminate any lasting confusion and make the best decisions possible.  Have a nice weekend!

A Tangent Regarding Intent and Result with OLPC and Pornhub

        As we close in on the end of the course and prepare to vote, I'd like to make a change of pace with my post this week: Revisiting a topic we discussed earlier in the semester: The importance, or lack of importance, of intent.

        One of the first videos we discussed in class was a segment from The Daily Show where Samantha Bee shed light upon the hypocrisy of an oil company painting fracking drill-bits pink and donating 100 thousand dollars to the Susan G. Komen foundation. At the conclusion of our debates, we had never reached a unifying consensus on the issue. A large number of us argued that money is money and the company's ulterior motives weigh little into the fact that a donation was being made. The rest held that philanthropy is more than just giving out handouts, a donors intention is just as if not more important.

        3 years ago, the pornographic video site, Pornhub, underwent a several philanthropic campaigns. The company intended to raise breast cancer awareness by offering free breast exams and donating money for every view on specific categories of films. At the end of their month of campaigning, their videos had ammassed over 74 million views. However, when the organization offered their donation to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, it was rejected. In response, the website tripled the donation and split the money amongst several other charities. Did the Susan G. Komen Foundation make the right decision? If the foundation's mission was to raise awareness for breast cancer and work towards a cure, how does millions of views and thousands of dollars not work towards that goal? Does Pornhub's subjectively moral questionability matter at all? Does it matter that Pornhub gained a lot of positive press and attention as well as visits to their website?

        In a past tweet, I mentioned how the One Laptop per Child Foundation worked to bring technology to impoverished children to empower self education and learning augmented by the power of connectivity, and computing. Their most famous initiative was dubbed "Give One Get One". G1G1 allowed people to obtain one of their laptops by buying two machines: One for the purchaser, and one that would be sent to a child in a developing nation. The program was widely lauded and successful, or so it seemed at first. After years of the program, investigators uncovered an uncomfortable truth. A large portion of the computers sent abroad were popping up on grey markets like ebay. The recipients of the laptops, or their parents, held their monetary value over their educational one and were selling them online. OLPC had a mission of improving education in third world countries by utilizing the power of technology, but instead, their efforts fell through: The G1G1 program ended soon after.

        These contrasting examples of philanthropy are intended to make you question the importance of intent again. Would you rather give to an organization with good motives and lackluster results, or would you give to one with questionable or more ambiguous motives but concrete numbers to show their effectiveness? Are donors to G1G1 at fault for failing to foresee the program's side effects? Do your current thoughts regarding the "Pink Fracking" video match with your original impressions?

        I hope that this tangent from the normal blog posts is a nice departure to what may sometimes feel like more of a fight for one's opinions as opposed to being about philanthropy itself. No matter what our final decision is, I don't think anyone can say they haven't left with a new understanding of the entire concept of giving and we should remember that more than our vote.

Expectations vs Reality: What have we really learned?

As this process is coming to a close, I'm am left wondering what I truly learned from this process and the class as a whole. Did we learn to become generous, caring people? Did we learn to focus that generosity to make effective change? How did we learn this?

When deciding if a class or lesson was meaningful, I try to deduce whether the class taught me facts and information or if it changed my perspective. Obviously, this class was able to do both very effectively. We all know a bit better how to filter through unworthy organizations to find those that deserve our philanthropy. In addition, the first half of the class was able to change our mindset(s) on the very definition of philanthropy and everything it entails. My issue is about how to merge those very important lessons into this current process; has the group aspect of the process whitewashed all the personal changes we've experienced?

For the first half of this class, I had started to question many of my values and their respective importances. "Why do I stand by this value?" "How does this value align with my core self?" "Why does this value even matter?" I also kept asking myself what the point of all of this was. Why did any of it even matter to my life? There were so many personal dilemmas that I couldn't solve at that time. By now, I had expected to find myself closer to some resolutions of those introspective questions. I must say that I had completely forgot about those vital questions until I started writing this very blog post. I question what the presupposed goals of this process were and what actually will come of them.

I anticipated that the point of the process was to become more firm in our values in order to defend our choices. We were taught how to better communicate our values, but I don't feel that has been needed. In theory, it seems that it should have been necessary, and maybe it was for some, but I feel it has not been an important factor. After all, values are completely personal and subjective, and there's no way to logically deduce that your values are better than all others. Then I ask: Why emphasize the importance of personal values if this entire process is about compromising and forfeiting values? At this point there seems to be a dichotomy between group giving and personal giving.

