I’m sure many people in class would agree with me if I said
that I’m happy we have finally started to take a look at our
organizations. One of the main reasons I
decided to take this class was that we would be donating actual money to actual
organizations in the area, and I’m very excited to be finally looking into the
places that we could be helping in the coming months. In spite of this feeling of excitement for
our five finalists, I can’t help but think about all the wonderful
organizations that we did not pick. And
past that, I can’t help but think about all the wonderful local organizations
that did not even apply for our grant. I
would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel a little bit rushed in this part of
the process, and if I said that I was 100% happy and confident with our
decisions. I wish we could have had a
more thorough discussion about our candidates before we chose the finalists, or
even before we did our presentations. I
did read through the applications, but I felt like that was not enough. I wanted to know more about the groups I
chose to support and I wanted to know more about the groups that I wanted off
our list. Other than the few
organizations I looked at and immediately decided I wasn’t interested in, I
felt that I wasn’t giving each one a fair chance. As completely impossible as it would have
been, I wish I could have heard from each organization in person before I even
had to choose groups for my presentation.
One thing that really stood out to me in choosing the
finalists was how quick we were to select organizations that have recently
received grants from this class. Four of
our five finalists have gotten grants from this class before and two of them
got grants just last year. Maybe I was
the only one that felt this way, but I was shocked to see two organizations in
our finalist list that had gotten a grant from the class so recently. Especially when we did the second vote, I was
really expecting people to reach out to new organizations that this class has
not dealt with in the past. I suppose
there’s nothing wrong with giving more money to an organization if they are
doing good work and have a use for it, but I just keep thinking about
organizations that rarely get grants and were also left out of our final
selection. Another thing I noticed
through this process was that a lot of people seem to agree with the “no arts
organizations” feeling of some popular philanthropists. Although we had several arts organizations
apply, we really didn’t talk about them at all, and if we did, they were shot
down rather quickly. Music and the arts
are very important in this county (probably unusually important for a community
of this size and geography) and I thought it was interesting that nobody was keen
on supporting these organizations that could really use the funding.
I know it is impossible to make everyone in the class happy,
and that it is equally impossible to fund every deserving applicant, but I wish
I could learn more about each applicant and speak with each one of them about
the work that they do in this area. Even
though these finalist organizations are our “top five” and we will definitely
be giving to at least one of them, I have different issues with each. I almost wish we had a chance to discuss the
issues with each organization alongside its strengths. As I said before, I’m still not entirely
confident about our finalist decisions, but I don’t know that I ever will
be. If nothing else, I think that the
process so far has been a real lesson in personal giving and in choosing the
organizations that mean something to you.
I watched organizations that I loved get ignored and I watched ones that
I really didn’t like make it into our finalist group. I have seriously reflected on the
organizations that I loved and the reasons why I loved them and, even though
they will not be receiving a grant from this class, they have shown me exactly who
I want to be as a philanthropist. Some
of them will probably receive financial support from me in the future because
this class has introduced me to them. I
can’t wait to hear more from our organizations in the coming weeks and to
finally decide where our donation will be going.
Bethany-
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! I definitely can relate to the feelings you are having about our finalists and the process in choosing them. I too feel like we were a little rushed and my knowledge of these organizations was not enough to make a call on whether they deserve our money or not. I feel like we spent a great deal of time learning about the logistics of philanthropy, which was very important in building a foundation in our process, however I wish there was more time to discuss the organizations in class as well. I wish we would have had a class session to go through and discuss each organization and their pros and cons, but I do see a flaw in this system as well. Had we spoken freely on these organizations before doing our presentations we would have had preconceived ideas and influence from other members of the class rather than our own outlook on these organizations.
I would also agree that the outcome of our finalists is a bit shocking. I’m not overjoyed nor am I disappointed, but I can see the conflicting views on four out of five of these organizations receiving money from us before. I definitely thought doing a revote would have allowed us to call back more than five finalists (I even voted for seven), but things did not work out that way. I believe having more finalists would have been beneficial in choosing organizations because it would open the doors to more people in this upcoming week. I think we went through this process rather quickly and good organizations were overlooked. We cut these numbers so drastically in such a short amount of time that I feel as though it was easy to slip through the cracks.