With group giving, values become arbitrary by the very nature of collective decision making. There are two scenarios: 1) Everyone has the same exact values, which leads to the ability to make a decision based solely logistical choices or 2) People disagree on values and make compromises to find a middle ground. It still seems like personal values in choice 2 are still important, but I'd argue that core values are heavily tied to one another, which are then tied to the individual's mindset as a whole. The collective "mindset" becomes unique from the mindsets of each individual. At that point I'd say that everyone's values are compromised in some way, which leads to no one feeling attached to the filtered choices. The best course of action should then become to just find the most logical decision. In either case of 1 or 2, the decision becomes based on logic, but with choice 2, the emotional aspect becomes moot.

To bring it back to this process, I don't think there's a single person who is entirely satisfied with the outcome so far. No one's personal values dictate that these were the best choices, so no person feels emotionally attached to whatever decision will be made. Well then I'll ask: Why didn't we just choose from the start the organizations that have the objectively biggest impact using facts and data? What was the point of using values and emotions to filter out organizations when none of us are emotionally satisfied with the outcome? Can you say that this process has made you more confident in your values, or would you say that this process has taught you to become detached from your values?

A Reflection

Hello everyone!

So I'm going to be honest; I'm really not sure what to write about this week. Sure, I could spew a bunch of facts about Family Planning to you guys but, truthfully, I'm tired. I've come to the realization that fighting for what you believe in can be quite draining sometimes; I don't feel defeated but I do feel a bit deflated, if that makes any sense. To clarify, I do have a strong connection with Family Planning: through my research I see a need in the Broome County community for what they are trying to accomplish and I believe both in women's rights and the importance of access to certain reproductive health care services for everyone, regardless of income. However, I do believe there is a difference between a connection to a charity's mission and an emotional connection to the charity itself. I don't believe that I have super strong emotional ties to Family Planning, and if it seems that way, I feel the need to apologize for that. I would hope that we could all separate our emotions from our task at hand, which is to provide up to 3 of 5, all equally deserving, non-profits with a reasonably sized grant. I'm normally very quiet in class, but I decided to out-rightly support Family Planning because I believe in its mission and what it is doing for the community, but that does absolutely not mean that I don't support other charities and want them to "lose".

I feel a little bit confined to what group I was placed in and it honestly sucks that I couldn't go do site visits for each charity, but that was just not feasible with the time-frame we were given, transportation issues, and with scheduling, as I'm sure everyone else would agree. Last Thursday we were asked to discuss what we feel we can all do to learn more about the finalists and do so in a way that isn't super combative or too personal. One of my suggestions was that everyone should strive to do their own research, outside of class, on each of the finalists instead of expecting or waiting for all of the information to come from the representative group. Yes, each group supports a specific charity and is in charge of relaying their site visit experience, but for this week, as we narrow down our 5 to a 1, 2, and/or 3, we should also try to answer our own questions and share that information with each other; we should help one another be as informed as we all can possibly be so that our final decision is effective and ultimately a joint decision. I know it is completely impossible for everyone to be totally satisfied with the outcome, but maybe if we all put in the effort together, we'll at least make wise choices. I know that I'm still continuing to do as much research as I can, not just on Family Planning, but on all of the charities so that I can definitively support who should be our final non-profits; I hope everyone in class will join me.

After reflecting on my own experience so far, my questions to all of you are: how is everybody feeling with this process? What do you find to be the hardest part of making such a big decision in a very specific time-frame?And finally, what are some questions you still have about a certain charity? Maybe we can all help each other clarify and learn in the comments or at least see what our classmates are thinking about and hopefully address them in class.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you all have a great week!

Public Relations and its connection to philanthropy

For my blog post this week, I am choosing to discuss a topic I find of great importance for both our class and for my future career. I have talked quite a bit in class about how excited I am to be pursuing a career in Public Relations. Therefore, I thought I would try to find some connections between philanthropy and Public Relations and how they interconnect, both in positive and negative ways.