I’m also fascinated at the organizations that are still in the running and which got eliminated quickly. During the first presentations we had a lot of overlapping organizations, which is good and means a lot of our thinking overlapped. However, I can’t shake the feeling that we should have studied up on these organizations before going through them because I definitely didn’t get the full effect of all 40 of them from the spread sheet. I like the point that you brought up about “no arts organizations” and how these got less attention than other areas. Last semester in Professor Campbell’s Civic Engagement class we had an issue area project where we studied one issue in Binghamton. The topics varied from sustainability, to poverty, to immigration and lastly the arts. At first I was skeptical about putting the arts into a category with issues that I viewed as “larger” and more “important” and that is exactly why I chose the arts as my topic. My lack of knowledge about this issue drew me in and I was pleasantly surprised with what I learned. Binghamton has a huge amount of arts and culture within the area and downtown. There were so many more organizations than I had anticipated and upon visiting them I learned that this is a very important part of Binghamton and has a huge influence in the community. It’s interesting that the arts were overlooked because no one really knows how relevant they are and the various ways organizations are making a change in this field.
ReplyDeleteOriginally I had assumed poverty is the biggest issue in Binghamton, however from our finalists results that is not the case. Although these issues can be linked together, it’s interesting that none of these finalist organizations really fall into the poverty category. I thought our finalists would result in food banks or homeless shelters, and it’s just interesting how this all played out. I’m excited to see these organizations come in this week because it definitely changes your outlook on what they are doing. After visiting Planned Parenthood last week I definitely feel confident in last years classes’ decision giving them money because they were able to buy 29,000 condoms with the donation! Speaking with them in person just showed us how desperately they needed it and how thankful they were for the grant last year. I think by having them come into class, we will all get this feeling and closure with our final decision. I’m excited to see who the money will be going to after all these weeks of preparation!
Bethany, I love your post and I completely agree with you! I also felt a bit rushed during this part of the selection process. I feel like we spent so much time on the philosophy and discussing how to give, all of which I loved learning about, and then when it came time to use our knowledge to make a difference, we all seemed to turn on auto-pilot and make very quick decisions.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the reason for this is the context in which we're all giving. This is a class, which only meets twice a week and has a limited time where we all get to interact. As much as this experience makes us want more hands-on experience with each organization, with longer and more far-reaching applications, I'd still have homework for my psyc class, and a paper for my theory class. As much as I'd love to spend all my time on giving, we need to be a bit selfish and remind ourselves that we're students, and unfortunately, that means I can't ditch class for a day and go visit five different organizations.
As saddening as that is, though, that does mean the small amount of work we can put forward will be more efficient. As much as I hate grades, it's a good kind of pressure in these situations. Professor Campbell has been very fair thus far in making sure that while our assignments are simple, they get us to really think about what we're doing in a very in-depth way. While I wish we'd gotten to talk more as a group about our finalists, I am very happy that it gave me a chance to look more into Your Home Public Library (which unfortunately didn't make it in). While our discussions were short, they were effective, and that can make a huge difference in the way we perceive these organizations.