Let's start with the positive aspect of how these two important ideas feed off of one another. Good Public Relations strategies help a non-profit/philanthropic cause shine. Think for a moment about our top 5 contenders that we as a class selected. How did each organization convince us that their causes are the most worthy out of the 50+ options we were allowed to choose from? One might argue that we had our individual biases about which organizations we wanted to choose, however, I am going to argue that the groups we chose all had a convincing story to tell. This is esentially what PR is there for: telling a story, making people believe that your cause, event, candidate, etc. should be on your radar of importance. 

The other side of this interconnection that is not so wonderful is this idea of "corporate philanthropy." A simple way to describe corporate philanthropy is when companies get involved in some sort of act of philanthropy to be in the media/public eye's good graces. This to me is a bit concerning. We have been discussing a lot in class, particularly towards the beginning of the semester, about the power of intent. I have been battling this question in my head as we have continued the semester, and even writing this blog post entry. As someone who is about to have two years of specific training in PR tactics such as understanding audience and social media analytics, I can't help but wonder if this corporate philanthropy is causing more harm than good.

The undeniable truth is the in order for companies to continue making profits, they need to uphold their reputation and the best strategy is by implementing acts of kindness and philanthropy. For one of my tweets of the week, I shared this link that gives a much more vivid breakdown of how Public Relations employees look at the value of added philanthropy. According to this site, philanthropic giving by companies does make an actual difference. It was also interesting to see that certain types of philanthropic causes generate more heightened media attention such as education, community development/housing, healthcare and children.

Here's my personal take, a resolution (or compromise) on how to make philanthropy come from the heart while benefitting companies and their repuations. What if companies actually went out into the community more instead of just writing a check? What if employees were required as part of their training/initial orientation to learn about the value of philanthropy or at least have a better understanding of the philanthropy their company supports and why that organization is essential to the greater good of the community? This article gives some excellent suggestions instead of just taking the easy way out with a signature on a check.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Clarification on Mom's House

Hello everyone! This is just an additional post to amend the error about fundraising that was made in my group's Mom’s House presentation.
So Charity Navigator uses two calculations that focus on fundraising (described here in detail).

            The first is “Fundraising Expenses.” This is the percentage spent on fundraising compared to the total expenses of the organization. In 2012, the total expenses were $269,898 and the fundraising expenses were $31,278. This would mean that 11.6% of expenses went towards fundraising. This is considered to be very good by Charity Navigator’s standards (if you would like to see more detailed scores for different types of nonprofits, check it out here).

            The second measure is “Fundraising Efficiency,” which is the amount of money an organization spends to generate a $1 of donation. Here’s where it gets a little confusing on the Form 990, but after talking to Prof. Campbell today during his office hours this is what I found.

           “Gross income from fundraising events” = $84,304

           “All other contributions, gifts, grants, and similar amounts” = $137,379

            Therefore, total fundraising earnings before expenses = $221,683

            “Total fundraising expenses” = $31,278

This doesn’t include government contributions. It does include fundraising “events” like candy or flower orders. So, the fundraising efficiency comes out to be $0.141, which means that Mom’s House spends 14.1¢ to raise $1.00, making a 85.9¢ profit. This is considered somewhere between average to very good by Charity Navigator’s standards, which you can see in the link above.

Clarification on Rescue Mission

(Note: this is meant to be a blog 'comment' but I have posted it as a 'post' to increase visibility) 

Dr. Campbell and some other students in the class expressed confusion as to the religious nature of the Rescue Mission. I would like to clarify on that:

Yes, the Rescue Mission is a Christian organization.

No, the Rescue Mission does not force residents of their shelters to attend Christian religious services. The only thing that the Rescue Mission does encourage is that residents volunteer in various events in order to give back to the community, just as the community is giving to them.

Many people in the class have also expressed concern over the need for donation bins when the Thrifty Shopper is capable of receiving donations itself. The simple answer behind that is what Kyle pointed out multiple times during our presentation yesterday: the Rescue Mission knows how to run a business. When trying to grow and expand a business, it is important to capitalize on new markets. I believe someone (I apologize for not remembering whom) yesterday made the comment that if people really wanted to donate clothes, they could just drive to the Thrifty Shopper instead of going to a bin. While that may be true, the purpose of the bins is to attack people in new markets who do not really want to donate clothes. They are searching for the market of people who have clothes to donate, but have not yet donated because of a lack of convenience.

Though the argument can be made that I am comparing apples to oranges, the Rescue Mission's need for donation bins is for the same reason that there are 367 McDonald's in NYC: to capitalize on new markets. Capitalizing on new markets in the Southern Tier will help the Rescue Mission to generate more revenue, allowing them to build a women's shelter and expand their services in the future.