Great reflective post Bethany! I definitely have to agree with you as I shared very similar feelings after Thursday's class. I was actually really excited that we were moving forward and getting to a place where we can have a more personal relationship with the organizations that applied for our grant. Over the weekend, however, I began sending out emails to those who we rejected and I actually found it to be quite sad. There were dozens of amazing organizations that we passed up just because the majority of people didn't have a personal connection to them or didn't research them as much as others. Currently, I am receiving thank you emails from the organizations that we declined and they were all very grateful for our consideration and think that its really great that students are getting hands-on experience and getting more involved in the Binghamton community while taking notice of issues that need to be addressed. This brings up Stephanie's point from last week's post, however, on how well do we actually know the Binghamton community's needs? What are their actual areas of degradation that need to be addressed? I know that our first group presentations were on researching these issues but did everyone use that information we learned to guide their decision-making for selecting finalists? We had many class discussions on our core values in relation to our top five picks and though those are extremely important in terms of philanthropy, I think it would have been just as important to review the community's problem areas again and really address what they need, instead of us deciding what they need for them. I agree with Rachel in that there is very limited time in which we can make these decisions. We all have busy schedules and even though we can, and should, do outside research on all the organizations that applied, there is just no way that getting to that level of intimacy and transparency is possible within the confines of this class structure. I think, more than anything, this shows that when we actually want to participate in personal philanthropy, we now know how important it is to research organizations thoroughly and maybe even do a few site visits to really get a feel for how they operate and utilize their funding. Just quickly on your point about donating to charities that this class has recently donated to, I think that a large part of the class' decision to vote, for example, for Mom's House over The Children's Home is because some people in the class actually got to visit the site and build a personal connection with them. For other organizations they appealed to the class more because they have a high reputation both in general and within the history of receiving grants from this class. I agree that I would have liked to branch out a bit more to other organizations that were less commonly heard of, but unfortunately the majority didn't agree. I think that this speaks more to your point about personalized relationships with charities and how it can affect your donation and selection process.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Bethany,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, you really articulated a lot of the hesitation I've been feeling about our decisions in the last class. Going in on Thursday, I was excited to finally start narrowing down our finalist organizations, and was really looking forward to seeing who would end up on our list. After the vote, I expected to feel satisfied with our choices, maybe even relieved that an important chunk of our process was finished. What I felt instead, to my surprise, was a sense of uncertainty. This was odd to me, especially since a few of our finalists are organizations that my group and I had nominated. Why didn't I feel the sense of accomplishment I had wanted? I've been trying to work through my trepidation in the days since.
I think my unease is really similar to yours, and I'm glad someone feels the same way. The way the class has been carried out, we spent a lot of time early in the semester discussion the philosophy and ideas behind philanthropy, and not a lot of time on the actual philanthropy we would be doing. I have thought often about what it would be like if our class was run differently, and if we had run straight into the evaluation and decision process. After mulling it over, I realized that treating the class in this way might give us some more time to look at the organizations, but in doing so we sacrifice all the time spent forming our thoughts and subsequently our goals for giving. As someone who likes to have a plan and a clear goal when making big decisions, I know I would have gone crazy had we simply jumped into the process.
What I'm trying to say is: some of us feel a little harried by the decision process now, but I think we would feel even more uncertain if we had left out the important development process in the beginning. Despite our reservations about our current finalists, I think we've made a good step forward as a class with the time and circumstances given, and after thinking about how things could have been done differently, I'm a little more at comfortable. Hopefully it eases your mind too.
Bethany, as you're probably aware, your concerns are shared by most in the class. I can absolutely say that I am not a part of that majority. Professor Campbell is obviously a very effective teacher, and he knows exactly what he's doing and what lessons he's trying to teach us. The specifics of the projects we've been working on have been very deliberately chosen. If he'd truly believed that he wasn't giving us enough time, he would admit it. I'm sure he's a very honest person. We may not know what he's instilling in us, but we'll probably realize it later. While I can't yet know exactly what lessons we're being taught throughout this process, I can make some guesses.
ReplyDeleteIf we had the choice to deliberate as long as we wanted to as a class, we'd never finish this. This process would inch along, and in the end everyone would be worse off than we started. As a member of an Eboard, I know first hand that discussing the same issue for a long period of time becomes exhaustive and pointless. The point of philanthropy is not supposed to be arguing over who's right and who's wrong. Professor Campbell is trying to force us into a scenario in which we have to make difficult choices based on the desires of the group as a whole. No decision we make will be approved by everyone, but we must learn to live with that. Philanthropy is always a group effort in some way, and the stubborn philanthropist can never really be a good one. In the end, quarreling over these organizations is pretty arbitrary, because we're improving Broome county in some way, and it's nearly impossible to objectively state that one organization is strictly better than another. We'll never be sure if we made the right decisions regardless of the amount of time we spend deliberating.