As this topic seemed quite controversial in class, please reply with any arguments/concerns/comments that you have below. I think that it is great that so many people in our class can have differing opinions on our organizations, and I think that it really contributes to the process of learning how to work together as a group and decide on our final grantees. 

What I Am Looking Forward To

A lot of the posts recently have voiced how disappointed they are with the process we went through thus far. Although I feel the same way that the process could be improved, I want to look to the future and the last few weeks of class.

I am looking forward to group presentations this week the most. Like everyone else, I have my concerns about all of our finalists. I feel like we rushed the process and may have chosen prematurely before we had all of the facts like Jason said in his post. I hate to admit it, but I did have some questions and reservations about the Rescue Mission even though I volunteered to be their liaison. But all of my questions were answered when I went on the site visit. I feel like as a class, we only learned so much from the presentations from the organizations in class. Many of us may have left class with unanswered questions and unaddressed concerns. I think the site visit went so well because we were not limited to 20 minutes like we were in class and we could be immersed in the organization itself. It is obviously much different to be somewhere physically as opposed to pictures in a presentation. At our site visit, I got to learn how the Thrifty Shopper worked and most importantly, how our grant could make a difference.

I still have questions and concerns about our other four finalists, but I hope that they will be answered in this weeks finalist presentations. I think that we will all get a better idea about how our grant could make a difference. I know that many of us have also been questioning how successful these organizations are and if they are truly making a difference. I am hoping that these questions will be addressed as well this week, as we should not give to an organization that we feel isn’t worthy of a donation regardless of what their request is. We must be confident in their mission and how they are achieving it before anything. I just wish we had more time to determine if our finalists were worthy of a grant before we had to pick them.

I just want us to make the biggest difference that we are capable of with the $10,000 we were given. I am looking forward to the award ceremony where we give the money away during finals week. I am sure it will be so fulfilling to see the joy on the faces of the organization representatives. I think after all of the arguing is over, it will all be well worth it. I may be an optimist, but I believe we will all be happy in the end knowing that the money went to a worthy cause to help people who are in much greater need than we are. It will also be fulfilling knowing that we made a difference in our community, which I am sure is a core value for many of you, including myself.

What are you looking forward to?

I Think We Did This Backwards

I think we went through this entire process backwards. We sent out applications and got back just over 50 of them. Then, we more or less randomly decided on five finalist organizations based on which ones we thought sounded the best, or felt like they did good important work, or wrote really convincing applications. And now, we are stuck with 5 finalist organizations, which in my opinion and I am sure the opinions of many of my classmates, are not all viable options for donating our money to.

The first step should simply NOT have been to follow our hearts and pick organizations to be finalists without having done the same type of thorough research we have now conducted for these five finalists. If every student was assigned two organizations to research, make visits to, and give a brief presentation on whether or not those two organizations should be considered and why, we would not only be stuck with organizations we wish were never picked, but we would have been nearly guaranteed that the organizations who were finalists were worthy of our donations.

The decisions of who should be finalists should have been based purely on facts: management of funds, transparency, effectiveness in achieving their clearly stated mission statements etc. From there, we would have been able to asses which organizations were providing the most necessary services, asking for the most fair amounts of money, and perhaps even appealed to our sensibilities to determine our final grant recipients.

I'm certainly grateful for the tools and information I have gained from this class, and the hands on experience it has afforded me. I just feel I learned a lot more "what not to dos" than "what to dos." Which is totally fine, just maybe not what I was expecting.

Balancing Biases

As our site visit presentations approach, I have been think about how to balance my obligation to be the conveyor of facts for both the organization and class, without letting my own emotional biases interfere.  Fortunately, I felt as though the the site visit was very successful in providing me with a deeper understanding of The Rescue Missions goals and needs within this community. However, I am hoping that this broader understanding does not become debilitating when it comes to representing and choosing organizations.  While I saw tremendous value in the idea of a site visit, I personally could not help but think that their must be two main outcomes/ emotions that formulate as a result. In my opinion, I can see one either walking away impressed and pleased by what they witnessed or disappointed and underwhelmed. Of course these are not the only two reactions, it is just an assumption of what I believe to be common.

That being said, how does this affect our presentations and representations of the organizations? Through out class discussions we have come back to the idea that looking at facts and results are crucial in our decision making. But what happens when the facts do not match with the feelings we experienced in the site visit? What happens when you where blown away by the visit but the facts do not back it up enough (or visa versa). Even more so when we each were limited (mostly because of time and practicality) in how many site visits we could attend. Therefore, making it harder to avoid these possible biases or conflicting emotions, when they only exist strongly for one organization.

The "Mom's House" experience

When I was faced with the fact that none of the organizations that I recommended became finalists, I definitely felt discouraged. I thought I had great reasons why these organizations qualified for finalist spots, such as their outreach, impact, and urgency. I knew I still needed to be a functional part of the selection process and the class, so I chose a finalist organization with an open spot for the site visits and presentation and told myself to just pull through and give it my 100%.

I cannot emphasize enough how impressed I ended up being with Mom’s House. I had missed the class presentation the organization had given, so I was learning about their work for the first time during our visit there, other than for reading the information from their website.

The organization is completely free of reliance on government funding. I thought this was one of their strengths as well as definitely obstacles. This definitely allows them to be free of certain obligations, however fundraising is a challenge and the fact that they are able to do without government support is very impressive.

The program is effectively serving 30 children per year on average, even though they have a capacity of 40, however a lack of funding to afford enough staff to provide for 10 extra children.

I understand that getting such an idea started and developed with no fault is nearly impossible, which is why I admire the fact that Mom’s House is finally trying to obtain a set curriculum for their preschool class. They have always had teachers of great expertise teaching that age group, however all of the lessons were somewhat improvised based on the students’ needs and constant change within Mom’s House. Their primary goal is to provide help, but now they are finally at the stage of the program’s evolution where more attention is able to get paid towards having a consistent and concrete outline for teaching the kids and propelling their development.

The board model that Mom’s House has in place is also a very effective one. Because all of the members of the directorial board are local and diverse in their backgrounds Mom’s House is able to widen their horizons in terms of fundraising and community support. There are business owners, retired professionals, and religious leaders among the members, which allows for an outreach to a greater number of community members in telling them about Mom’s House and having their help in funding the project. The organization is able to have a lot of fundraising done with the help of local businesses through giving away a day’s proceeds or sales of some sort.

I am very happy to have learned a lot about this organization, and to be able to share it with the class because I truly believe in this organization’s success and efficient use of the funds there are asking the class for.

What did the process truly accomplish?

We are a little less than a month away before the semester ends. It's been an interesting process and an interesting class. In less than a month, I will walk away from this class having made a decision with a bunch of strangers that impacts a whole community. I get to graduate and say, “I made a difference”, but I leave this class questioning whether this class has truly made a profound difference for us as philanthropists.  

Over spring break I returned home to New York City. The familiar skyline and murky air greeted me. Blaring sirens, rude pedestrians, and dancing kids in subway cars engulfed me once again. I was home. However, to most New Yorkers, including myself, the need in New York confronts us every day on our daily commute. One city block can make a world of a difference. You can walk from one of the richest parts of the city into one of the poorest, without giving it much thought. I saw beggars beg and starving artist perform their craft in exchange for a few dollars. I saw kids dance in the subway, then narrowly escape cops who tried to arrest them. I saw all these things unfold before me and just like every other time, they made me uneasy and angry, but just like everyone around me, I did nothing. I knew better, but I didn’t do the “right” thing. In the same way that I ignored the need in New York, I believe we ignored the time once must dedicate to philanthropy.

In many ways, though democratic, I felt that we rushed our decision in picking organizations. I completely understand that we are constrained by time, but for a class that values time so much, perhaps we should of devoted a bit more of our own. I guess my point overall is whether the process merely facilitated the donating part of the program, but failed to cultivate/foster the philanthropist culture. Amanda put up a good fight in order to up the total number of organizations we wanted to consider, but most people, including myself, wanted the deliberation to be over quickly. We chose some organizations based on impulse and emotions, rather than calculated assessments. We were instructed to consider financial health a factor, but not the most important. We, as a class, were far more concerned with impact, but again, I ask, what good is the impact of an organization if we chose out of haste, instead of true need.

I don’t believe any of the organizations we picked are bad organizations, but perhaps they might have not deserved to be there, perhaps it is the case that we missed out on picking a better organization in a rush to do “good”. Did we compromise our philanthropic values?