I'm sure there are other reasons that the process goes by so quickly, but the fact that many of us find it difficult should tell us that we're learning something from this. If this process were easy, then we would probably already be the perfect philanthropists... but we're not. Becoming a good philanthropist, or a good anything, should never be easy.
I should have said: "it's nearly impossible to objectively state that one organization is strictly better than every other."
DeleteA couple of times a semester I jump into a debate on the blog. This time, because Mike referenced how I've organized the class, I thought it might be useful to offer a brief comment on my perspective.
ReplyDeleteThe issue Bethany raises is a terrific, important one, and she offers very reasonable points. I certainly don't take personally any reflection about the length of the decision-making process. Ultimately, that's part of your learning as a class. I hope (and expect) for all of you that this class experience will not be the last time you make a decision to give money to an organization. I consider it natural to feel some regret after having made a decision, after all, Bethany is right, some good organizations were not chosen. Isn't that the challenge, however, we face throughout our lifetimes, when we make choices about volunteering, working, giving money, etc? We never have the resources to do all the good we'd like to do. The challenge is to make decisions we can stand by; or if we can't stand by them, at least we can articulate what we learned from the process so that we make better decisions in the future. That sentiment applies to me, too, as I consider how I've organized the work of the class. I usually make some adjustments to the process each year based on discussions such as these.
Regardless, I find Bethany's post and the discussion it has generated particularly satisfying because it raises many of the issues I most want you to consider through your engagement with this course.
Mike, thank you for bringing that up. I didn't say it explicitly in my post, but I do agree with what you're saying. The point I was trying to make was that even though I do wish I could have made a personal connection with every organization, I realize that would have been impossible. Although there is a part of me that would have liked more time to make this decision, I know that, realistically, having more time would have made everything more complicated. We could have started this conversation on the first day of classes and there is a very real chance that we would still be debating and discussing organizations. On the surface I feel like this process was really fast, but when I stop to reflect, I completely agree with your statement that the speed of the process forces us to make a concrete decision rather than hanging onto minute discussions and debates. If I were going through the same process by myself rather than in a large group, I think that I would have the exact same problems you are discussing; there would be a point when someone or something would have to force me to make a decision (you can verify this by noticing that I got tweet of the week money during the first week of class and that I still am on the fence about where I will be donating it). Eventually, a decision had to be made, and going through this process the way we did forced us to get to business and seriously think about that decision.
ReplyDeleteEven if we were given months to talk about this, there would still be really wonderful organizations that would be left out. No matter how much time we could have spent discussing and researching, there would still be at least 52 organizations that we can't choose. As Professor Campbell said, the fact that we have a limited amount of time and money, and the fact that we are limited to three organizations reflects the giving that occurs "in the real world." No matter how rich you are, there will always be a limit to how much time and money you can give away and what causes you can support. There will always be people you can't help and even though you may feel bad about it (I include myself in that camp), it doesn't mean that you're making a bad decision.
I didn't mean my post to be a criticism of the class; just a reflection on how I was feeling about the entire process. After writing, reflecting, and reading through all the comments, I feel a lot better about where we are. Although there are still organizations in our finalist group that I am not completely on board with, I realize that every organization has its flaws, including the great organizations that got left out. We had to make a decision eventually and I think that in the next few weeks (especially after we hear from and meet people from each organization) we will all see our decision work out. Although I did feel a little uneasy, I am hopeful that my unease will disappear in the next few days. This discussion has been really helpful, and I can't wait to hear more about our finalists this week!
Reading my comment back, it sounds like I'm trying to say that your post was too critical of Professor Campbell. I'm very sorry about that – my tone was a bit more forceful than I meant it to be... maybe a lot more forceful. I think it's entirely fine to question the process. It's not like questioning his motives is the same as questioning his character. My comment was more to emphasize how great of a teacher Professor Campbell is rather than to imply you were insulting towards him. Sorry I wasn't clear enough to make it sound that way.
DeleteDon't worry about it, I read it as you defending your opinion. And like I said in my comment, I actually agree with everything you had to say. Even though I may be uneasy about aspects of this process, I realize that doing things the way I originally wanted to would have been impossible. No hard feelings!
DeleteHi Bethany,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post because you bring up a lot of feelings that I had previously felt. After reading Mike's comment I still believe the concerns you brought up (and I feel) are legitimate, but it has also made me consider the extent to which I should feel this way. In a lot of our class discussion I would share my feelings on this topic--I just didn't feel like I had a good enough grasp on the organizations I was nominating.
I agree that with a list of 55 organizations it is going to be impossible to get an extensive background on every organization and their mission. Also, like Professor Campbell and Mike mentioned being too detailed or consumed by debate is unbeneficial to both our process as well as the organizations. Arguing a point to death does get tiresome and often leads to nowhere, especially with a group our size. However, I was less disappointed with our "debate" process, and more frustrated that I did not confidently know which organization I wanted to debate and even more so which organization to vote for. Its possible that I am getting too caught up on the process, or a bit paranoid since this is the largest sum of money I have ever had the power to give away, but I still felt like I was not making a responsible decision.
This became most frustrating during our elimination process for our finalist. Again I understand its impossible to know everything, and decisions need to be made--but at what cost? Personally, while the in class presentations today were informative I felt slightly blindsided by some of the things the organizations brought up. Like Brittney mentioned in class, she did not realize the extent to which Alternative southern Therapies focused on the use of Ipads. I am not saying this is good or bad--just an example of how we were unprepared/ uniformed we were when we made our decision. Inevitably in a process like this worthy candidates will be lost, I feel like it all happened so fast that I cannot help but have feelings of doubt and "what ifs".
Bethany,
ReplyDeleteAs you know because we were a part of the same small group on the day of our finalist decisions, I feel exactly the same way that you do. While I did find myself enjoying the first half of this class immensely more than I ever imagined that I would, the second half where we actually looked into the organizations and made a grant decision was what I was really looking forward to all along. As soon as we started receiving applications, I realized what an enormous task we had in front of us, and I felt completely overwhelmed about what a big decision we had to make in such a small amount of time. While I did read over every single application, I felt that most of the information was extraneous. Also, the most important part to me, where the organization would actually be putting the grant money if they were to receive it, seemed shortened and some of the organizations were even able to somewhat avoid answering the question directly. For the future semesters of the class, I would recommend changing the application to include a shorter portion that describes the actual organization and asks more specifically about how much the organization would be requesting and what exactly they would be planning to use it for.
Going back to both of our original points, I really did feel rushed in this process. Like you said, we went from 55 to 16 to 5 in an incredibly short amount of time, and with what I felt was not a satisfactory deliberation process. I am personally not a huge fan of group projects, and I know many of us were unable to meet with our groups in person to discuss our finalist choices, leaving us somewhat unable to argue our points. I wasn’t aware that the organizations not mentioned in the group PowerPoints would be completely eliminated – I really would have liked at least one or two class sessions allocated to debate and individual discussion of more of the groups. Like many of us said, I feel like we made this decision almost blindly – the organizations that we chose, while all worthy, are the only ones that we will really get to learn more about. Beyond a few sentences, the other organizations had essentially no chance. I know you were an advocate for the Youth Symphony, and especially coming form someone who knows the area better than most, I would have been really interested to hear what you had to say about why you thought they deserved our consideration.
In the grand scheme of things, it is easy to say that we are not giving out much money, or that our impact is still comparatively small, but in my opinion, $10,000 is a lot of money. The amount we can change an organization with as little as $2,500 is not to be pushed aside. I really wish we had spent a little less time on the philosophy of philanthropy and a little more on our actual experiential learning of philanthropy. I agree with you about appreciating the opportunity to be introduced to these organizations at all – I definitely plan on getting involved as a volunteer with at least one of these next semester. As for now, hopefully the class will be a little less focused on choosing the easiest route and instead will shift to becoming a little more willing to put in the hard work, debate, and research that will allow us to make the most informed decision. I feel confident that we will make a choice that will do well, even if I am not thrilled with how our finalist decision class went.